Sorry I missed your post Brian.
The MT gondola with the straight sides has the brake wheel on one end, on the side. Where that brake wheel is, the end post is extra thick (or wide). So after I had sanded it down to what I thought was the right width, I ended up with one side shorter than the other. The alternative is to leave the post about twice the thickness as it should be. Rock and a hard place for me.
Make any sense? I'll post a pick when I get a chance.
Anyway, so I don't just leave this hanging, I have finished one side which isn't much further than before.
What I really wanted to add right now is as I was cutting up another 48000 series gondola for a possible mold, I came across something that changed this whole project.
I had originally chosen the car style for the straight sides even though there is no fixed end version. There is a fixed end fish-belly side but the ends are wrong and I didn't want to lose the rivet row by sanding it flat. But alas, the fixed side gondola has the exact same rivet row i.e it runs right off the bottom of the cars side anyways - news to me. So any future models will probably fish-bellys sanded flat with the wrong ends and a slight adjustment to the decal sheet. All of which will allow me not to have to make a mold for something I only need a couple of. At some point there will be another experement with more correct ends from a MT boxcar like I did with this one.
Hopefully this model will be done soon as my desk is getting piled up again.
Jason
