Combine Countdown

Having finally put a coat of primer on the now-detailed Binkley Shorty Baggage, I can turn my full attention to the remaining car in the Milk & Mail trio, the Binkley Shorty Combine.  This car I purchased from an eBay listing that supported a model train club in Vermont, if memory serves.  Clearly someone put some time and effort into it, building an interior, shaping the roof and applying some sort of contour putty to it, then painting it a garish red and black.*  Still, time has not been kind to this car, and I must rebuild it and put it to work on the Ocali Creek.

This post is titled, "Combine Countdown" because I begin working on this car with a good idea of the sequence of events that now lay before me.  Having upgraded the baggage car - mostly the roof - I know the steps to take that will bring me closer to completion.  First was to clean away the detritus and damage to the roof so that I could rebuild it.  This was done a while ago as I was assessing what would need to be done to this and the other car.  

Now I could proceed to extend the clerestory roof edge down the bullnose - a challenge for any kit that requires you to shape the end manually, though Northeastern has a jig for their wood kits, but I digress.  I did this with HO scale 4"x4" styrene strip.  Warm the strip in your mouth a minute then roll it under a firm round object, like the handle of an Xacto knife.  Continue until it holds a curve similar to the roof.  This will make gluing it in place a great deal easier.  I cut a little divet off the end to let it snuggle up to the lower roof edge.  This isn't crucial, as plastic putty will fill any gaps - and boy are there gaps.

Up next, putty, sanding, and preparing parts for the clerestory roof screen.  Thanks for reading.

*Garish perhaps for a train car, but lovely for other things.  The lyrics to a song I once sang spring to mind: "Morning sun greets many banners on its westward track.  Fair to us above all others waves the red and black."