Has anyone assembled one of the B&O caboose kits by Pacific Mountain Scale Shops? Any comment as to quality, accuracy or assembly?
Thanks,
Roger
I’ve put together two of the I-12 kits, and think they are high quality in all three areas you ask about. They look very good next to my brass I-12’s. The trickiest part of the assembly was the roof overhang at the ends; these pieces are cast separately from the main body/roof casting, and you’ll want to spend extra time fitting the parts before glueing. Even then, you’ll have to spend some time with putty filling the gaps, but I did not think that was unreasonable. The platform steps were another somewhat problematic area–as molded, they end up interfering with the truck swing. Using a spacer of Evergreen styrene strip (I forget which size I used, but if you have a stock of the various sizes you can test fit until you find whatever size works) spaces the steps out from the carbody enough to alleviate this problem, plus, the steps placement seems to match prototype photos better.
The two I assembled had the original underframe/cast resin ends. My buddy assembled two, one of which had the replacement underframe and photoetched ends. I was not impressed by either of those changes, and don’t think they made much of a difference to the final overall apprearance of the models.
One other note is that both of mine had the smokejack attachment sleeve molded in the wrong place–one panel closer to the bay window, if I recall correctly (and of course I didn’t note that until after painting and lettering the car–grrrr). Oddly, neither car my friend assembled had this problem. It does help to have Hubler’s or Jones’ book on B&O Cabooses in front of you when building the model.
Hope this helps,
Mr B&O
If I were a B&O era modeler I wouldn’t hesitate to buy one.
Resin kits are demanding to say the least and unless you have slightly better than average modeling skills, I’d stay away from them until you can afford to have a $50 kit staring you in the face. Hopefully their support is top notch and the instructions are concise and well written. If so, I’d do it. Resin kits are better than most brass and a lot less costly.
RailYard Models in particular is a breath of much needed fresh air in resin kits. They are wonderful and if Pacific Mountain Scale Shops is half as good I might find a reason to buy one.
http://www.railyardmodels.com/index.html
I’d be anxious to hear a review.
Mr. B&O,
Thanks for the good information and tips on these cars. I think I’ll give one of the I-1’s and an I-12 a try.
Thanks,
Roger
Mr B&O,
Thanks for the review on the kits. I am in the process of assembling 3 of them. My question is, did you find any deviation in assembly for painting of subassemblies, I want to add lighting and glaze the windows after final painting ,of coarse? It seems if the directions are followed, access to the main shell will be troublesome for any other work or weighting.
I assembled the car completely, primed with Floquil Primer Grey, followed by Polly-Scale Caboose Red. This was with an airbrush. I painted the underframe by hand with Polly Scale Steam Power Black, then painted with a brush the window frames with Polly Scale Vermont Green, and the handrails and ladders with Floquil Reefer Yellow. After glossing, decaling, and flat finishing, I used Microscale Krystal Klear for the windows, and when that dried, I put a drop of Floquil Crystal Cote on each “window” to make it look more like glass. The final thing I did was to weather the car by airbrushing appropriate Polly-Scale thinned in rubbing alcohol (~80 drops/1 oz) over the car.
I didn’t bother with lights, since I find those to be more trouble than they are worth to me, and I weighted the cars with pennies during assembly, before sealing the underframe onto the carbody. Something on the order of 16 to 20 weight it to NMRA standards.
Mr. B&O
I assembled two of the Funaro & Camerlengo resin kits and found them to hard but not impossible to assemble. Just took a lot of patience and time cleaning the flash off the parts. I used a exacto knife and files to remove the flash and found the resin to be resilient.
Then I got brave and dug out the Pacific Scale Shop I-12 resin caboose that I had for a couple of years and man what a difference. The resin is so brittle that I broke the end railings and ladders at least five times just trying to clean the flash off. I am not saying that these are bad kits as I am sure that some of the problems are my lack of skills and technics but just to warn people that there is a difference in the resins that are used. These are my favorite cabooses and I will not give up. I just bought some plastic channel and angles and will attempt to scratch build the end railings. The detailing is really good on these kits and I realize they are hard shapes to cast and was wondering if they could use a different resin? Thanks Jim