This Intermountain injection plastic kit needed some super detailing and back-dating into the steam era. You can still sense the modern era reporting marks “COTTON BELT” under the “St. Louis Southwestern” stenciling. It is my experience that overspraying with Tamiya grey primer is totally sufficient to make the lettering disappear. The rised caracter of the lettering is still a bit visible but once the model is done, you can’t find it. I had to match the brown color of the kit since I only replaced that part of the lettering.
I want all my cars the have a weight of approximately 350 grams. To achieve that it is often necessary to add quite some heavy stuff to the model. To ensure good riding quality and prevent the weights from coming loose over time I designed and printed PLA weight holders that fit perfectly into the car shell. Using a drill template I can hide the screws in the underframe. I use ordinary steel strips to center the weight to the middle of the car, increasing stabiliy.
This time I really wanted to add coupler lift bars and wire grab irons for secure handling. The hand brake fulcrum is a Precision Scale Co. part. All brake rods have been carried out in brass. That is by now a standard and it really pays off when it comes to handling the car after painting. I really love the underframe of freight cars and I’ll incorporate a rised section of track to the layout where you can watch the underframe of a long string of freight cars rolling by at eye level.
I realized that the Camel door hardware wasn’t well designed, I’ve then drawn new ones in Fusion 360 and printed these in resin. They turned out better than I thought and really add a lot of realsm to the doors. I’m happy to share these files in my download section with you. Just be sure to have enough supports under the tiny pars. They really stand out when painted, washed and very gently dry brushed with a light dust color.
These metal roof walks are parts from All Nation Line and I had to trim them a bit with sharp pliers. They rest on styrene strips and are glued in place with CA. There are other running boards out there but these look great and Mr. Wubbel of All Nation Line is a great person and very helpful.
The weathering was done with oils and I’m constantly working on my style. I slowly build the layers and do a lot of trial and error in the process. Oils seem to me the media of joice here and I will continue to learn and improve.
The Cotton Belt Route is one of the many railroads that I have the pleasure to model on it’s way across the continental divide. This hobby has so many aspects and I’m having a ton of fun!
Fantastic modeling!
Beautiful work, Sarah!
Thanks Tom! 🙂
Great looking car!
Thank you Jamie 🙂
I have found that wet-sanding with some extremely fine grain sand paper can remove the factory lettering without having to strip the car body. 400 grit or finer is needed to keep the paint smooth, but of you will have to repaint the car, of course