Eggs a la Ed Lee

Oh, this car has been on the bench way too long.  That delay has nothing to do with the car itself, rather the good things happening in the rest of my life that keep getting in the way of model railroading.  Still, I'm glad to see it finished and rolling down the track.  Here's the story.

This freezer, NADX 6002, in service of the Pacific Egg Producers of Seattle, is built from 'An "Ed Lee" Kit', from E. Suydam & Co of Duarte, California.  What brings this kit to my bench is its presence on John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid.  Yep, another "Heritage Fleet"car.

NADX 6002 seen on the G&D in May, 1963

I began this car in July - almost exactly four months ago.  I did not deviate far from the kit instructions, only adding weight, backdating the air brakes, and changing a few minor details.  I've got a great prototype image of this car in Hendrickson & Kaminski's Billboard Reefer book.  Suydam got most of the details correct but I took the opportunity to add missing corner straps and reduce the number of grab irons on the sides and ends.

What's funny is that while Suydam did well in this regard, they missed one "colorful" detail, that is, the PEP Eggs banner should be royal blue.  An eBay search turned up some original blueprints for the car with painting instructions and the blue color is noted.  I very carefully added some blue paint to mine and it looks good from 3 feet away.  Red Ball got the color right but has too many hinges and grabs on their NADX 6001.  Likewise Train Miniature's plastic version, NADX 6003 (though in their defense, all of their reefers used the same body).  I mention the hinges because that was a key ingredient to identifying the maker of John's car.  

Sometimes I wonder where the manufacturers get their information and why they make some design choices that don't match the car itself.  It may be clear they're working from an image of the car or even drawings as some claim, and yet, they choose to include the wrong number of hinges on the door.  Go figure.  I can come up with some plausible reasons, but they'd only be guesses.  One is that Suydam was using a black and white photo as reference.  Who knows.

Finally I decided to change the brake detail in order to run this car on my late 20s era railroad.  I took my weathering cues from John's car but toned it down slightly.  The Ed Lee/Suydam kit was fun to build and follows the classic construction methods of kits from this era involving drilling, cutting, shaping, painting, etc.  There's a sublime satisfaction I get from taking a box of parts and turning it into a rolling freight car.  I'm happy with how it turned out and can now run another car "from the G&D" on my railroad.

Drug Store Saga, Part 1

I'm calling this a Saga right at the get-go because I can already tell it's going to be one of those builds.  The drug store in the title is the Scale Structures Limited Corner Drug Store.  A classic structure, to be sure, but the model is not without its flaws.  Even on its release in 1972 the folks at Model Railroader took note of how the angles of the bay walls don't match the angle of the ornate wall cap casting.  (More on that later.)  However they also noted one of the kit's strengths; the construction allows for easy rearranging of the walls.

Early in the process, before the fitting frustration set in.

In that regard I have taken things one step beyond.  The space intended for this structure in Ocala Springs is located on an intersection and bounded by a spur at the rear and the next building down the block.  I've got leeway down the block as that next building hasn't been decided yet.  But between the street and the spur I can only go so far.  However, the problem was not that the building was too wide, rather it was too narrow.  I envisioned an alley between the building and the spur, but this space was large enough to shoehorn in another structure.

The solution was to lop off some of the long end of the drug store and glom it onto the shorter side.  Now my structure is a bit more squarish.  Careful measuring meant the window openings could be kept evenly spaced without trimming and the surgery was relatively painless.  But I'm making it sound all too easy.  Before I even reached this point I had struggled with the aforementioned angle difficulty, and realized another aspect the folks at MR noted; the need to carefully read the instructions (many times).  

Note the original rectangular "floor" set onto the roof of my reconfigured structure

This freedom and flexibility in construction means the kit doesn't drop together in a simple sequence of tabs and slots.  The stiffeners inside the structure are the floors.  To begin with I cut new ones from thicker card as I couldn't see the thin stuff provided doing a good job for the long haul, even sprayed with sanding sealer.  This allowed me to correct the issue with the bay wall angles.  You are instructed to measure and mark the floor levels.  The plans give you an indication of where the first floor goes, and the roof along one wall, but not the others.  

And you're instructed to build the thing "upside down", aligning walls from the top.  That's fine for the front walls and bay, but not the back walls which are two different heights.  Add to that the challenge of a too-small wall and laying out the floors gets confusing quickly.  This tiny wall is some sort of mistake, a wrong part.  At first I thought it was N scale but a quick examination with my scale rule checked against the plans and no, I have no idea what this shrunken wall is.  I didn't lose sleep over it but, using the plans, I was able to fabricate a new one which is fine since I had planned to move that wall's windows to a different wall.

"Shrinky Dink" wall in the center, replacement on the left, relocated windows on the right. And all this before I decided to reconfigure the walls.

To recap at this point; building the original kit as instructed is already challenging and then I had to go and make it even more so.  But the problem became the solution.  I don't have a set of precast plastic walls that don't fit, I have cardstock.  Cardstock can be easily replaced.  The card in the kit for the die-cut walls appears to be good quality material.  It cuts cleanly and sands well.  No watermarks but I'd suspect a quality similar to Crescent or Strathmore board.  

This post has already gone far too long so I'll save the tribulations of working with the castings and printed wall textures for another part.  Thanks for reading.

Make Your Own Template

I believe that every kit, no matter how simple or of what materials it is made, can be a "craftsman kit"*.  I have taken that approach with just about every structure I've built recently, and much of the rolling stock too.  By that I mean any kit can be built with care and consideration of what would make the structure more interesting.  Often additions or modifications can me made to make the structure unique, or materials can be used that improve the level of detail or help sell the realism of the structure. 

Craftsman kits are often known for their reputation of being essentially a box of sticks and detail castings with thorough instruction books and many drawings and templates over which complex assemblies are constructed.  Whereas laser cut or plastic kits have done much of that work for you, stick-by-stick construction is a hallmark of craftsman kits.  For me this is part of the enjoyment of constructing such a kit and brings a sense of satisfaction for having built it myself.

In the case of the Suydam Union Ice Company, there is a sense that this is what might be called a "proto-craftsman kit".  Not "proto" as in "prototypical", but "proto" as in "protozoa" or that more simple kit that came before the evolution of the craftsman kit into Campbell, Fine Scale Miniatures and others.  The elements of a more modern craftsman kit are there - die cut walls, stripwood, templates, detail parts - but some of the materials are still crude by comparison.  

The cardboard widget provided to space the cooling tower baffles is really a weak point in the kit.  In one sense it is brilliant in its design; bent and wedged into place, then held by similar bent cardboard under tension.  And the instructions say that further bracing can be added.  In another sense it is literally weak; more like shirt cardboard, it is prone to warping out of shape.  A cursory search of previously built kits of this structure reveal it to be a problem area on nearly all of them.

But, just like I was unsatisfied to leave the baffles as provided and sheathed them in printed wood texture, then added styrene shapes as bracing, so too I couldn't leave the spacer as is.  Though it won't be seen unless a viewer peers down through the gaps in the baffles, I decided to make my spacer from wood.  It will be painted to resemble metal so it will match the styrene braces.  Assembly will be a little trickier, but in the end I hope to have a structural component that will be a feature of this structure for years to come.

The template is simply a pencil drawing on a sheet of paper, onto which a strip of Daiso transfer tape has been applied.  The cross members are laid on, then the verticals are attached with a dot of yellow glue at each connection point.  The whole shebang is weighted to keep the assembly straight while the glue sets.  A chisel blade allows the brace to be removed and the tape is tacky enough for the second frame.

*I don't mean every wood wall would be riddled with "nail holes", curling and lifting clapboards, rotting foundations and rusting corrugated metal.  Fine if you like that, but it is not for every structure even if you're going for that fire-trap, run-down look.

What Vintage?

     A while back I experienced the sublime joy and pleasant challenge that comes from building a craftsman kit. This was no ordinary kit – it was an HO scale model of an HO scale model – a 'tribute' kit to a box car skillfully built and whimsically lettered by John Allen of Gorre & Daphetid fame. Not only that, but this car is a throwback to earlier kit construction methods; it was made primarily of paper.

     Though the car ends, sides, roof and even the inner structure are made of paper, they were laser cut and printed. The underframe is cast resin, and details (the ones that weren't paper) are from Tichy and Grandt Line. That means full underbody detail with all the fiddly bits. Couplers? Kadee scale size, naturally. Trucks? Tichy arch bar.

     And another thing – this kit is now out of production and the manufacturer, sadly, out of business. The car I built is a 'Superior Detritus' box car offered by Full Circle Models. John Allen's original was a Central Valley box car kit. My kit was lettered (and weathered!) by computer. John's was lettered by hand.  Right-click and open this image in a new window for a REALLY big version:

     All this prompted me to ask, “Just what is 'vintage' anymore”? For example, is this piece of rolling stock, 'vintage'? If you define vintage as 'old', then the answer is no. After all, the kit is only a few years old. But if you didn't know how old it was, would it have that 'vintage' look? How does a model railroader define 'vintage'?

     Webster's listing for the word vintage includes three relevant definitions:

1. a collection of contemporaneous and similar persons or things
2. a period of origin or manufacture
3. length of existence 

     By one of these definitions you could say a boxcar kit produced in 2014 is 2014 vintage, like the model year on an automobile. This definition works for my detritus car too – it is a 2010 vintage kit.  But my car also fits another of Webster's definitions; the model represents a car built in the late 1800's. In that sense the period of origin or manufacture is not defined by the actual age of the model, but the perceived age of the car the model represents. So in this sense it is an 1890s vintage car.

     Even so, isn't this really dodging the question or escaping on a technicality? I get the feeling that 'vintage', to many modelers, represents that 'golden' era of American-made craftsman kits. You know, the ones that came with a tube of glue bearing the same name as the kit box, or similar boxes of wood and metal parts with printed car sides or decals to apply. Couplers? Take your pick – after all, you had to supply them. Trucks? If you were lucky they 'snapped' onto the bolster. These were kits from the 'vintage' era of model railroading, surely.

     I love those kits, (even though I am 1975 vintage, myself), and the Detritus car almost fits this definition also, doesn't it? It is no 'shake the box' kit. Though laser cut, it required a great deal of patience, time and craftsmanship to assemble. It is in fact, a model of a model built in that 'vintage' era. So my car is a 2010 vintage kit, representing a late 1800's vintage box car, based on a 1950's vintage model, built using a mix of 'vintage' and modern techniques. Whew! I'd say it's vintage all around, wouldn't you?