Your most challenging kit?

[C855B]

Wutter, your photos do no show up (I see lots of open space and "do not enter" symbols).  Host photos locally and eliminate this type of a problem. 

This has been happening a lot in the past couple of weeks - "googleusercontent.com" images. Is it possible Google made an unannounced change to hotlinking? Not like we haven't seen this before ...ahem... Photobucket...?

[wazzou]

Wutter, your photos do no show up (I see lots of open space and "do not enter" symbols).  Host photos locally and eliminate this type of a problem. 

I see 'em.

[C855B]

I see 'em.

What's funny is I saw them initially, they vanished the next time I was in the thread, and now they're there again. And I've observed the same issue with other posters. There is something very weird going on with Google photo links.

[randgust]

Wow, Wutter, nice.    OK, you did convince me of one thing.   Those side window 'eaves' are just way too big and really do look far better if cut back.  And since they WERE adapted from 40' boxcars, that should work - good idea.   What did you use for a smokejack?

I'm seeing a theme here though.... Traincat!   The most phenomenal scale kits ever, but put on your big-boy pants.    I do miss Bob and a lot of others do too, and I hope that someday he can come back to it.   I still look at that Canyon Diablo bridge in wonderment and fear.

Back in my HO kit days there was "Suydam" in the building kit business, and they had one mine (Black Bart?) that was corrugated metal over cardboard.  Same phenomenon, used Goo, and it turned into metal-wrapped Bacon.  I did it when I was about 14 years old and it looked it.  I got Goo everywhere. 

I've had a couple Western Railcraft kits where the only thing worth saving was the etched brass sides, it was just easier to kitbash them onto another plastic Lima frame and roof than attempt to shape and deal with all the wood parts.     Back in the wonder years of N (1970's) I managed to build EVERY Quality Craft (later Gloor Craft) N scale craftsman car kit ever made, those were actually very good and the end products still look good by comparison today.  The all-door boxcar and the PRR cabooses were particularly good.

[jpwisc]

Wutter, your photos do no show up (I see lots of open space and "do not enter" symbols).  Host photos locally and eliminate this type of a problem. 

I see them too, and they look really nice.

[bnsfdash8]

Mine has been the Briggs Models C40-8M. I have yet to finish mine, I haven't been able to get the model to run right. One of these days I'll take the trucks back apart and give it another try. I wish I had a second kit to start completely fresh from, but it has been a fun/challenging build so far though.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

This thread is starting to look like my nightmare workbench:

N Scale Nevada Piggy Packer PC70... I have one about 90% done. What an awful kit. Etched parts are just supposed to be glued "floating" on the side without mounting pegs or holes. And that cab. A door without a flange to mount it on, just a hole. The less we talk about the wheels, the better.

On the TC2 N9 caboose... I have two kits and am afraid to start them. The roof is what really got to me. Each corrugation is separate! They are spaced correctly on the fret, but there is no way to transfer that spacing when building the model, as you need to cut each out and bend it to match the roof peak. Insanity.

On the Briggs engine kits... Was it Briggs or Kaslo that made a custom run of F45s for SAR (Southern Alberta Rail)? It wasn't a horrible kit to build.


Shortly after these photos were taken, the paint attacked the model resin and it literally melted. MELTED. Like scraping goop out of the motor cavity melted. To this day I don't know why or how this happened. Unfortunately SAR was out of spare parts, which annoyed me to no end. Then Athearn came out with their F45 and that was that.

Speaking of impossible resin shell projects, this one actually broke me:



I got to the handrails and they did me in. Nothing mounted square. Nothing stayed put. Suddenly I was looking at redrilled gaping holes along the walkway. There was no remedy. It just couldn't be built and I gave up. I think the mechanism is under my Mass Central GP20/GP38-1.

Now for some Worcester Union Station shots:





And (mostly) finished:



This rotunda was the hardest part of the kit. Nothing lined up here. In fact the roof had a 1/4"gap! I used scrap plywood from the cut sheets to fill the roof area in and then used masking tape over it to hide the seams. The masking tape actually blended in with the engraved "seams" really well.

This tower alone took three months to build.

And the Prototype:

The real tower.

I need to re-shoot this now that I have an 8mm ultra wide angle lens

The back side. Rotunda is to the left.

Side of the building looking back. Rotunda is in the rear.


The interior is even more beautiful than the exterior.

[Wutter]

Wow, Wutter, nice.    OK, you did convince me of one thing.   Those side window 'eaves' are just way too big and really do look far better if cut back.  And since they WERE adapted from 40' boxcars, that should work - good idea.   What did you use for a smokejack?

The side window eaves I actually made from a piece of scrap styrene on both sides after filling in the hole in the wall as best as I could, I didn't use the etched piece at all. The smokestack is from my parts bin, I think from a MicroTrains caboose originally, although I know Kato also made the same style available for their cupola cabooses. 

[randgust]

On the TC2 N9 caboose... I have two kits and am afraid to start them. The roof is what really got to me. Each corrugation is separate! They are spaced correctly on the fret, but there is no way to transfer that spacing when building the model, as you need to cut each out and bend it to match the roof peak. Insanity.

I can help on that one.   If you look at the instructions, you cut loose the entire fret (which has the corrugation spacing right, and glue the panels on the roof sheet without separating them from the fret.  Let dry, then cut the fret off.  Brilliant.   And if you want just the center ribs like on the later N9 I'm doing, you removed the stamp panels first and just leave on the riveted ribs.  That part worked great.   I bent the roof, tinned it and soldered it on, then also bent the fret with the ribs on, glued it on, worked fine first time.   Fear not the roof, fear the stanchions.....  For some reason there's double sheets of the stainless, one with a ladder and one without, so you get a lot of extras.   I never have found the N9A wood floor panels that I don't need though.

I can't say as I've ever seen any kit manufacturer do that - put the entire second-layer etch or panel on the 'sprue' so that you glued it all up and then cut it loose to get the spacing absolutely right.   You have to give him credit on that one.

[bbussey]

N Scale Nevada Piggy Packer PC70... I have one about 90% done. What an awful kit. Etched parts are just supposed to be glued "floating" on the side without mounting pegs or holes. And that cab. A door without a flange to mount it on, just a hole. The less we talk about the wheels, the better.

To be fair, the kit was released nearly 30 years ago.  I made modifications to mine as I went along.  I used stainless steel handrails and I drilled holes in the deck to mount them.  Made other changes also, but I don't recall given how long ago I built it.  The hydraulics were the most difficult step for me from what I remember.  I didn't have any issues with the wheels.

[TVRR]

The Ms4 Southern 2-8-2 that I am currently working on has been the most difficult so far. I find myself working on it for half an hour or so then have to back away. Some days I just can not manage the patience required. Drilling the steam turret for wire insertion was maddening, had wondered why there were so many included. Same for the check valves.  However progress is being made-the end is in sight.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wow, Wutter, nice.    OK, you did convince me of one thing.   Those side window 'eaves' are just way too big and really do look far better if cut back.  And since they WERE adapted from 40' boxcars, that should work - good idea.   What did you use for a smokejack?

Whoa whoa whoa.
The design might've been influenced by boxcar manufacturing, but these cars were definitely built from scratch to be cabooses:
http://www.hebners.net/CR/crN9.html

[randgust]

OK, Ed, now just so you know - Bob's instructions say that the cabooses were built on the frames of retired 40' boxcars, not adapted from the bodies.

My issue on where the heck to place the cast underframe details (as there are no diagrams) only works because of that tidbit.

On a scale of Conrail knowledge, I probably don't budge the needle other than what I personally observed and I'll always defer to any CRHS member.   One of those details I do remember is that on the last CR train out of Warren, there was apparently no place to hide all the beer inside the N9 bringing up the rear - when the trainmaster showed up unannounced, all the beer cases and liquor bottles went right back into the trunk of the car it came out of.   So the interiors were pretty empty!

[sd45elect2000]

The traincat chlorine cars aren't a piece of cake either. They do make a unique and interesting car though. I wonder where mine are ?

Randy

[craigolio1]

Mine has been the Briggs Models C40-8M. I have yet to finish mine, I haven't been able to get the model to run right. One of these days I'll take the trucks back apart and give it another try. I wish I had a second kit to start completely fresh from, but it has been a fun/challenging build so far though.

Yup. This one. ^^^^^.

I've got it painted and spent a MASSIVE amount of time tuning the trucks. I think it might run but to get it to go together properly and for the trucks to move/swivel properly I had to remove a lot of material. I'm afraid I went too far and am hesitant to finish assembling it, haha. If I do and it breaks then what?!

The kit should have come with two spare trucks.

Craig