Best Of Detailing the Micro-Trains BNSF Fuselage Set

[wcfn100]

Same thing @2:00.

Jason

[pmpexpress]

I can't figure out if this video is fake or not.  I find the first four containers way more amusing than they actually are.  But then that 5th one!   

It's gotta be fake, right?   

Mark,

Have previously viewed several other videos of similar Intermodal moves.

Apparently, these empty aircraft components containers are shipped back to Japan.

P.S: Please check your TRW Inbox, as I have been trying to get in touch with you.

[atsf3751]

This next part may not be for the faint of heart.  Let's take a look at the green paint.

I realize the limitations of scale metallic paint, but let's try an experiment.  I  dipped a small brush in paint thinner, dabbed it on a paper towel, then wiped the paper towel with multiple very light pressure passes. I'm quite impressed by the result!

Mark could you provide a little more detail on this process. I assume the paper towel was just wet, not drenched and you started on the bottom, went over the top continuing to the bottom on the other side. I am now weathering the cars and will get to the planes next.

[Mark W]

Yep, error on the side of too little thinner until you get the hang of it.  I used Testors Airbrush Thinner.  You can even mask off some of the more obvious sections/panels and do different directions.


Long post, TLDR: Watch for printing defects, be extra careful when cutting the second brushgurad from spruce, upside down jewel case is clever but needs a fix.

I also found a few more things to be aware of.  First on the 3D printed Brushguards.  They should look like the one on the left, thin supporting rods all the way.  I'm not sure what happened to the one on the right, and at first glance, it looks ok, the actual part is still crisp.  But once I cut it out, the reverse side was very smoothed over. Luckily, some delicate filing work fixed it for me, but if you're less comfortable with that I'm sure MT will gladly provide a replacement.


http://i.imgur.com/vuIu62I.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/HjJ1xLq.jpg

Moving on, cutting the rest of the brushguard from the good print, I broke one of the support beams again, exactly the same one I did before.  This is the middle part, sandwiched between the top exposed part and the material 'tray'.  Unlike the first time, I was going extra careful this time.  I even bought a pair of Xuron etch cutters with the very thin long tips to get in at the tight spaces.  Inspecting the part and break further revealed exactly what happened.  The photo may be a little difficult to see, but the supporting material holds the angle beam at almost double the size of every other point.  On this particular location, the adjacent spruce point is also a lot closer than otherwise. 
So what happens is, if you cut the smaller spruce first, the pressure it imparts on the the angle beam snaps it off because that spruce point is extra thick.  Instead, you want to cut the thicker spruce point first, which will allow the smaller spruce to freely snap off. 

http://i.imgur.com/nxgfXgK.jpg

Lastly, this is probably feedback better suited for Micro-Trains directly, the package is designed such that the center flat car is installed in it's jewel box upside down.  It's pretty clever I thought, until I received all of my sets. 
I ended up with 7 sets from 4 sources.  3 of those sets from 3 different sources had damage to the center flat, the worst being two exploded couplers and broken break wheel.  A friend also reports a broken break wheel on his center flat. 

http://i.imgur.com/Z3dUK99.jpg

What happens is that the plastic bed sits snugly in the bottom of the jewel box.  However the box is tapered outward toward the top, so sitting upside down, that plastic bed has almost a quarter inch of play in both directions.  Clearly that quarter inch makes a big difference in holding the car securely during shipping.  For a quick fix on future releases, I think a bit of clear tape on insert over the top lip of the case would eliminate this. 



Whew, ok let's end on a positive note now!  I saw a photo of a modified skybox that looked like two component boxes with the angled front chopped off and squeezed together.  Here's my version:


http://i.imgur.com/NLPs3Ir.jpg

[Edit: Image URLs]

[atsf3751]

Thanks Mark, very informative. I only have one set and it, fortunately, was perfect. I used my sprue cutters to get all the parts cut apart and was lucky enough to do so without breaking anything. Your idea of using the car grab to hold the brush guard is quite clever and worked perfectly. Once I had filed and sanded the 3D parts, I sprayed them all with gray paint except for the one part I painted black.

I added grabs to the brush guard (not as many as you) but left the 50' flat as MT provided it. I usually subscribe to the 3' rule and weathering is more visible than grabs. I have no info one way or the other so I will assume the brush guard is not steel so no rust will be added.

[peteski]

It is typical for MTL to alternate the orientation of jewel boxes in shrink-wrapped multi-packs.  They have been doing that since they started shrink wrapping years ago.  It is done because the jewel box is shaped like an Isosceles trapezoid. If they were all oriented right side up, when shrink wrapped the package would end up in an downward arc shape.   By alternating the boxes the shrink wrapped package ends up being flat.  I'm not sure why there is damage to the upside down models. The plastic nest should support the mode equally well in either orientation.

[Mark W]

The up and down support is the same yes, but when the nest is flipped so that it's holding the car from the top of the jewel box instead of the bottom (the car is sandwiched between the nest and the bottom of the jewel box rather than the nest and the lid), there is more side to side and front to back movement, allowing the car to build up kinetic energy. 

Looking closer, if they simply leave the nest in the bottom and just flip the paper insert to the other side, you get the same advantage of packing adjacent cases, and the car remains snug in all directions. 

[Mark W]

Anybody have any idea what this box is? 


http://s3.amazonaws.com/rrpa_photos/55642/1e%2004-19-2010%20Seattle%20040.jpg

It appears to be collapsible when loaded.  I can only guess there are mounting parts that stay with the flatcar, which are stored in the erect box when the fuselage is unloaded.     

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rrpa_photos/24712/august%2012%20057.JPG


[Edit: Image URLs]

[heyrob]

I can't figure out if this video is fake or not.  I find the first four containers way more amusing than they actually are.  But then that 5th one!   

It's gotta be fake, right?   

No it's not fake, these are special containers used for various parts of planes built at the Boeing Everett Plant. These do not travel by rail except from the barge dock in Mukilteo (47°57'12.6"N 122°17'18.2"W) up the 5.6% grade of "Boeing Hill" to the plant. The locomotives are assigned to this job and carry extra concrete ballast to help tractive effort on the steep climb.

Here's another video that shows the extra high and wide containers...

[heyrob]

Anybody have any idea what this box is? 



It appears to be collapsible when loaded.  I can only guess there are mounting parts that stay with the flatcar, which are stored in the erect box when the fuselage is unloaded.     

You are correct, the collapsible box is for shipping the various mounting components back with the empty car. This photo appears to be taken just outside and to the east of the Renton plant where empties are sometimes left between the trains bringing loads (47.501020, -122.198918). They never leave the loaded cars outside the plant likely to avoid any potential vandalism, there are extra storage tracks inside the plant (47.496798, -122.207266 & 47.496616, -122.211111)

[heyrob]

In regard to my previous posts about the barge dock below the Boeing Everett  plant, check out this video from the north part of the Mukilteo area, the video opens with a south looking view where the barge dock is plainly visible in the background. The train approaches with large extra wide Skyboxes, which are taken out of the train, and were left on a siding just south of the barge dock for delivery up the Boeing Hill to the Everett plant. Before the train continues to Seattle and then on the Renton. Also notice that there are no short, slope front, skyboxes accompanying any of the fuselages, that is because they were actually discontinued several years ago when production of the vertical & horizontal stabilizers was moved from Wichita to China. Those parts now arrive in Renton in huge plywood boxes made of bamboo. So if you're running current Boeing trains, a 50' idler car behind the fuselage is all that is necessary. I for one am glad that MTL included these with the set, as by the time I decided to model the train and wanted dimensions of the skybox, they were no longer coming to Renton. 

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Also, here is a video of the "Renton Rocket" delivering a pair of fuselages on the few blocks of street running in downtown Renton, likely the source of an earlier photo in this thread.

[peteski]

@heyrob , it great to have you here - you are a walking source of really cool reference material on a fairly obscure subject.

[pmpexpress]

Also notice that there are no short, slope front, skyboxes accompanying any of the fuselages, that is because they were actually discontinued several years ago when production of the vertical & horizontal stabilizers was moved from Wichita to China. Those parts now arrive in Renton in huge plywood boxes made of bamboo. So if you're running current Boeing trains, a 50' idler car behind the fuselage is all that is necessary. I for one am glad that MTL included these with the set, as by the time I decided to model the train and wanted dimensions of the skybox, they were no longer coming to Renton. 

heyrob.

Really appreciate your extensive knowledge of the prototype.

Now I understand why BNSF 800036 was photographed by Joe Rogers, on 09/11/17, in Garrison, Montana, without the component box that is seen in the Micro-Trains model release.

Also explains why the majority of the videos that I have viewed show consists with box-less idler flatcars, which may or may not be accompanied by oversize skybox cars with canopies that appear to be attached to some kind of a heavy duty well-car.

Was unable to locate any photos or reference information for BNSF 800042, the second idler flatcar reporting number that is also included in the Micro-Trains set.

[atsf3751]

The latest videos are nice because I saw something that I failed to notice before. The fuselage number on the side of the plane. This is not part of the MT decal set and will be one more detail to add.

[peteski]

The latest videos are nice because I saw something that I failed to notice before. The fuselage number on the side of the plane. This is not part of the MT decal set and will be one more detail to add.

I mentioned those, and posted a photo back  on the 2nd page of this thread. 

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=42472.msg535966#msg535966