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1/35
Gas Mechanical
Converting
The 1/48 SBLC. Kit Into a
1/35
Gas Mechanical Locomotive
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The
Build
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The Smokey Bottom Lumber Co. "Freelance
Critter" was one of the first RR and ON30 models I built when I
came back to the hobby of RR/model-building. While recently
purging my 1/48 models/kits, I ran across a second kit of the loco;
I was going to get rid of it, but just couldn't, it just called out
to me to build. I thought it would be a simple and quick build, and
I could use it for a "painting challenge" on the MIG
Forum....but alas, is anything ever as simple as it seems? This kit
is truly lousy (at least buy my standards). The concept of
"square" really seems to escapes the mfr.
The Assembled Frame:
The individual frame pieces in the kit are cast as "parallelograms"....so
prior to assembly they were first made "square", and the
same height, on the disk sander. For assembly the corners are glued
held against a square jig on the exterior, when set they are
filleted, with ACC, and the styrene tube is pressed in place for
bracing. Additional ACC is then filleted along each frame piece at
the "V" created by the intersection with the styrene tube.
[The use of the styrene tubes as corner bracing allows for squaring
if the exterior faces of the frame when the interior faces are not
(in this case due to irregular casting), and square interior bracing
would not fit correctly in the corners.]
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Top view of the Bonnet:
1. Off center radiator filler cap
2. Misshapen "bulbous" radiator sides
3. Concave bonnet sides
4. Rear of bonnet, wider than front
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Side View of Bonnet:
1. Concave radiator front
2. Misaligning radiator and bonnet pieces
3. Sway-back bonnet top
...and of course, butt-ugly hinges (that would never be found for
such an application), and very poorly cast, and irregular,
parting and panel lines.
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In order to create a consistent parting/panel
line between the radiator grille and the bonnet, a spacer was cut
from .005 styrene sheet....also you can see that the ugly hinges
have been removed, and the top panel line on the bonnet has been
filled with putty.
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After a lot (6 hours so far) of
squaring/repair/rework/prep on the frame and bonnet section I did a
quick test fit for the deck, and wanted to get an idea of scale, so
I stuck a 1/48 figure next to it, but it just didn't look right, so
I pulled out a 1/35 scale Verlinden railway figure I had started a
while back, and TA-DAAA....there it was, this was going to work much
better in 1/35-32, though it is going to require a good bit of
additional detailing. I think it will be a fun entrée into 1/35 RR
modeling.
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12 more hours at the workbench, allowed me to
make some progress on the loco.
If compared to the photo of the original frame, one can see where I
went through and removed all the funky "riveted straps" on
the side-frames, the huge bulbous rivets on the end sills and
coupler pockets, and some stray (and really sadly cast) bolt
details.
- The tops of the sanding boxes were
milled down, and caps added
- The frame under the journal boxes was
milled out to more properly represent the slot in which the
journals travel
- The weird blocky original journals were
milled down, and newly detailed including small oiler port
covers
- Bracing was added to the sides of the
"spring mounts"
- New bolt rivet detailing was added at
the end sills. As well as matching nuts on the interior side
- Cast on serial numbers and builders
emblem were added to the side-frames, using the Archer
"cast" decals
- An access panel detail was added at each
side-frame
- Angle mounting/gluing strips were added
to the inside of the frame for later attachment of the deck
Far from perfect work, and it would probably have been
easier/cleaner to build the whole thing from scratch, but it will be
fine for the purpose of the project.
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The thing I came
away the happiest with, was that I was able to perfectly drill out
one of the sander fillers, to represent an open one with a missing
cap (which was just pure luck), one wobble of the bit or .001 off,
and it would not have happened.
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Next came the
"Night Of The Resin Milling"....
Since I get a lot of ribbing for building only static models, I
figured I would make this thing DCC or RC adaptable/ready; so I
roughly milled out the inside of the solid resin bonnet so that it
can house a DCC or RC receiver and wiring. The small extra notches
at the sides are to clear the wire connection tabs on the
"Black Beetle" mechanism that would be used for
motorization.
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The inside of the frame/journal boxes was also
milled out to allow for the slight remaining axle extensions and and
possible wheel-play of the 'B-B' mechanism. Styrene front braces and
shim/spacers for the B-B mechanism have also been installed on the
underside of the deck.
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At last I was finally able to decide on the
"cab" style. These photos show the proposed shape/design
mock-up made using some cut up Strathmore business cards. (The cab
deck is still missing.) This design will require me to shorten the
bonnet by approx. 2mm....which will be my next step.
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Finally finished
the bonnet; detailing was done using .005, .010 and .015 sheet
styrene. The white .018 & .023 dia. rivets were made from .005
& .010 styrene using a Waldron punch & die set. The handles
are .015 brass rod, with the weld fillets being made using Model
Color (Vallejo) #400 Plastic Putty. Latch bolts are from Bronco
Models. Metal & brass parts are leftovers from assorted A.F.V PE
detailing sets.
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The headlight is from the scrap box (I think
its Delrin, possibly from Grandt), and was recessed into the resin
front (as you can see I was a bit off with the first hole I drilled,
and thus required some putty work). The interior of the headlight
was also drilled out in the back to represent the socket location. A
two step hole was drilled at the bottom of the front, to later
accept the crank handle receiver stub.
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On the top, two holes were drilled on center
into the resin where the gas and water filler caps will go (a third
two-step hole was drilled off to the side for the future stack
location). The bonnet center was then added using .005 sheet
styrene, into which were punched two holes using a micro-Mark punch
& die set. The punched holes were .030 smaller than the drilled
holes, this gave a lip to give the impression/illusion of a thin
sheet metal bonnet with hollow space below.
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About 16 hours of fussing on the cab interior.
The transmission housing is made of styrene (hollow underneath to
fit the drive. The outer edges were radiused by sanding, then 2 compound
sculpting putty was applied into all the interior corners to mimic
casting radiuses. Once the putty was dry and sanded even, Mr.
Surfacer 500 (from a bottle) was stippled on using a stiff brush, to
represent a sand/casting texture. this was then smoothed to various
degrees (EI. more at edges where wear from boots would occur) to
soften & vary the texture. Bolts heads consist of modified
Grandt nbw's, and etched brass pieces from an Eduard PE set. All the
rivets (.018 & .023 dia) were made using a Waldron punch &
die set. The arced "rain/drip gutter) is made of .005 styrene,
and will eventually shield the gauges. Still lots to do here.
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The next step was trying to set up an old
Mattel "Vac-U-Form", so I could form the rear cab
bulkhead....so here is the long & drawn-out process.
First step was to make the perforated .010 styrene sheets that would
fit the VF's frame. To do this I used an original mfr's. sheet of
.020 that came with the machine when I purchased it.
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Next I made the "positive", over
which the styrene would be formed, and attached it to the VF's
surface using some double stick tape. This was made/milled on the
X/Y table, to make sure all sides were parallel and square to each
other. (I made the positive out of 1/4" Poplar sanded to a
600 finish; I would have preferred a wood like Jelutong but used
what I had on hand.) Extra "suction holes" were drilled
along the base of the "positive" to ensure tight and
proper forming.
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The positive and the styrene were placed
into the VF, and the the styrene was heated by the heating
element......
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....it pretty quickly became evident that
the heating element was not going to generate enough heat to do
what I needed (IE. soften the plastic enough)....but after a while
I went ahead and swung the sheet down over the
"positive" anyway.
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The styrene was not having any of it....it
refused to pull down more than the slightest bit before it cooled,
so I decided to give it a little help using a heat gun, which
helped a bit, but as you can see, not enough.
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The piece above clearly pointed out some
problems with what I was trying to do.
A. The heating element did not get hot enough.
B. The "positive" was too deep and long for the size of
the plastic sheet and forming surface.
C. The heat gun needed to be used with care, or it would cause the
styrene to curl/deform incorrectly.
This is evidenced by the stress tenting at the corners, and even
after help with the heat gun....which caused holes at the corners,
and unwelcome "thinning" of the styrene at the
bend/edge/
Since my time was running out with this, I devised a very quick
and improvised solution. I merely duct taped the entire VF
surface insert with the positive, directly onto the shop vac
nozzle.
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....I then simply laid a piece of styrene
over it, and blasted it with the heat gun....ooooops.....
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The next sheet
was angle cut at the corners (to alleviate any "stress
tenting").....and loosely held in place over the VF bed, with
some photographic tape.
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This resulted
in the three remaining pieces giving me usable formed blanks
(shown here after most of the excess has been trimmed)
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These blanks were then cut to size and
shape, using the "positive" as a backing to hold them
true and ridged during cutting and drilling.
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And here is the final rear bulkhead with
some of the additional detailing.
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The final loco, with all the details, prior
to receiving paint.
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| Painting |
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The
model after two coats of "Mr. Surfacer 1200" primer
(with some light filling and sanding after the first coat).
Unfortunately the primer has brought out many of the small air
bubble holes in the poor quality resin castings...some I filled,
others are just to much of a pain to deal with cleanly (and new
ones keep coming up when sanding in areas).....so I will hopefully
be able to integrate and conceal these during the painting and
especially the weathering stages.
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I decided to
focus on the frame, and some detail work first, so I went through
my paints, and pulled the colors I thought would work for the
"color modulation" process, and for what I envisioned
the end result to be. I began to make a swatch chart of the colors
straight from the bottles, and then some mixed colors using
different ratios and combinations, to get some of the
desired/needed colors.
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#1, is Vallejo #814 "Cadmium Umber
Red", this I decided was going to be the dark starting point
for the process, and would in part also double as the
"Pre-Shading" step I usually do at this point.
#2, will be the eventual intended "main/primary" color
of the frame. (This is a mix of 3 parts #908 "Carmine
Red", 1 part #946 "Dark Red", and 1 part #829
"Purpleheart Red")
#3, is sort of an "Old Rust" color I needed for areas
where parts had been removed from the loco and the exposed
unpainted metal had oxidized over time (This is a mix of 5 parts
#814 "Burnt. Cadmium Red", 2 parts #822 German Camo
Black-Brown, 2 parts #829 Purpleheart Red)
...and here is the result:
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stomach the paint finish; the color was off, and far too dark, so
last night I soaked the frame in isopropyl alcohol & stripped
it and applied a new light coat of Mr Surfacer resin primer.
Before applying color this time, I
decided to brush apply Tamiya "Nato Black" into the
radiator grille slits, the recesses for the radiator and fuel filler
cap locations, into the stack hole, and into the top of the open
sanding box. I used Nato black for this, as it is more of a dark
grey, than a complete black...this makes the end appearance less
jarring, and more in "scale".
This was followed by a brush application of Vallejo #862
"Black Grey", into the openings at the link-and-pin
couplers, around the outside of the couplers, on the back and
sides of the transmission housing, on the floor of the cab, and on
the top of the driver seat area.
.....then back to the color chart...
This shows the three color combination I was thinking of for the
upper portion of the loco. [The yellow splatter is what happens
when the Vallejo bottle tip clogs up...you squeeze too hard...and
the entire tip explodes off!...I am still finding splatter in my
work area. )
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A view with the
rear wall removed, showing the dark grey areas.
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The
rest of the views showing the application of the first colors.
This time on the red, I decided to just use straight Vallejo #814
"Cadmium Umber Red", rather than the previous mixed
color, as it will make for darker shading.
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The next paint
step was to apply a mix of 3-parts #908 "Carmine Red",
1-part #829 "Purpleheart Red", and 1-part
#946 "Dark Red" , applying it so that it hit primarily
the top and faces of the projecting parts, leaving the deeper
areas, and areas that would be in shadow, in the base color.
Once dry, 1-part #918 "Ivory" was added to the above
mix, and applied/shaded onto some of the furthest projecting
faces, as well as top surfaces.
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Lastly some of
the projecting top edges, surfaces, and details were picked out
using a 10/0 brush applying a mix of 1-part #829 "Purpleheart",
with 1-part #944 "Old Rose" Note also that the areas
previously masked with Gum Arabic have been exposed.
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bonnet and cab
sections, I felt some of the underside and lower areas needed a
deeper color, or have a more "shadowed" appearance. For
this a mix of 2-parts #904 "Dark Blue Grey", 1-part #862
"Black Grey", and 1-part #979 "German Camo Dark
Green", was used.
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This was
followed by an application of Tamiya XF-12.
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Next came the
rear bulkhead/cab wall; the first step was to mask off the areas
on the rear bulkhead that were to remain rust, and the 'L' Angle
parts on the base/loco floor, that will receive the upper color.
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Once the 'L
angles parts on the base were masked, they received a quick brush
application of #904 "Dark Blue Grey" (once dry this was
then lightly sprayed from directly above with XF-12)
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The Bonnet
section and the rear bulkhead were then sprayed from above at a
slight angle, with a mix of 4-parts XF-12, and 1-part XF-1
"White" to accentuate the light modulation.
Once dry a 50/50 mix of Vallejo #971 "Green Grey", and
#918 "Ivory" was brush applied to the top edges of the
bulkheads, tops of handles & wing-nuts, bolts on transmission,
levers, gauge drip guard.....and various other detail
surfaces/edges.
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This is
basically the completed modulation. I will try to add and accentuate
the modulation on the upper portions a slight bit more, during the
application of the "filters".
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After the application of Red, yellow and
blue filters, using Windsor Newton artists oils, as well as some
panel fading using white artists oils.
I was also able to accentuate the modulation a slight bit, by the
manner/direction in which the filters were applied and layered. I
did not "weep" the linseed oil from the Artists oils
before applying the filters, as I wanted them to provide/leave a
satin finish when dry....thus giving me a more realistic painted
metal appearance, as well as providing contrast for the coming
weathering steps.
In between waiting for the filters to dry I also started doing the
chipping inside the cab area, as well as the handles on the
bonnet.
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