Just got back from a camping trip and while cruising the antique stores with the wife, I noticed in the back of one case an orange box with Walther’s on the outside. It was marked item 933-7812 the HO scale Piker kit!! Inside were sealed plastic bags with all the parts, including the instruction sheets. It was marked $3 so you bet I bought it. I plan on assembling some time in the future but I have questions of the forum members.
Since this will be the first metal and wood kit I will have attempted to assemble I would solicit construction suggestions especially if you have assembled this kit.
Questions I have would include:
How to paint as I do not have a air brush. Use brush or rattle the can to spray paint? And what should I seal the wood with before painting? Should I use primer on the metal parts?
What adhesive to adhere the metal castings to the wood? Instructions suggest GOO but what about CA or RTV silicon or perhaps DUCO cement?
How to paint the paper parts for the details? Instructions suggest water colors.
Any other suggestion you might provide would be most helpful to me and perhaps other forum members as well.
I would use Polly Scale to paint the wood parts with before assembly. About three coats, lightly sanding between coats. Wash the metal parts and let dry. Assemble the model with CA or Epoxy. I don’t know how many paper details are on the kit, but what I have done sometimes if the paper parts have to stand alone, I will cover them with CA to stiffen them up and then paint as usual. (Thin CA will soak into the paper and is fine.) As for painting the car, I would spray it with a rattle can. Light gray as a primer for the color coat. (I favor Model Masters) Then spray it a second time with the color coat. If you want a black roof and under side, I would brush paint them with Polly Scale, unless you want to mask off the body and spray it.
Paint. I assume your road paints passenger equipment either maroon or Pullman green. I’d do a good surface prep to get oil, fingerprints, 50 years of accumulated crud. I’d prime with rattle can auto primer, dark gray to go under Pullman green, red to go under maroon. The rattle can people make a decent flat Pullman green only it’s labeled “olive Drab” and sold to the off road vehicle people. For maroon, they sell some reds, which look pretty good after you Dull Cote them to seal the decals.
For adhesive, you can still get Walther’s Goo, or Pliobond which is pretty much the same thing. Duco cement (cellulose cement) is not strong enough IMHO. RTV silicon has plenty of stick power, but you may find it a bit difficult to work with. Getting it into a small hole without getting it all over everything can be a challenge. CA has the nasty habit of hardening instantly once it touches wood. For myself, if I didn’t have Goo or Pliobond, I’d go with 5 minute epoxy.
Paper parts? Don’t remember those. But paper is very forgiving, it will accept any kind of paint quite happily.
Wasn’t the “lady in the shower” part of the paper parts? Colored sharpies would work.
If part of the roof is wood, some sanding sealer, carefully sanded down and then reapplied, gets rid of the wood grain very nicely. Sanding sealer was a standard modeling supply back when many kits used wood to simulate steel.
I assembled them prior to painting, then masked the windows and painted them with rattle can automotive primer and rattle can paint. I painted the roofs using a good artist’s brush. The railing on the oscar is floquil gold. I followed this with decals and then a coat of semi-gloss lacquer (make this a very light coat or you can get wrinklies in your paint).
I sealed the carved wood tops using sandable automotive primer, sanding between coats. For what it’s worth, I’m sort of old-school and I don’t have much faith in acrylic paints. I haven’t used them much, but I like the results I get with good old Floquil.
My glue of choice is 5-minute epoxy. I remember using some automotive body filler to make the corners a little more crisp.
I found some diaphram kits in the Walthers catalog and glued them on using Goo.
As far as the interior, I bought plastic seats, etc. and added some figures - the paper parts just didn’t cut it for me in terms of realism.
Take your time and you’ll end up with a great little car (I spent 2 months of evenings on my 3 Pikers and Oscar). Have fun.
I have built several Bar Mills models. The folks a Bar Mills recomend priming all wooden parts with a basic grey primer purchased at Walmart in an aerosol can. I live in Indiana where there is alot of humidity. The wood craftsman kit I did not prime has some beautiful curved walls. Even with stiffeners glued to the backside the walls still warpped.
The paper walls will not stay straight. I think you need to glue them to thin plastic, then paint it and the paper the same color. How you keep the printed details showing is a mystery.
Alternative option: scan the paper, color it in Photoshop orPaintshop or whomever, if you’re good at that thing (or know someone who is) then print on cardstock.
Other alternative: many companies now sell detail parts for passenger cars and houses. Buy a kitchen, and a bathroom, and go nuts.
Floquil actually sells 3oz rattlecans of their railroad colors, including “Reefer Yellow” (A good Chessie yellow), “Pullman Green”, “TUscan Red”, and more. so I’d look at those.
And by the way, PHHHTTTT!!! I’m an Oscar/Piker fan, though I was only barely old enough to get in on the 2000 release of the RTR versions. 3bucks is a STEAL!!! I’ve wanted to get one and see about doing casts of the walls to do an un.imited fleet of little 21ft private coaches.
The entire idea behind ‘The Piker’ and ‘The Oscar’ were to provide an inexpensive format, to learn how to build one of the Walthers wood and metal passenger car kits of the period. GOO, Ambroid, Duco, Elmers, all have their place as adhesives. You can seal the wood parts with acrylic paint, and sand between coats. I use acrylics, spray paint, oe model paint.
I just bought Oscar (the old wood/metal version) at the Springfield show, and so I searched for a thread on advice. That brought me here.
With the good advice now acquired, I noticed the neat brass Forney in the ShayFan’s post. I’d like to know who made it. I have a similar one in HOn3 from LMB. With a new motor and some tweaking, it runs nicely now.
