Sunday Photo Fun 18 August, 2024

[Christian]

A tale of two vans.
The Trident Chevy vehicles have been around for decades. Prototypes are circa 1980, give or take. Over the decades Trident has made lots and lots of variations of all their Chevy models. Mostly priced between $10 and $20 puts them at the low end of currently available HO scale vehicles. The detailing on these models is not up to 2024 standards, but a little work will make them blend in just fine.

The first is their school bus which is still available. The first photograph shows the model right out of the box along with a reference photo. The second is a cleaned up and repainted models with homemade decals. Chrome plating removed with bleach. Plano running boards and Herpa wheels and tires. I gave up trying to make the aluminium framed passenger windows less bulky. I shoulda changed out the mirrors as I did on the second model and also made better wipers which is easy. MVP lenses here and there.

The second I modified as a wheelchair van for the parking lot of my Taco Bell scene. This time I changed the mirrors. Most of the work is invisible as I modeled the rudiments of a wheelchair lift. It's on the side that is hidden and in the dark interior. Herpa wheels and tires. I did do a body/chassis switch with another Trident van to get the correct windows and wheelbase. There are parts for another van in my parts drawers - somewhere!

[wagnersteve]

August 18, nearly 9 a.m., EDT

Christian, very nice modeling indeed!

[dti406]

Good morning from cloudy, warm and wet Northeast Ohio!

Here is what I finished this last week!

A Bowser 1958CF Covered Hopper Kit, painted with Scalecoat II UP Covered Hopper Gray paint and lettered with Highball Graphics Decals. The Ann Arbor had many covered hoppers first to supply the Dundee Cement plant and later the sand pits of Yuma,MI that supplied casting sand to the Ford Brookpark, OH engine plant.




Next up a Robbins Rails Greenville 60' Boxcar kit, where I carved off the plug doors and replaced with a pair of Superior doors from an Intermountain kit, removed the rivits and fabricated a new side sill along with adding the details for a Hydra Cushion underframe. Painted with Scalecoat II Hunter Green paint and lettered with a mixture of Dan Kohlbergs and Highball Graphics decals. The GM&O purchased 4 cars from Evans to supply cars to the LOF Glass plant in Ottawa, IL for auto glass.




Continued work on a Tangent 4740CF Covered Hopper kit addings all the myriad grabs and detail parts to each end of the car.



Last week I took my Rapido FA's to the club to haul a coal drag.



Have a great weekend.

Rick Jesionowski

[wp8thsub]

20240818_103935 by wp8thsub, on Flickr

I got my Moloco Brainerd Shops boxcar ready for service with some consolidated stencil decals and weathering.

[lvrr325]

I've owned a number of those vans so I see stuff the average modeler wouldn't. It's funny now that I see up close pictures they look terrible, the lower windshield corners for instance.

These vans use the same body shell from 1971-1995, the grille changes about four times and the tail lights once. The wheelchair van looks to have a 1986-1992 style grille, like the reference photo for the school bus. But a guy could use them to represent older vans just facing them the other way.

I actually have one here I need to strip DHL logos from and lower, then paint to look like the one I drive now.

[simulatortrain]

Finished up weathering on a Moloco RBL so I can make room in the neglected projects queue for one of the Brainerd cars.

[12bridge]

I have been working on the early samples for the Super Company "lifting" spark arrestors.  These were rather unique as they had a movable mesh inside of them.  The mesh would lift up when the engine was running, and drop down when it was not, causing a self cleaning effect.  Needless to say, it pretty much did not work.  Almost every example of these, the screens were removed really early on.  The examples that were used for the field research for these were both removed as well.  

What I bet most modelers did not know, is there are 3 very distinct sizes of them - Not the one size fits all we have had as detail parts.   These are still really early prints, I am tweaking the wall thickness to get a happy medium between scale, and not warping.  I have a jig designed to form the mesh, but I have not played with it yet.  



L-R - F unit, Geep/SD, Switcher.  the F unit version had a narrow, outside bolted base.  The GP version was wider to split over the stacks and bolted from the inside, and the switcher version which slipped over the stack.   


F unit style.  Rock Island actually put a bunch of these on GP7's as well.  They looked weird on them, as they have such a narrow base. The upper lip on these does not overhang the outside, like the other two.  


Switcher version.  I still need to make the brackets for them. 


GP/SD version. 


A modern spark arrestor, the Harco centrifugal.  If I can find one to measure, I would like to do the older, beehive style as well. 


Last, I got a personal project about 90% done.  I drew up this freelance leasing company SD45 years and years ago.  I have had a 1st run undec Scale Trains SD45 sitting waiting to do it, I finally got it knocked out.  Bill from PDC made me the decals.  Paint is EMD Demonstator Blue.  It should tone down nicely after its dullcoated and weathered.  

 

[dti406]

Aug 18, 2024 13:59:17 GMT -8 12bridge said:

I have been working on the early samples for the Super Company "lifting" spark arrestors.  These were rather unique as they had a movable mesh inside of them.  The mesh would lift up when the engine was running, and drop down when it was not, causing a self cleaning effect.  Needless to say, it pretty much did not work.  Almost every example of these, the screens were removed really early on.  The examples that were used for the field research for these were both removed as well.  

What I bet most modelers did not know, is there are 3 very distinct sizes of them - Not the one size fits all we have had as detail parts.   These are still really early prints, I am tweaking the wall thickness to get a happy medium between scale, and not warping.  I have a jig designed to form the mesh, but I have not played with it yet.  





GP/SD version. 

Thanks, I am all out of my DA’s and DW’s and these look great!!!!

[ln1263]

Aug 18, 2024 12:03:22 GMT -8 simulatortrain said:

Finished up weathering on a Moloco RBL so I can make room in the neglected projects queue for one of the Brainerd cars.

[ln1263]

Adam. I absolutely love the weathering job you did on this Western Pacific boxcar.

[jbilbrey]

Ignore the mess in the background. Rarely do I work on a single project:

HO Milw gon & SLSF flatcar by James Bilbrey, on Flickr

Happy little accidents: The Milwaukee gon is Westerfield kit. I sat down one Friday night with the intention of just punching the holes for the grab-irons. By the time the weekend was over, I had nearly accidentally built the entire kit. The Frisco flatcar started out as a Red Caboose flatcar kit decorated for the T&P. I picked it up at a recent trainshow. But when I got home, I realized that (A) the road number was 10 off from a T&P flatcar that I had already built and (B) looked nothing like the one that I had already built - wrong design, wrong color, etc. So, I stripped the lettering, painted it brown, and lettered it for the SL-SF using various left-over decals that I had collected over the years.

[ncrc5315]

Aug 18, 2024 13:59:17 GMT -8 12bridge said:

I have been working on the early samples for the Super Company "lifting" spark arrestors.  These were rather unique as they had a movable mesh inside of them.  The mesh would lift up when the engine was running, and drop down when it was not, causing a self cleaning effect.  Needless to say, it pretty much did not work.  Almost every example of these, the screens were removed really early on.  The examples that were used for the field research for these were both removed as well.  

What I bet most modelers did not know, is there are 3 very distinct sizes of them - Not the one size fits all we have had as detail parts.   These are still really early prints, I am tweaking the wall thickness to get a happy medium between scale, and not warping.  I have a jig designed to form the mesh, but I have not played with it yet.  



L-R - F unit, Geep/SD, Switcher.  the F unit version had a narrow, outside bolted base.  The GP version was wider to split over the stacks and bolted from the inside, and the switcher version which slipped over the stack.   


F unit style.  Rock Island actually put a bunch of these on GP7's as well.  They looked weird on them, as they have such a narrow base. The upper lip on these does not overhang the outside, like the other two.  


Switcher version.  I still need to make the brackets for them. 


GP/SD version. 


A modern spark arrestor, the Harco centrifugal.  If I can find one to measure, I would like to do the older, beehive style as well. 


Last, I got a personal project about 90% done.  I drew up this freelance leasing company SD45 years and years ago.  I have had a 1st run undec Scale Trains SD45 sitting waiting to do it, I finally got it knocked out.  Bill from PDC made me the decals.  Paint is EMD Demonstator Blue.  It should tone down nicely after its dullcoated and weathered.  

 

When I was working for the Nebraska Central, during one slow period, I was tasked with building "something" to install on the exhaust for a spark arrestor. What I came up with was very successful at greatly reducing sparks, it also worked very well at restricting exhaust flow. Needless to say, they didn't last very long.