Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Cab Screws

Recently Marty McGuirk over at his Central Vermont Railway blog wrote about removing a switch to get around a derailment issue.  This quote grabbed me:

 "...I fretted over this for a few weeks, but the fix didn't take more than a couple of evenings."

How often has that been the case for me?  Oh the hours I've wasted wondering what to do - or rather, not wondering, but simply avoiding the issue!  Too many times I have worried about the problem instead of thoughtfully pursuing a solution.

Yesterday I fretted over screws.  I was hunting for #00-80 (or 0-80 depending on where you look) 3/16" flat head screws.  I need two to attach the rear of the cab to the frame extension for the 2-8-0 kit-mingle I'm currently working on.  Remember the old days, when you could walk into a hobby shop and buy a little baggie of Hob Bits or Walthers screws for a couple bucks?  You'd get no more than a dozen usually and that's all a person typically needs.

You can still get those little baggies but now they're five bucks plus another five to ship it.  Alternatively you can get an assortment of 75 screws of varying lengths, all brass, flat head, 00-80, (with 25 nuts!) for $20.  While the assortment is a better deal on a per-screw cost, what am I going to do with the other 73 screws?  Sure, they come in a nice case but now I have to store it.  And I'm not going to pay $10 for 5 or 6 screws.

I trolled eBay for screws for far too long and this is after I had cogitated (fretted) for a few days prior to looking.  What saved me was that old ad slogan for the Yellow Pages - I let my fingers do the walking.  Setting aside political differences, I called my local Ace Hardware.  Yep.  They've got 0-80s.  So this morning I purchased four screws for the princely sum of $1.29.  Behold - the source of my worry, now solved:

P.S. - After checking the main boiler screw from the Athearn frame, I realized I now need a 5/8" 2-56.  Back I go to Ace...

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Boiler Swap

Oh my poor Shifter.  This little 0-4-0 has been put off for over 12 years now through moves and shifting locales and all sorts of reasons.  I had claimed in my end-of-year goals that this time would be different and for sure I'd finish it by Christmas, but alas, it may not be so.  One thing I've learned about how I approach my hobby during lockdown is to follow the muse and pursue the passion even at the cost of delaying a project yet again.  Momentum is precious when the anchor of settled inertia takes so much effort to weigh.  Best to change tack and sail with the wind.

No, I'm not building a ship - lest the nautical references mislead you.  I'm swapping a boiler and cab to create a unique locomotive.  John Allen, of Gorre & Daphetid fame, was fond of heavily modifying locomotives to make them different from everyone else's.  I have always felt the same way.  The 2-6-0 I modified last year got a shortened tender and a high headlight; for fitting on a short turntable and to give the engine a 'family' appearance, respectively.  This time I'm applying a boiler and cab from an AristoCraft/New One 2-8-0 to the smooth running mechanism of an Athearn (nee MDC/Roundhouse) 2-8-0.  

The donor boiler is slightly longer than the original but offers a few features that make the conversion worth it for me.  Not visible in this image are the open cab doors on the front of the cab - a thing often seen in real life but rarely on the model, something I've always wanted to include on a model engine.  Like the 2-6-0, (and the Shifter) this engine has an auxiliary dome just in front of the cab and a side-mounted whistle (family likeness, again).  I also like the brass detailing already built-in and will be featuring that in the finished model.  

I'll be borrowing the backhead detail from the original boiler using Oyumaru thermoplastic and superfine Miliput to make a copy.  The great thing about this thermoplastic material is that the mold can be remade if it doesn't turn out well on the first try.  I was fortunate and got it right first time.  Here you can see two castings in Miliput.  I'll use the top one but it will need a little more Miliput to fill a couple imperfections.  It smooths easily with water.  The little side tabs will be cut away before it is installed.

I'll have to make a boiler segment for inside the cab along with a rudimentary floor and of course a place for a skinny engineer to sit.  The fireman may end up living on the deck behind the cab.  We'll see.  Brass for the bits to attach the new boiler to the old frame (or is that the other way around?) has already been cut and shaped, and I have all the detail parts I'll want to use.

More on this project as I hit new milestones.

Four Flats - Finished!

 Feels fine to finish these four flats.  Forgoing alliteration, finally, the fotos:

This has been a great project, though I'm not in a hurry to begin another with so many cars in one fell swoop.  The next one like it will be the Purina (former freezers) ventilated box cars and that's only three cars but they will require more work to refurbish.  Look for that in 2022 when I will hopefully build the corresponding feed mill and delivery truck.  The Milk & Mail series continues and I've once again pushed aside the Shifter in favor of a different locomotive kitbash/detailing project.  More on that in upcoming posts.

As always, open the images in a new tab for a closer look, and feel free to click on the Four Flats tag in the Labels list for all the posts related to this project.  Thanks for following along!

Four Flats - Decals

After a few days waiting for the mail (and working on the Fruit Car in the mean time) I set to the task of applying decals to the flat cars.  Here's my setup:

And here's a closeup of the right-side data.  Note the decaling casualty, the vertical brake staff:

I've gotten pickier since I lettered box car 1603 a few years ago.  That's why I had to order new data sheets to go on these flats.  Research is wonderful and terrible, especially as a freelancer.  For these flats I came across a car builder's catalog with similarly sized and constructed truss rod flats that showed a capacity of 80,000 lbs, and a light weight of around 28,000 lbs.  The data sets I had from Rail Graphics (unfortunately out of production) didn't include a light weight anywhere close.  I would have had to chop up tiny little numbers and rearrange them - not fun.  Decaling already stresses me out a little.  I didn't want to complicate it any further.

Sure, some modelers would have said, "So what?  Just use any number, nobody's going to look that close, and once weathered it won't be that legible."  But, just like detailing building interiors, I would know it's there.  In fact, looking closely at box car 1603, I may go back and re-weigh that car.  Right now I've got it a little too heavy for its age and construction.  Wouldn't take long, especially since I've got all the tools and parts out and handy...

Milk & Mail - Fruit Car Underframe

After describing the project overview, I decided to begin working on the Fruit Car first.  No particular reason, just the whim of the muse.  I began by deciding how much detail I wanted to add to the underside.  Here's where I landed:

This amount of detail seems sufficient to indicate brake gear.  I'm always hesitant to add the connecting rods that extend from the levers out toward the trucks for fear that it will interfere with the wheels.  This time I just left the rods off altogether.  

I want to upgrade the car beyond its original kit parts using materials and methods that would have been available to the original builder, as much as possible.  But these days I'm feeling more of a pull to just get things done and move on to the next project sooner than later.  Maybe it's my age, or perhaps it is the circumstances of our world driving this feeling.  Regardless, I press on.

Up next I will turn my attention to the fascia boards and sides.  Though, at the time of this writing, I have received the data decals for the Four Flats...so as soon as I commit to a lettering arrangement, I may return to them.  We'll see.