Bridge Crane Construction Part 5

Well it’s finely done. Painting it turned out to be more of a chore than I thought. I used a whole bottle of Floquil “reefer orange” to paint the main structure and the cab was painted Floquil “CNW yellow”. The bucket cable and spools were painted with Floquil “weathered black”. The roofs on the mechanical house and electrical cabinet cover were painted Floquil “roof brown”, along with the interior of the unload shut. All of the orange and yellow was air brushed. The roofs, cable and unload shut were painted with a brush.

I did not use the window material supplied in the kit. Depending on the model and its location dictates what kind of window material I use. In this case I went with Micro-scale “Kristal Klear”, when applied to an individual window pane it will dry fairly flush. What is Kristal Klear? It’s a liquid material that resembles white glue, when it dries it’s clear. The trick for getting a great looking window will depend on how much material you apply to the opening. You want to apply as little as possible. I typically fill the opening quickly with a fare amount, and then I take my applicator and push it through the opening and back it out slowly to remove excess material. You want the middle of the area you just completed to look like it’s already dried (clear). The edges take longer because there’s more material there. The nice thing about this product is that if you don’t like your results just simply scrape out the opening and try again. I recommend practicing on left over windows from other projects first. You will need to develop your own technique. It can get a little frustrating.

Finishing touches; I added a few decals on the cab and mechanical housing, then I air brushes them and the window treatments with Testors “Dulcoat”.

Making steel slab loads for gondola's

During our last train show I discovered just how many gondola's I had with no loads. I usually make loads as I purchase new cars, obviously that didn't work out to good. (Didn't keep up!) Most of the loads I have are removable, with a few exceptions. I came up with and easy way of making slab loads. I know this may sound unorthodox but I use 1/16" X 1/2" hard wood strips. For as many as I need, woods cheaper. I usually make the loads 5 to 6 slabs per stack, after cutting the wood to a desired lenght (these I very as well), I use between 240 and 320 grit sand paper to smooth the cut ends. Then I glue the strips together and set aside to dry, once dry I paint them with Floquil "reefer grey". When they are dry, I run my thumb across the wood to remove any remaining fuze from the slabs. Then I glue on the cross boards they set on. These are basically unstained scale railroad ties. The last thing I do is to find newspaper flyer's with bar codes. The bar codes are cut into long narrow strips vertically to the lines. The strips are no thicker than a slab, they make good labels for the ends. Keep in mind that most loads are viewed from a distance. They may not be prototypically correct, but to me they look just fine. You be the judge.

Bridge Crane Construction - Part 4

I completed the construction portion of the crane last night. The last thing I needed to do was to build the operators cab and the clam shell bucket. I substituted the string that was included in the kit with .00015 piano wire from K&S. It cleans up the overall appearance of the bucket assembly not to mention it won’t get twisted up.

As you can tell by the photos I changed the appearance of my unloading shut. Mine is a little lower with side detail that may not be quit right, but since I could not find any good pictures of this area of the cane I kind a winged it. The overall appearance looks good to me. If anyone can provide a close-up picture of how they really look, I would probably change it if it didn’t require a great deal of work.

Bridge Crane Construction - Part 3

Well figuring out how the catwalks and stairways will flow around the leg of the crane is certainly a challenge. I ended up changing it a couple times before deciding on what you see. The deciding factor was the positioning of the mechanical housing structure. Once that was placed I began cutting and fitting the platforms and the stairways per the photo’s. I added additional bracing after I finished gluing on the railings. All I need to do to finish this portion of the project is to add lamps and electrical boxes on top of the drive system on this leg. I’ll follow some of the examples I’ve found from photos and Dean’s crane project. Also add a dump shut to load self propelled Larry’s on the highline.

Bridge Crane Construction - Part 2

Since the top portion has not been attached to the legs permanently yet, I began installing the Plastruct handrails P/N #90682, down the catwalks on both sides of the crane way. The stair ways and rails are made from Plastruct P/N’s #90662, and 90692. As you can see in the photo they will be installed on one side of the back leg. I also began installing additional bracing on the inside “A” frame sections on the rear legs. I used .00020 strip styrene for the gussets, and Evergreen styrene #263 channel. I've been spending a lot of time trying to find better pictures of cranes to get more ideas for detailing options.

Bridge Crane Construction - Part 1

Last night I started building the Walthers bridge crane kit that I purchased sometime ago. I was able to get the whole top portion completed in one long night. The kit allows you 3 options for the overall length; 1) short extension, 2) long extension, 3) or using both. I went with just the long extension; it still makes a pretty large crane, not to mention I don’t have enough room. I’m planning for this to go on one of my new modules.

Also began constructing the drive units at the bottom. Believe it or not they are taking longer to build than the upper portion. Overall the instructions have been pretty good to this point. I do plan to super detail the crane as Dean Freytag did went he built his. Let’s face it, when he added the extra’s it made the finished product look pretty awesome. If you didn't see it follow the Peach Creek Hobbies link, then click on Steel Mill Project, then click on photo galleries, then click new photos, at this point you'll see his article. My version will be different, but I hope the results are as good.

Detailed Walthers Slag Car w/drop-in loads

At the last train show here in Raleigh, I purchased a three pack of older Walther slag cars. To these cars I added the standard grab irons, but also add styrene strips along the top portion of the pot. This was to represent variation in pots. Most pictures I've seen of pots did not look like this but similar. As you can see from the pictures they don't look too bad.

Photo 1: As you can see, they do break-up the standard Walthers pot. (It would be nice to get better variations.)

One of the issues I've had with these cars is that they don't track very well, too light. The cars could end up traveling several feet to 30 or 40' feet away depending how far away the slag dump module ends up. In the car itself there's virtually no room to add weight. The method I came up with to solve this problem was the load. Before assembling the kit I use the pot as a mold to make hydrocal loads. I pre-color the hydrocal with orange or black acrylic paint depending on the type of load. Before pouring the hydorcal in the pot I place several "BB's" in to add weight. I typically make 3 types of loads; 1) a full orange load representing a fresh pour, 2) a full orange load with the top edges painted with "acrylic graphite paint with sand added to it for texture, and 3) a half black load to use when returning the empty cars. The cars are weighted more than NMRA standards with the loads. I typically weigh all my cars greater than the NMRA standards, not that I disagree with them but with today's better motive power and metal wheels the extra weight doesn't seem to matter. One thing is for sure, with all the typical NMRA checks that I use, coupler height, wheel alignment, and weighted cars I have very minimal derailments.

Photo 2: This shows you how nice the molds come out, the pre-coloring allows for chipping. If a piece chips off, it still looks the same.


Photo 3: This shows you how well the mold fit.

Detailing Walthers Hot Metal car

Last night I finished one of my bottle cars. I installed end grabs and coupler lift bar. The lift bar I made from .00010 wire, I followed the design pictured on the cover of the "Bethlehem Steel Railroading" book for this particular car.



Here are a few pictures of another car that I did using a lift bar that goes from side to side. This car was weathered by painting the trucks Floquil "roof brown", and surface areas facing up. Next I sprayed on light layers of Floquil "rust", the dark patches in various areas are made from standard craft acrylic dark brown paint.

The skull on top is done by gluing on "Highball" ballast, once dry I painted it first to the color of the bottle car, then Floquil "graphite" at the top. This is to represent fresh spillage.