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Post by Christian on Oct 3, 2020 10:44:07 GMT -8
Unboxing the Kit
A couple of Sunday’s ago Dave Hussey posted photos of a new gondola under development as an addition to the Cannon & Company line of laser cut freight car kits. That kicked in a memory and I went looking for the Northern Pacific boxcar I lusted for a while back. Out came the credit card and soon a Priority Mail baggie arrived in Virginia. For several years Dave Hussey has been expanding a line of craftsman boxcar kits under the moniker of Cannon & Company. At this writing there are 32 boxcars in the line. Most, not all, are prototypes built in the sixties and most, not all, are west of the Mississippi River railroads. These kits consist of laser cut styrene sides that are constructed in layers and some other parts such as doors. NOT all the parts that are needed for the model are in the kit. The additional parts needed are listed with the kit description. These kits are priced between $18 and $25. Most are $20. Most kits are also available bundled with some additional parts from other manufacturers. Again, not all the parts that are needed for the model. These bundles are priced $33 to $48. Most contain ends, roof and under-frame by various manufacturers. Because it appears that the world of parts available to modelers from mainstream manufacturers is drying up these bundles are a must have unless you have a great pile of parts. The remaining parts needed are mostly freight car staples. BUT will require a bit of a scavenger hunt; both finding the parts and surviving the shipping costs from multiple vendors! Cannon & Company has decals available for many of the boxcars. These come from several printers and most are available only on the Cannon & Co website. The best part for me are the instructions. Although Hussey does assume some knowledge and skill on the part of the builder, the instructions cover the specifics of the kits very well. My kit had large prototype broadside photos which are going to be very helpful because I’m not finding a lot of prototype photos. On my kit the ends and underside are not illustrated in the instructions. I’ve found enough photos to do the ends and the underside isn’t very visible beyond the tank and triple valve peeking out. Photo one is the baggie ready for the knife. Photo two shows the contents slid out the end. A box, a bubble pack and an invoice. Photo three shows the two sheets of Microscale decals from the bubble pack. I can see right now that doing the decal work will cause cussing. These decals were prepared with the assistance of the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association. The decal instructions are on the NPHRA web site and include several photos as well as artwork.
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Post by Christian on Oct 3, 2020 10:46:04 GMT -8
Continuing to Unbox the Kit
Photograph one shows the lid of the box open and a large Cannon & Company baggie. Photograph two presents the contents of the box. The Cannon baggie, an Accurail underframe, an Athearn Genesis roof, and an Atlas/Branchline end with ladders and fittings. Photo three are the contents of the Cannon baggie. Shown are the four laser cut sheets that make up one side of the boxcar. There is also a small sheet of door parts. You betcha I’m looking forward to working with those specks! Finally there are the three double sided sheets of instructions.
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Post by Christian on Oct 3, 2020 10:48:16 GMT -8
It’s All Out of the BoxThe first photograph is a closer look at the three layers that make up one side which is backed by a forth sheet. These are cut from 0.010” and 0.020” styrene and are pretty delicate. The purple line circles a boo boo. Easily fixed, but I don’t want to make any more places to “easily” fix! Photo two shows most, not all the parts called out in the instructions as well as some personal preferences. A few more parts are still in the mail. I’m not going to punch my adding machine, but I think it will be about a hundred dollars out of pocket including shipping costs when I’ve finished. Oh yeah – you can save a lot by getting a kit! Photo three is the start of what color is this darned boxcar? Unfortunately there were no model railroader color police waving their drift cards in the various shops that built Northern Pacific equipment. Looking at the NPRHA color illustration with the decals the car started dark olive – some might say “Pullman” – green which quickly deteriorated to dark gray. Sometimes very dark gray. Unlike photos of other NP boxcars that I trust which started and ended definitely green. Not much green on this boxcar at all except when rolling out of the shop. I’m modeling twenty years later. The three bottles of paint are greener then any research I have for this boxcar. BUT none of my friends model the Northern Pacific. So I’m going to make the car greener than the prototype. Probably the Scale75 “Ardennes Green” to the right in the photo. A couple weeks ago I was hot on the AKI 3d Gen “Gunship Green” in the middle bottle but it now seems too rich. I’ll later do a test comparison between the two. The bottle to the left, AKI 3d Gen “Dark Green” is just for show. It’s a bit dark for BN green, but in that ballpark. Not for this Northern Pacific boxcar. That’s a wrap with getting this project out of the box for the first of many times. I won’t start building the kit until I finish up some other stuff so there will be a long time until the next posting on this car.
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Post by cannon on Oct 3, 2020 14:05:08 GMT -8
Christian, thanks for the review, I hope. I just came back from the Post Office to mail the Kadee doors I forgot to include and the replacement of the wrong diesel part I shipped. Like my reply to you. “Cheap help is hard to find”
To further explain something Christian touched on. These kits are a continuation of the concept Modelers Choice first offered back in 2004. They use to only sell the laser sides. For a while they offered Branchline roofs and ends. But getting those was a problem for them. When I started to make these kits I realized that issue and ordered large quantities of those unique parts. Over time the Branchline parts became Atlas, then came the China factory shutdown. Forcing me to have some parts tooled. So overtime I have now invested in stocking parts from Athearn Genesis, Accurail, Moloco, Kadee, along with decals from Microscale, Mask Island, and Dan Kohlberg to make these cars available. I decided that I would not try and stock/supply commonly available items like trucks, couplers, grab irons, and styrene sizes that modelers might already have or should be “easily” available.
Most of the cars are western prototypes that initially fit my modeling interests and era since I belong to the La Mesa Model Railroad Club and model SP in 1980 over Tehachapi Pass. Of course I’ve also wandered in that goal. I also am making cars that are not available from the big manufacturers.
Dave Hussey Cannon and Company
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Post by grahamline on Oct 3, 2020 14:29:48 GMT -8
Keep on wandering, Dave. These kits fill a large gap in the market. They can be time-consuming to build, but are not extra-ordinarily difficult.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 3, 2020 14:33:50 GMT -8
I believe most NP people think the color on these cars is Loewy dark green (as on the passenger cars). It certainly doesn't have the brown element of most Pullman greens.
I just scanned my NP drift card, and got RGB values of 3, 41, 0.
Of course, the color weathered. Perhaps more than most, mostly going dark and losing a lot of the intensity and richness of the green.
It should be mentioned that NP went over to "Cascade Green" after awhile, but not on these cars, as delivered.
Ed
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Post by packer on Oct 3, 2020 15:54:45 GMT -8
Following as I eventually want to build one of these (and some of the other cars offered). Seeing one done step by step might be what I need to pull the trigger on one (or more).
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Post by markfj on Oct 3, 2020 17:54:14 GMT -8
Good write up so far Christian. Been debating about getting one of these kits, but have a full workbench of projects right now.
Dave, you mentioned some time ago about designing an NYC boxcar kit. Any progress on that one?
Thanks, Mark
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Post by slowfreight on Oct 3, 2020 18:33:50 GMT -8
I am sprinting to stay ahead of you on this one. I have the same kit in the stack, but finishing another Cannon NP combo box kit first. No photos handy just yet, but decals are nearly done and weathering in progress.
One frustration I have with these kits is that the decal sheet clearly reflects many hours of research, but with no guidance on where a lot of the little bits should go. It would have been helpful to have more than my screen-scraped photos to go on. For example, the A and B end decals for the two ends are included, but I haven't yet been able to identify where on each end they are located.
Just know that as wp8thsub said, many of the flaws get better as soon as you get a coat of paint onto these cars. And lay a weight on the flat sides while they dry.
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Post by wp8thsub on Oct 3, 2020 19:36:24 GMT -8
Just know that as wp8thsub said, many of the flaws get better as soon as you get a coat of paint onto these cars. Paint and weathering hide a multitude of sins, on these cars or anything else I build.
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Post by Christian on Oct 4, 2020 2:53:26 GMT -8
Following as I eventually want to build one of these (and some of the other cars offered). Seeing one done step by step might be what I need to pull the trigger on one (or more). It will be a couple of weeks before I start actually building the car. I wanted the unboxing to be authentic rather than a restaging. That is why this posting is now rather than attached to the build. I'm still getting research and information so I'm not really prepared to start right now anyway. Things have to simmer until I have some sort of comfort level. Then I start work. I learned on the Downtown Deco build is that if I am going to post a build I have to be much more disciplined in my model building than is normal. So I want to get an albatross off my workbench before I start this project.
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Post by sd40dash2 on Oct 4, 2020 3:16:28 GMT -8
Thanks for starting this thread. I appreciate the clear intro photos which add a lot, so I will follow along with interest.
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Post by Christian on Oct 4, 2020 3:51:18 GMT -8
I did up a sample with those values and it was as I expected. Since I am twenty years out of the NP paint shop I am pretty confident that the three bottles I photographed will get me where I want to be for a base color before heavy aging and weathering takes the result toward gray. Despite the darkness of the aged prototype I am going lighter simply because I want to see my work indoors!
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Post by timvanmersbergen on Oct 4, 2020 6:16:54 GMT -8
I used Model Master Japanese Army/Navy green on mine. I know that isn't available anymore but perhaps might be in one of the military color lines. Tim VanMersbergen
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Post by slowfreight on Oct 4, 2020 7:02:54 GMT -8
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Post by cannon on Oct 4, 2020 7:14:17 GMT -8
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Post by TBird1958 on Oct 4, 2020 7:32:58 GMT -8
Thanks for starting the thread, I have one of these to get started on as well, though there's an SP B70-30 that I intend to build first. Building these kits is really rewarding, I completely rethought the notion of building several of my cars because I learned so much in assembling my first Cannon & Co model. Building the Cannon car on the right lead to me scratch building the car sides for the the CB&Q XM-4 on the left. This covered gon used the same basic ideas - Really a great way to expand one's skills as a modeller.
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Post by Christian on Oct 4, 2020 7:34:38 GMT -8
I used Model Master Japanese Army/Navy green on mine. I know that isn't available anymore but perhaps might be in one of the military color lines. Tamiya and Vallejo have Japanese Navy deep dark green. Vallejo also has Japanese Army green. I'll take a closer look at those paints. Thanks for the photo of the built model. It will answer some questions down the road.
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Post by slowfreight on Oct 4, 2020 10:45:53 GMT -8
Finally finished pre-weathering decals on mine. Progress photos soon.
FWIW, I think you can get 4 cars out of the 2 decal sheets, so $12 isn't too bad if you do at least 2 cars. Including extra parts, I'm sitting at about $50 for my car. Not bad for what I'm getting.
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Post by slowfreight on Oct 4, 2020 15:59:07 GMT -8
Dang, if that link was in your directions I missed it, but that's huge.
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Post by Christian on Nov 1, 2020 12:05:39 GMT -8
WARNING
I got the albatross off my workbench. This threatened boxcar build is going to be next on my plate as soon as I've scraped off the albatross detritus. I'm not as disciplined about model work as many of you folks so this is likely to stretch out a while.
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Post by Christian on Nov 2, 2020 11:51:58 GMT -8
Building Cannon & Company Northern Pacific Boxcar Kit Looking It Over
It’s been a month since I took this project out of the box. The last project is put away and my work area is clear and clean. Time to build this big ole boxcar! Today I’m going to read the instructions and think out a plan. Not very sexy, but I’m a plan ahead sort of guy. I’ve laid things out so that I can grab whatever I want as I read. The instructions are through, or so I hope! Specific to this model are two pages of text – 21 assembly steps, two pages of photos of the prototype and unpainted model. As well as two pages of text generic to building Cannon & Co boxcars. Three sheets of paper, printed front and back. Because I don’t like flipping pages I copied the backs so that I’ve got all six pages in sight at once. Photograph one is an overview of my working area. I’ve mentioned before that I started accumulating stuff while in Cub Scouts in the fifties so I don’t have a nice spare work area. But, it’s cozy. The black vacuum container seals so that when I knock it over I don't have to frighten the dogs with cussing. Photo two shows the box of parts that are needed or that I think are needed. Including some decals extra to the super duper sets from Cannon. Behind is the start of the printed photos that I will use as reference. These are from the Cannon instructions. Photograph three is a bunch of glue, solvents and adhesives. The MEK will probably be the most used. The others might solve an issue down the road. Not shown is the epoxy for the weights. I use stacks of copper disks and epoxy to weight closed cars. Photo four are the tools and abrasives that I know I’ll use. The pile will grow as the project proceeds. See note about Cub Scouts. Example: the needle is my frog dissecting needle from high school biology. (Green and White, Fight! Fight! Go Hornets) I’ve changed the handle twice and I’m on the third needle, but it’s my high school tool. The three tools in the back are less common and I’ll talk about them as I find a need to use them. The yellow handle tools are my Olfa knives. The smaller is a 45 degree blade and the larger is a 30 degree blade. So much nicer than the X-Acto knives I used for 60 years. Yes, I still have my Cub Scout X-Acto knife. If you know where to look in the first photo it is sorta visible. Hint: silver can. The final photo is the car that I think I’ll use as a reference. I like the less weathered look and the original bluish green paint showing through the grime. And the roof isn’t a rust garden. Yet it still has paint and weathering interest. The weathering on the labels on the side to the left put the car no earlier 1980 and that will work for me. But, it’s early and I’ve already changed what I initially thought about the paint treatment thanks to comments and references above. (Japanese Navy Deep Dark Green) Typically, I’ll change my mind up until I load my airbrush for the final clear coat. (And I often change my mind about doing that!) Next up – well, I don’t know what I’ll be doing until I’ve read the instructions and figured out what I can’t figure out. Yes, that sentence makes sense to me!
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Post by slowfreight on Nov 2, 2020 13:04:56 GMT -8
As I clear out my workbench of the most recent projects, I am tempted to shelve some other stuff and work mine in parallel to yours.
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Post by sd40dash2 on Nov 2, 2020 13:11:28 GMT -8
I really like the above workbench, tools and parts pix!
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Post by TBird1958 on Nov 2, 2020 13:16:29 GMT -8
That's a great shot of the car, so much to see, I love the green trucks - just like the Moloco RBL. Interesting to see the removed ladder rung holes. Was the car built with high ladders? Mine's up next so I'll be following your progress.
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Post by Christian on Nov 2, 2020 13:30:21 GMT -8
Interesting to see the removed ladder rung holes. Was the car built with high ladders? Those holes are on the laser cut parts. Yes, high with roof walk. From this roof angle photo that walk was removed very neatly. I haven't found a good B end shot. The partial I have shows high brake wheel and full ladders at the B end and cut down on the other. Along with the usual yellow no roofwalk warning signs. Those signs aren't on the car in that photo but are on others. I've noticed that these cars have lots of variations in the various warnings and labels that were applied after the cars were built.
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Post by timvanmersbergen on Nov 2, 2020 13:51:20 GMT -8
Interesting to see the removed ladder rung holes. Was the car built with high ladders? Those holes are on the laser cut parts. Yes, high with roof walk. From this roof angle photo that walk was removed very neatly. I haven't found a good B end shot. The partial I have shows high brake wheel and full ladders at the B end and cut down on the other. Along with the usual yellow no roofwalk warning signs. Those signs aren't on the car in that photo but are on others. I've noticed that these cars have lots of variations in the various warnings and labels that were applied after the cars were built. Actually, these cars were kind of "tweeners" that were build with high brakewheels but no roofwalks. Tim VanMersbergen
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Post by Christian on Nov 2, 2020 14:44:25 GMT -8
Actually, these cars were kind of "tweeners" that were build with high brakewheels but no roofwalks. Great! I can't give two thumbs up so here's the extra thumb. Sorta.
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Post by TBird1958 on Nov 2, 2020 15:05:22 GMT -8
Those holes are on the laser cut parts. Yes, high with roof walk. From this roof angle photo that walk was removed very neatly. I haven't found a good B end shot. The partial I have shows high brake wheel and full ladders at the B end and cut down on the other. Along with the usual yellow no roofwalk warning signs. Those signs aren't on the car in that photo but are on others. I've noticed that these cars have lots of variations in the various warnings and labels that were applied after the cars were built. Actually, these cars were kind of "tweeners" that were build with high brakewheels but no roofwalks. Tim VanMersbergen
Thanks Tim, I really wondered as some one would had to have been very careful about torching the roofwalk and the risers off. Great info!
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Post by cannon on Nov 2, 2020 15:35:31 GMT -8
After years of procrastination I actually created the pBase Album that is referenced in the instructions. I added a bunch of prototype photos and some construction Images. pbase.com/dh30973/cannon4015&page=allDave Hussey
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