Thanks, Matt.
Maybe it won't be so rarely modeled once people learn just how easy this was to do? I was a little surprised myself.
The only really tricky part is the roof. I basically held the roof in my left hand, then pressed the rounded side of the roof ribs into the plywood and held it long enough for the CA to start setting. After a minute or two, I could let up the pressure with one hand and grab the kicker to make sure things are set. If you locate the ribs right, you get a press fit and everything holds together neatly.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Impressive work on such a rarely modeled car.
Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, COClick Here for my model train photo website
Thanks, Wayne.
Yeah, and people thought Polaroid came up with crowding everyone into a photo. Long before that sort of instantaneous feedback in the form of the picture developing, people wanted to jump in front of the camera. I'll bet that was hard on roofs, too.
Nice work, Mike. The arched-top panels on the baggage doors and on the end door's window may be details that only a Silverton fan would notice, but it's nice to see someone taking the time and effort to make those changes.
D'ya ever notice in those old photos that there's always some nut standing on the roof of a car or draped over the locomotive in unusual places? Set up a camera (a bit of a procedure back in those days) and by the time you're ready to open the shutter, some yoyo is there to ruin the picture.
Wayne
In this shot, most details have been added and things are about ready for paint. You can see the 7 windows, the curved panels tops in the baggage door and the flat roof..
Here are the end windows...
What can I say? Paint covers a multitude of small errors and things look much better...
I chose to paint the car in Pullman green. During it's service life, it's likely "Red Mountain" was always red, but since it's kept up to date, I presume it was eventually redone in green.
The decals are from Republic Locomotive Works and not exactly fresh (>15 years old) so were fragile. Fonts and sizing werre a bit off, too. But we can tell what she is even without them. Here, the Red Mountain arrives at Red Mountain depot.
And with decals....
I worked hard to get them to hunker down, might have to redo them, but for now the "Red Mountain" is hauling people and freight in revenue service.
What we need to come up with is a combine that has 7 windows on each side, in what is within 6" of the same space. Our prototype is the Silverton RR's combine, "Red Mountain." There are a number of pics of the car in the classic "The Rainbow Route" by Sloan and Skowronski, plus a plan of the sides only. Handily enough, the Denver Public Library's Western History photo collection has many of the pics in Rainbow Route available online. Here a link to one.
http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/71936/rv/singleitem/rec/8
Zoomed in, you can easily see the baggage end of the car, but also hints that there were windows in the passenger end. The angle is a bit strange, but I think I can see through end windows in it. In any case, end windows in cars of that era were not unusual, but soon became so for safety reasons as they were removed and boarded up. My build assumes the car was maintained and modernized some, but that the end windows were preserved.
Here are the "Red Mountain" spotting features I tried to capture.
* The flat roof -- It was not that unusual at the time, but was soon superceded by clerestory roofs for better ventilation
* Seven wider windows in the passenger section (instead of the 8 on the LaBelle combine)
* The top of the lower panels in the baggage doors is rounded, instead of squared off.
Beyond those there are details that differ, but most measurements are within a foot or less of the other once the flat roof is dealt with, which we'll get to in a moment.
I used a plate and magnets to hold things in place while the glued dried.
If I'd measured a little closer, I could've gotten them all right, but as is I have the window spacing about perfect on one side and pretty darned good on the other. A digital micrometer helped a lot with this. I used Titebond III wood glue, as well as gap-filling CA where appropriate.
Once the glue holding the sides set, I turned them over and smeared CA on the joints between the recycled wood pieces and the carside to reinforce them
Projects sometimes take a long time to bear fruit. This one started with purchasing an old LaBelle HOn3 D&RGW Combine kit, I think via ebay. These mostly wood with some metal and other details kits come up frequently, can also be found at those selected retailers who cater to the narrowgauge crowd, and direct from LaBelle itself: https://www.labellemodels.com/hon3-passenger-cars-c-21_25.html?osCsid=mtjmbblp01o53esm873aifc1q1
The kit I used was fairly old, but not a lot has changed as the company has earned its place among the favorites of those who like to build even as it changed hands over the years. You must supply trucks and couplers. I had some brass PSC Rio Grande 3' passenger trucks that were just what was needed to add some weight down low, plus a pair of trusty 714s.
The techniques used here could also be used to modify other LeBelle kits in this line, as they are very similar. I plan to build some other cars this way and maybe a motor car. The basic Labelle carside is a milled piece of wood with the grain running lengthwise/horizontally along the car side. The piece is trimmed to length and shaped according to which car it will be in the range of kits. It includes a belt rail under the window openings, a letter board above the windows which projects at each end, and something we'll use, the horizonatl wooden stile that represents the lower part of the fixed window in the upper window sash. . This is formed on the LaBelle car side as it is made and is visible all by itself in the lower of the two carsides in this pic.
The upper car side in the pic above is the stock LaBelle car side with its 8 windows on each side in the passenger compartment. The lower example has had the wood between the windows sliced loose, removed and saved. You could use new wood, but since LaBelle already cut it to fit another formed piece of wood that represents the are between the windors, it's just easier to recycle.
Next: The Prototype