Thanks, Jerry,

Quote from: deemery on July 21, 2026, 05:20:04 PMHere's an idea for the end railings

Thanks, Dave.

This is another offering from the Friends of the East Broad Top Co. Store:  a 3D printed bobber caboose No. 27/28 that was one of two predecessors to the steel-framed wood-sided no.'s 27 & 28 that the EBT built in the 1920's to scaled-down plans for the all-steel NE cabooses of the anthracite roads and the Western Maryland.  Both of those are still in service on the EBT.

No photos or instructions come with the kit [in fairness, I know of only one image of an EBT bobber, and it's copyright protected in the long out-of-print East Broad Top, by Rainey & Kyper (1984)].  I built the kit as it came in the box, substituting brass wire for platform end railing in lieu of the soft copper wire provided.  The photo in R&K shows corner grabs on the cupola roof, but I didn't mess with them.  Nor did I mess with probable platform end grabs.  Although pilot holes for platform end railings and brake wheel staffs are kindly printed into the car floor, none were evident on the cupola roof or end sills.

This is the kit unboxed:



I drilled out the pilot holes with a #74 micro drill bit (#75 gives a snug fit, but I prefer the easier insertion).  I hand-bent the end railings using small needle nose pliers, and, as the refuse pile in this image shows, I batted a little over .400 ... good therapy. Super glue on the protruding ends, then nip off the excess below the platform when set.



After spraying with Tamiya Light Primer and allowing it to set overnight, I used TrueColor Grime for the under carriage and Weathered Black for the platforms and cupola roof, both from spray cans (Grime has been discontinued, sadly).  Tamiya gloss True Red, again from a spray can, for the car body.  All were again allowed to set overnight.  By the way, even though this image was made while the paint was still curing, TrueColor flat paint in spray cans yields a semi-gloss finish that I've found has to be dulled with DullCoat.



After masking all the red surfaces (including the roof walks), I sprayed the roof Weathered Black.  Only a few touch-ups with TrueColor Brushable Flat Black were needed where the cupola sides meet the roof. 



Then I brush painted the printed-on car body side and end railings - phew.  Believe it or not, I was able to do that without getting any black on the red. The lighting in this image hides how brilliant that gloss Tamiya True Red really is.



I was banking on DullCoat toning it down after I got the decals on, and as you'll see in the next installment, it did.

Thanks for checking in.

More kind words!  Thanks.  I'm moving on to another build:  an EBT bobber caboose to add to the B&SGE freight roster.

Thanks, guys. 

Sometimes adding to a model railroad's rolling stock roster isn't so much a model-building task but only a matter of purchasing a brass piece, then painting and decalling it (if it isn't already factory-painted for a prototype).  This was the case with the presidential parlor/business car for my Blacklog & Shade Gap Eastern.  An EBay score several years ago brought a NWSL Ohio River & Western parlor car - painted an appropriate shade of green and lightly weathered - to the roster, where it languished in unlettered and unnamed limbo until now.  This is the car ready finally ready to go into service:



Clerestory window frames were filled with Evergreen .010 x .060" strip styrene affixed with superglue.

I over-sprayed the car with Tamiya Clear Coat to provide a smooth surface for lettering and numbers.  The road name is from one of 50 original sheets I had printed by Rail Graphics in the mid-1990s; they are in surprisingly good condition, with the clear film not brittle.  I have lettered this car and a combine (SEE "HOn3 Combine - EBT Prototype" in this same sub-forum) and had only one tear.  The car numbers came from an equally old sheet of EBT freight car decals from the Friends of the EBT Co. Store.

A railroad's business car has to have a name, and I chose "Hadessa," for my maternal grandmother, without whom I might never have discovered narrow-gauge railroads in general, and the EBT in particular, as a child.  Gramma Locke, known throughout lower Huntingdon County as "Dessie," rode the EBT on her journey to wed Pappy Locke back in 1912 and had a feeling of nostalgia for it, so when she learned that the EBT was going to reopen for rides during that fateful Homecoming Week in August 1960, she asked Mom and Dad to drive her over the mountain to "ride it one last time before they rip it up."  Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

That long-winded preamble leads to this:  the sign is printed on regular white paper glued to a 3x5 card backing, trimned to size and glued to the car side with Aileen's.

After decals and signs were applied and over-sprayed with Testors Dull Coat, I added .005" clear styrene, affixed to the interior with Micro Krystal Klear, to represent window glazing.  A final touch was to paint the rear railing brass.



Now, at long last, the B&SGE can finally keep up with the Jones's next door.

Thanks, Tom.

Thanks for the compliments.  Finishing up this thread, here are the results of Micro Krystal Klear window panes.  The first image shows the milky color of the stuff while wet.  While waiting for it to dry I started on my next rolling stock project, a presidential parlor car (an old NWSL brass OR&W parlor car that I scored on EBay already painted and weathered.  Decals from my stock of custom Rail Graphics sheets made back in 1993.  That short project thread is forthcoming in HO/HOn3/HOn30 Line.



When dry it looks like this. 



The camera is not a forgiving observer; even the opti-visor doesn't do as much truth telling as an iPhone camera.  It's difficult to avoid getting some of the KrystalKlear on the window frames, and it leaves a glossy film.  But it can be gently rubbed off when dry with a toothpick.

And I went with Krystal Klear in the baggage area windows, as well, and the results show I should've gone with my original thought.  Try as I might I wasn't able to touch up the bars with flat black paint and fine brush as well as I'd've liked ... too shaky and not good enough eyes anymore.  Frankly, it's been several years since I've undertaken finely detailed work, and the loss of vision (although my prescription is unchanged) due mild cataract onset is startling.  I'm not THAT old, fer cryin' aht lahd!



Oh well.  It's good enough for viewing while operating on the layout.  I did use thin clear styrene for the windows on the B&SGE's presidential parlor car, though.

Thank you, all for the kind words.  I've shifted to getting some long-delayed rolling stock projects off the shelf and out of the box, starting with a narrow-gauge combine from a kit for an East Broad Top combine from the Friends of the EBT Co. store.  I posted the short build thread, "HOn3 Combine - EBT Prototype," in HO/HOn3/HOn30 Line.

Hi, all.  In the late-Winter months after concluding the layout tour, I filled in most of the Richmond Furnace area at the south (RR East) end of the narrow-gauge B&SGE with at least a basic level of scenery.  So I think it might be appropriate to re-activate this topic with a few updated images.

Here's an overview:



... and a close-up of our Gen'l Manager admiring the new grade crossing of the still-unpaved Rte. 75:



Also, the concrete fueling station, based on the prototype in the East Broad Top's Rockhill yard, has been completed & installed.  The track has since been weathered & ballasted in this area, as well.

I recently added a new combine to my Blacklog & Shade Gap Eastern RR for use on the daily mail & milk run.  I used a 3D printed car body & floor, and trucks for EBT combines 16 & 17 from the Friends of the East Broad Top (FEBT) Co. Store (URL:  FEBT.org).  All other pieces-parts must be supplied by the modeler.  For more on the B&SGE, see my layout tour topic elsewhere in ModelersForum.

Because I like to avoid having to model truss rods, which - let's be honest - are mostly hidden in the shadows on an operating layout, I sanded off the queen posts and retrofitted a vestigial fish-belly steel center sill and angle cross braces bracketing the cross bears. 





Brake cylinders were salvaged from a long-ago abandoned Model RR Gen'l Store/E&B Valley D&RGW combine kitbash-in-a-box project that went bad when floor and sides developed a bad hog-back.  End railing kindly formed on a jig by the kit's developer as a personal favor.  Brake wheels from a small bag with missing label found in the spare parts box.



For color, after test spraying on a primed styrene blank, I went with Tamiya "British Green," which I find is a close match to the EBT's tourist era (1960-present) passenger livery.  Common carrier-era EBT passenger cars were, well, greenishy ... a baggage door removed from combine 14 or 15 and stored ca. 1960 when the cars were being readied for tourist service was found in its forgotten resting place ca. 1990, and it's color was close to Pullman Green, FWIW.

Decals were custom made by RailGraphics way back in the 1980s.  The decal film, by the way, is in pretty darned good shape after all these years.  I only had one tear to deal with, and that was luckily between the "&" and the "S".



So, here is B&SGE Combine 8 pressed into service before window installation.  I was undecided between Micro Krystal Klear and clear styrene.  I think I'll try Krystal Klear everywhere but in the baggage section, where the security bars might look better with clear styrene.



The historical fiction backstory to this car: rather than being destroyed upon retirement in the early-1930s, which was its historical fate, Combine 17 was sold to, and its undercarriage upgraded for, the B&SGE, which connects to the EBT via the EBT's former Shade Gap Branch.  This car's twin, EBT Combine 16, by the way, ended up at the New Jersey Museum of Transportation, where it is in bad condition but at least indoors.

I'll post an update when the "glass" is installed.

'best,
Vagel

Interesting topic.  I hope more comes soon.

3-ft gauge tram from the scrap box, with some wooden flooring installed at the foot of the ramp on the machine shop side.

Quote from: deemery on April 04, 2026, 02:17:22 PMBesides the lathe, you'll want a drill press, and maybe a grinder wheel.
dave

Alexander Scale Models has those ... a forge would be great, too.

Thanks, Curt.  I've got the walls of the Railway Repair Facility kit painted and assembled to the .030" styrene sub-floor; the windows are painted, too.  I did go with masking & spray painting the upper story and window frames; Tamiya "NATO Brown" (in aerosol can) is a very close match to the TrueScale "brushable Roof Brown" I had been using on the Machine Shop structure window frames and door, as well as so far on this building. 



The stages of assembly were to first to assemble two pairs of end and side walls upright on on a sheet of glass, then to assemble the pairs into a rectangle, then to cement the rectangle to the base, which was primed (with an unpainted strip of bare styrene around the perimeter for cementing).

Here's a shot of the project structure in its current state and in context with the blast furnace complex:



I getting close to running out of "next steps" for a while, I think.  I'm going to add some random plank flooring in the "new wing" in the area around the end of the ramp down from the "old machine shop," and insert (without cementing) the window frames in the openings.  The corrugated metal roof halves are primed and ready for steel color and weathering, so they'll get made into a removable one-piece.  All that can be done in time for an up-coming layout open house for the local NMRA division later this month, and that's probably where I'll let things lie for a while.



I'd like to get the office space in the right-front corner of "old" building partitioned off by then, as well, but a major ballasting project in the narrow gauge's Richmond Furnace yard (off scene, lower left of the middle picture) is going to take priority of time.  Beyond that, plans are "fuzzy."  I think this is going to be an electrified machine shop, which may be powered by a dynamo in the "new" wing using steam piped from the boiler house (in the shadows to the right of the water tower).  Alexander Scale Models' website has inexpensive, one-piece machine tool castings for a small shop like this one, and they'll fit neatly in the rear of the "old" building.  A large, belt-driven engine lathe (FOScale) might possibly be purchased "second-hand" by the furnace company and installed with a dedicated electric motor to drive its belt and pulleys near the foot of ramp in the "new" wing.  That part of the finished structure will definitely have a 3' gauge tram entering from the shadows between those two brick structures to the right (which is "back stage" out of sight from the aisle) and probably/possibly a traveling crane cobbled together from the outdoor A-frame gantry crane provided in the kit and various styrene structural shapes.