Riograndad
Model Railroading, boats and oil painting,
A few weeks ago I visited the Norfolk coast for the day and picked up a couple of the cheaper range of Chinese low sided gondola cars,at 22 quid a car was it was against the law not too
,instant bash material,although in DR markings they could make a reasonable US outline model.I decided that I would do one at a time just to see how they would turn out so to start took the first car apart to get a feel of how it went together,nice simple construction,first job was to take off the ridge around the top of all 4 car sides,it looks as if it is a metal plate along the tops so using dremel off it came and not bothered too much on the finish as rough boarding was going to be the finished item,next using a razor saw ran along the board lines and cut through in a number of places and then with dremel,knife and various files the boards were separated and aged,then a hacksaw blade run along the top to "grain" the tops,the same was done to the inner boards giving a rough grained look.The chassis frame on the car appears to be metal so this also grained to give a wooden car throughout and a more narrow gauge effect,If I`m honest it would have been easier to make up new sides but a lot less fun
The holes in the end platforms were filled and a brakewheel from the scrap box added,then a coat of brown all over,the metalwork the painted dark grey to give a faded black effect and then thinned dark grey to weather and tone it all down,some weather dust to the trucks too but will finish the weathering when the other car gets done
,,well it`s one way to spend a wet weekend,pics are best I could do as light fading and raining again
,instant bash material,although in DR markings they could make a reasonable US outline model.I decided that I would do one at a time just to see how they would turn out so to start took the first car apart to get a feel of how it went together,nice simple construction,first job was to take off the ridge around the top of all 4 car sides,it looks as if it is a metal plate along the tops so using dremel off it came and not bothered too much on the finish as rough boarding was going to be the finished item,next using a razor saw ran along the board lines and cut through in a number of places and then with dremel,knife and various files the boards were separated and aged,then a hacksaw blade run along the top to "grain" the tops,the same was done to the inner boards giving a rough grained look.The chassis frame on the car appears to be metal so this also grained to give a wooden car throughout and a more narrow gauge effect,If I`m honest it would have been easier to make up new sides but a lot less funThe holes in the end platforms were filled and a brakewheel from the scrap box added,then a coat of brown all over,the metalwork the painted dark grey to give a faded black effect and then thinned dark grey to weather and tone it all down,some weather dust to the trucks too but will finish the weathering when the other car gets done
,,well it`s one way to spend a wet weekend,pics are best I could do as light fading and raining again
