i received my walthers flyer in the mail this morning and after seeing the 50’ box cars coming this fall at nearly 40 bucks a pop, it got me to thinking.
this is not intended as a rant but i remember building some of those p2k kits that cost me 8 dollars on sale. they were one of the most enjoyable facets of the hobby.
many years ago, i used to scratch build simple things like flat cars, gondolas, and box cars. even a few caboose models. bass wood was readily available and one could find parts like box car ends and body bolsters at most any hobby store. later on, styrene came into vogue and it could be used to build some really nice model.
question is, does anybody do this kind of modeling anymore and if so would you be willing to show us some examples of your work?
Here’s a distant shot of two flat cars and a caboose that I built a few years ago. I also have some scratch built box cars but couldn’t find their photos. We just moved to Montana a little over a year ago and I’m in the process of building a new layout.
guys, thanks for the photos. all of your work looks better than anything i have done. not that there is anything wrong with collecting, it’s just good to see that there are still people out there that enjoy this part of the hobby.
the 40 dollar box cars i alluded to in my first post give me even more incentive to get back to building from scratch or at leas kt-bashing. now that i have retired, i have the time for it and since i got my eyes fixed, the 20-20 vision makes close work possible again.
all prices have gone up but forty dollars will buy a heck of a lot of strip wood and styrene. now if i could just improve my wire bending skills.
sfcouple and tbdanny: Some nice little wooden cars you both have there.
I like the new nicely detailed RTR offerings that are out there. The variety, quality and detail is generally better than ever, and great for building nice looking appropriate fleets. And allows more time to devote effort to kitbashing the oddball stuff that isn’t available, or just really colours things up.
The railroad I’m modelling, the Algoma Central had lots of unique equipment that is not offerred in any scale. At least some of their hopper fleet were [url=]clones of the Ortner hopper[/url] modelled by Walthers, so with some minor modifications to each car (there are several required) that fleet can be built up. They also had these totally [url=]unique weird cylindrical cars[/url] that could be an interesting problem down the road, and a few hundred [url=]61’ bulkhead gondolas[/url] that were also totally unique.
With all the weird equipment to kitbash/scratchbuild to even begin to represent the roster, I’ll gladly fill in the rest with RTR equipment from various sources when accurate models exist for what I need.
I love the old Roundhouse 3 in 1 kits. They are a very interesting and entertaining mix of kit bashing and scratch building. They do lack a certain amount of accuracy so if you are really into that aspect of the hobby they may not meet your needs. They are from an earlier era but I am going to model a railroad historical society so I can get away with anything[swg]. They can still be found occassionally on eBay. If the price is not too steep they are good value because many of them build more than one car. I used brass instead of styrene for the curved blades. It is much easier to form into shape.
Odd. i just fineshed a Gn15 flat car made out of a truck, some scrap basswood and a few couplers/boxes. In gn15 you’ve got to scrachtbuild just about everything.
When it comes to my HO MINRail layout, I like to build kits. I can get more C/hoppers for less money.
But i forgot that i built a Sugarcane car out of a 40’ flat. Built some frame out of balsa and window screen. Painted it red put a number on it. It sits in my room on a shelf untill I need a sugar cane car.
Forty some-odd years ago, I bought an n “craftsman” kit. Never could find proto information to figure out how to finish it. (It came with somewhat unlikely supergraphic Illinois Central Gulf split-rail supergraphics decal…) Recently been comparing models and prototypes, thinking of doing a little more.
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I built the TOP half of some sulphur gondolas on modified kit flatcar chassis…
and I want to build 8 or 10 more for a sulphur export terminal.
I just completed yet another P2K 10,000 gallon tank car kit in my hotel room this week. I have a huge shelf of unbuilt kits, from Branchline Blueprint series to F&C resin kits, plus structures including laser cut wood towers and sheds plus a F&C resin station.
As soon as I get the bits of styrene I need, I have 3x Accurail open hoppers that will eb converted to covered hoppers per a 1997 MR article.
I LOVE kits. I have RTR cars but that was mainly to get additional numbers of ones I have kits for - ie, I have 6 Branchline box cars, I also have 4 of the same model, just different numbers, that were offered as RTR. Same with the tank cars, I have 6 kits and 2 RTR, the 2 RTR numebrs were not offered as kits.
Hopefully I will get quite a few done, as the next 3 weeks I will be on the road and staying in hotels for work like I was this week. Since I have nothing better to do after work is done for the day, I bring my toolbox and kits to work on, grab somethign for dinner, come back to my room, flip on the TV, and start building.
I built these two from scratch way back when I was in college.
Both of them are the classic wood construction. Northeastern wood roof stock cut to length with a Zona saw, sides of sheet basswood cut with an Xacto knife. Brush painted with Floquil. Each one took several weeks to build. The steel car still lacks data decals after all these years. That was a long time ago and I haven’t done any more straight scratch builds since. I now do Paint Shop style repaints and redecaling of molded plastic kits mostly.
Partly the availability of really nicely molded plastic makes it so easy to create nearly anything you might want, and cheaply too. The disappearance of prototype plans from Model Railroader is a discouragement, in that you have to draw up your own plans from photographs. The disappearance of scratch building supplies from hobby shops has raised the price of stuff. I ordered enough material for a small passenger station and by the time it all came in, I could have purchased a laser cut craftsman kit for less.
Anyhow I haven’t scratch built any rolling stock in a long long time.
While I’ll scratchbuild if necessary, I enjoy kitbashing at least as much.
I’m not sure whether this would be a scratchbuild or a kitbash:
Basically, it’s an MDC passenger car truck with a scratchbuilt styrene body. I built four, and gave away two of them.
This free-lanced weed sprayer is one of two, and is pretty much scratchbuilt, although the trucks, couplers, and brake gear are commercial items. It’s a combination of wood and styrene, and was built about 35 years ago:
I built four of these a few years ago, mostly styrene shapes, strip, and sheet material with a few commercial parts:
These are more like kitbashes, the first three photos showing Train Miniature cars with modifications, and the last two the same cars after painting:
I also kitbash passenger cars, like this combine from a Rivarossi diner:
By the way, I have almost got my version of the 15 ton Mack switcher up and running. I screwed up with the first motor because I didn’t have the gear train running smoothly enough. Let the smoke out of the motor so to speak! Second motor is on the way and I am going to try to fit a Digitrax DZ125 decoder into the thing with working headlights. So far so good( except for the toasted motor [D)][banghead][:'(].
Gidday, Kitbashed a cement gondola from an Athearn Blue box as per an article In the January 1995 Model Railroader.
Used a OO Joeuf, (European prototype) depressed centre flat car as the donor to make a freelance US car.
Needs paint and decals, the hideous bit on the right is part of the original bogey and coupler.
Called in last weekend to the local model shop and he had just recieved from Walthers 6 of the 25 Bowser 70 ton 2 bay covered hoppers kits, I had ordered ( which I had just about given up on, but that’s another story.) First Bowser kits that I’ve assembled, good fun. Am also assembling some Tichy cement cars,( converted boxcar) kits as well, also fun but in more of a masochistic sense, am going to have to buy shares in a No:79 drill bit manufacturing company. [banghead]
A part from enjoying making up kits, they are “more bang for your buck”, though as has been pointed out to me if I purchased RTR I,d have time for a proper layout! Can’t win them all.
Thanks to the other posters for your continued inspiration.
This is a great way to promote the scratch building, kit bashing; or, kit building of rolling stock! Thanks! Although not quite ambitious as some of you, I have enjoyed building wood car kits and have built a few wood cabooses. Also kit bashed Athearn cabooses into Northern Pacific steel cabooses.
After 25 years of building my layout, which is still not, and may never be done, I have loved the building PART of this activity and it’s what attracts me to the hobby!
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