just picked up an old Quality Craft Reading caboose kit. This one is a real craftsman kit, there’s a bunch of wood bits and some etched brass sides and ends. Should be a fun project. And a welcome change from the row of identical Proto 2000 cabooses I have. One of these days I may take another stab at the E&B Valley one, but wow, talk about poor quality injection molded palstic.
Anyone done one of these Quality Craft kits before? HOSeeker has a copy of the instructions for a different QC caboose, and I can find no reviews or even thrir ads in my MR DVD collection - although the search engine needs a little help there. I distinctly recall reading a review of one of their N scale cars in the 80’s sometime. Should have is in a few days, seller on eBay is local (and I think someone on the forum here).
No worries, now that the train shows are done for a while, I will be back to work on my hopper car project as well. Two mixed materials projects - one wood/styrene, the other wood/brass. And a simple little one I picked up at the hobby shop, an Atlas trackside shanty, just need to paint it proper Reading cream and brown structure colors and put it together. I REALLY will make every effort to properly document these builds, sicne there is an exampel of a beginner project, an advanced kit, and a kitbash. After doing the movies at the train show, it’s sort of fun, if time consuming, to piece it all together and document things.
I have a few Waterlevel Models and Gloor Craft NYC caboose kits that I need to get started on myself. I’ll look forward to seeing that Reading caboose when you’re done with it.
I have a partly/mostly constructed Quality Craft Pennsylvania RR “bobber” caboose kit somewhere in its box. I seem to recall that the stumbling block was soldering the end railings. I built a jig and then lost interest when my then solding iron was inadequate to the task – soldering each new joint involved unsoldering the prior ones! Scratch and kit builders know that feeling. A better soldering gun such as I now own would do a better job because it would work so much faster. A torch would likely be even better. But I was no longer a PRR modeler by the time I bought that. Also I was trying to be too precise about length of wire to solder rather than use very long wire, solder it, and then cut it to length. I was too inexperienced to know that trick although it was right there in the old Model Railroader book “764 Helpful Hints” taken from the old “Kinks” column in MR from which I got my jig idea.
Hey don’t laugh they were called kinks back then with no smirking about double meanings.
I could pass along a couple of things about the kit that I regret and which might carry over to your kit. First I was following the instructions very robot-like and was not really thinking about what I was doing. As a result the “box” of the caboose body was sealed tight (floor, ends, sides, and roof w/cupola) before I suddenly thought – hey some glass in those windows would look nice. The instructions never mentioned it, but they shouldn’t have had to. Doesn’t the modeler with the skills necessary to build the kit know about windows? He – that is, me – should.
Even more dope like, I had bought a Campbell caboose interior kit that I intended to modify for that kit and of course forgot all about it before it was too late. I guess I assumed I’d make the roof removable but then forgot. That interior would have added some welcome weight even if it was mostly invisible except t
Aw, shucks! I thought you were gonna make something disappear!!!
But I guess you wil make something APPEAR!! {a caboose out of mishmash of parts}
I fair only so well at “good” plastic kits, and not so fair at the one wooden building I built…swore off wood, but learned the faults I made.
Good Luck and Keep us posted whth progress! Especially if you are doing a "documentary"of building it! Lots of “pictographs” along the way would be nice!
Good tips. Windows, I would have forgotten about. Weight - I do the same thing as part of building kits, toss the whoel thing, with a pair of Kadees and metal wheels, ont he scale to figure out how much weight I need to add BEFORE it’s too late.
One thing mentioned in the copy of the isntructiosn I foudn online are to be sure to seal the wood first - not that I would have skipped that.
As for the quality of the detail castings, we shall see. If they aren’t very good then I may indeed get some alternatives to make it look better. I’m not attempting to replicate the wealth of detail on the P2K models, but somewhere between that and the train set convert one I have would be nice.
I have an old Ambroid 1 in 5000 kit of the Great Northern wood caboose that I started about 30 years ago and never finished. It has Central Valley trucks and Kadee couplers but lacks details. Looking at it today I can see the quality of metal casting details in not as good as what you can get today. But, as Randy said, you get tired of seeing a string of the same caboose (P2K or Athearn). Maybe I need to get it back out of the box and finish it (along with about 50 P2K kits!).
I’ve built a couple of these kits. One is a Santa Fe caboose from the '20s, an the other is this bobber:
Both turned out fine.
Here are my suggestions/techniques:
Get a can of plumbers paste flux (plumbing dept. at Lowe’s) and keep it handy. The solder will flow wherever there is flux, so you use a toothpick to spread it at seams, etc., then solder.
Get some de-soldering wick (Radio Shack). This stuff is copper braid saturated with some sort of flux. Put it where you have excess solder and heat it; the solder gets drawn into the copper braid, leaving “just enough” in the joint.
Get some of the cup shaped brass brushes for your motor tool. These are great for cleaning up excess solder.
For windows, I use Micromark’s “Microglaze.” It goes into the window opening as a liquid and then dries clear. I think it looks darned good and you can do it from outside of the model after it’s been painted.
Take your time filing the window openings. It’s easy to screw these up, so use a good set of needle files and be careful not to go too far.
Nice square wood blocks are handy for clamping parts to. The block keeps it square while clamps hold the pieces while you solder.
It’s nice to have a set of micro sized drills #40-#80 for drilling holes for grab irons, etc.
Use lead-bearing solder - the non-lead solder is harder to control.
I use 2% silver solder for the basic construction; it melts at about 450 degrees F. For details I switch to the lead/tin variety. This melts at about 300 degrees F. and reduces the likelihood of de-soldering previous work.
You may find that you do a lot of soldering with the iron inside the body while you apply solder to the exterior. This technique is often the best approach for m
