Lately I've been building a lot of rolling stock kits ranging from intermountain tankcars to Traincat flatcars. I remember the days of building western railcraft interurbans and other wooden car kits years ago . I was wondering who else is building rolling stock kits and what KITS, you find to be the most time consuming and difficult to build. I know that for some people difficult has different definitions but generally speaking... Randy
About the only "kits" I have been building lately are etched passenger car sides mounted to core kits. Cor kits can be either American Limited or modified ready to run cars.
I have done a couple IM 50 Ft autoparts car kits in KCS - and I did one of their reefers years ago. I also did a couple of Western Railcraft Interurbans, and those were by far tougher then anything on the market.
i built the Quality craft all door box it was truly a craftsman kit pretty difficult but it turned out to be a good 2 foot rule model kept it on a industrial spur most of the time.i also built the old RailHead kits transfer caboose and gandy dancers special went together pretty well but i did not seal the wood and it warped pretty bad in storage during my time in the military.would like to tackle the Western Railcraft private car MAYFLOWER kit but ill probably never find that one.
The old QC kits (later Gloor Craft) are just exactly like old-time 1960's HO craftsman kits, just smaller. I did every one of them, mostly as a challenge to see if I could do it as I grew up in the HO Ambroid era and always admired the guys that could do them right. The cars that were wood - like the wood caboose, and the ATSF reefer, could come out really, really well. The brass cars - like the PRR caboose, and the wagontop boxcar, were equally good in the final result. But the kits to make steel cars from wood (the all-door box, Railbox), were really tough because you had to take the time to seal and sand all the wood parts, and even after you did, well, it was hard to get a finish that smooth. I'll put those kits up against anything out there for degree of difficulty. I don't think the Railbox car was any better than a good plastic boxcar, but the all-door made for a nice model that was better than mass-produced model. I'll never forgive Floquil, however, as "Weyerhauser Green" was sure the wrong color. I'd built my car before I saw a real one and photographed it. If I could still get decals, I'd redo it, but now, too late. Lousy instructions, no references or help to find out information. If you find one on the auction site or a swap meet, that's my feel. Mark has some really nice links to some well-done ones on his site. I felt fortunate to provide the photos of the N5C and the N6B built-ups. The Western Railcraft series had nice brass pieces, but the rest of the kit was pretty bad. I know on the Mayflower kit I threw everything out but the sides! To me, the sin was always the lousy instructions. I've tried really hard with my kits to provide plenty of photos, plenty of text (downloadable PDF's, and electrons are free) and enough prototype information so you have a clue what you're trying to make. That conclusion was made after years of struggling with some pretty poor kits! Lately it seems like all the RTR cars I have been buying end up as very difficult kits; the Intermountain ATSF cabooses, for one.... by the time I'm done I end up with a pile of very small, very fragile parts to rebuild!
Two kit series come to mind. First and foremost it is the Internountain 40' Reefer kits, with the underside detail, the brake lines, and the individual grabs designed to spring from their trees and hide in my carpet pile. Second are the Roundhouse HO steamer kits with their siderod rivets which are smaller than kitty litter granules. Then to pound them into the correstponding holes then create a mushroom on the other side, is a true test of fingertips and patience. I learned the secret from a late hobby shop owner and once I learned the secret, built 5 more locos. Sitll hard but once you know what you put into it, nothing else but private pride results. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Intermountain covered hopper kits. More of the aforementioned individual grab irons that go hypersonic when the knife blade comes too close. I had a heck of a time with a Soo Line kit. Didn't come out looking like it would pass an inspection. Looks more like a RIP track place holder.
I recall a similar experience. Otherwise, their box cars and tank cars were not bad at all. I enjoyed putting those together. Seems as though some resin cast kits can have pieces which aren't quite true to shape or require some extra work to fit. Although it's been a while since my last one.
I'll see ya Intermountain grabirons and raise you Intermountain ATSF caboose windows. They glued those suckers on the surface, rather than having them flush-mounted with the surface as they should be. Filing the three side-windows smaller so they fit inside the window frames as they should? Yeah, priceless. I decided the cupola and door windows could be replaced by Krystal-Clear, which gave me a stock of spare side windows material after I started to drop and loose those tiny clear windows. Oh, and don't forget, if you're going to illuminate it, and get the floor off, all manner of fragile ladders, couplers, ...all secured with glue..decide they are migratory in their instincts. Last car I just 'redid'.... managed to snap the smokejack off the roof trying to remove it... lost the brass caboose awning (it popped off and flew somewhere), broke an end ladder.... And this is the third one I've done. I know exactly what I'm up against and I'm not getting any better at it. It's worth it in the end, but IM's tendencies to glue everything solid is getting really, really annoying. So I'll stay by my original statement and say the toughest kit is an Intermountain RTR car. Right up there with the locomotive shells on the tendency to want to shed and break parts during modification and reassembly.
Also what "kit" is has different definitions. And a lot of time, I define R-T-R and "ready to rebuild." I think the most difficult N kit I ever built was the Intermountain 8K tankcar. Those tiny tiny delicate grabs and things... Time consuming? If there's one you NEVER finish, is that infinitely time consuming? I don't remember the mftr of this block-of-wood-and-sticks N craftsman kit. It came with an Illinois Central Gulf split-rail super graphic decal, that I could not believe for this car. The box label and the insrruction sheet were both mimeographed. Got this, oh 1973 or so. Never figured out a prototype, so I used it as a retired-boxcar storage shed. I have a Western Railcraft "Mayflower" I intend to assemble someday. I will use it as a private car that belongs to a movie studio, sometimes used by the studio big chese, sometimes used as part of a movie train. I built -I think Quality Craft- B&O wagon-top boxcar with an etched brass wrapper. I think I put the doors on upside down. I'm glad I have some old N-scale milled stock for scratchbuilding clerestory roof cars. Someday..............?
Easily the most difficult N-scale rolling stock kit was the Golden West Models CA-3/4 cabeese. Frankly speaking, I NEVER completed one in stock form and I didn't know what one would look like until Intermountain bought the molds, improved some of the parts and offered them RTR. I both pity and admire the Chinese slave laborer who is patiently putting these together by candle-light in his cell somewhere in the Sechzuan Province. I bought a dozen of these kits (because they were the only U.P. steel cabeese available except for early Overland brass,of which I have ten or twelve, or new Overland brass with every steam-era configuration long sold out) and I have used them as starting points for several super-detailed and kit-bashed CA-3's/4's and 5's (they can be used for CA-6's too, but they're not in my time period) I always replace the herky running boards with either cut-up Plano etched SS running boards or (lately) with M & R Sides etched running board replacements, with scratchbuilt Styrene running board supports. The totally under-detailed and poorly designed outside-swinghanger kit trucks get immediately tossed and, until recently, replaced with modified Bachmann Old-Timer trucks which semi-resemble U.P. Q-trucks (I know, it's a stretch). The ugly and inaccurate smokejack gets tossed also and a new one fabricated from brass put in its place. Oh, the toilet vent (nub) gets scraped off too with a machined brass replacement. Did I mention the roof is flat? And must be BENT by hand to the proper angle?...both sides and the cupola? Some parts are so fragile (the car side overhangs over the end-platforms) that you just may as well plan on breaking at least one of them before you glue the roof on. All the cast-on grabs get scraped off (which is why the roof overhangs get broken), holes drilled and new .007" stainless grabs bent up and stuck in place (yes, I use a .007" bit to drill the holes). .003" suture silk gets used as the smokejack bracing cables. Stretched yellow sprue (stretched over an alcohol flame) from the kit makes the end window safety bars and the interior seat-back supports in the cupola (painted light green of course in the cupola). I'll make up a cupola interior out of sheet styrene if I feel like it because the windows are so big on the cupola, not having an interior there is very obvious. Have I mentioned the end-rails and ladders yet? Throw the ladder tops away, and fabricate new ones out of round brass that gets shaped and mashed in a machine vice to give 'em that flat-rail look. The red Delrin ladders have to be bent by hand to the proper profile to fit from the end railings to the roof, but there's nothing in the instructions to tell you to do that. I also toss the stock kit tool box into the trash and use one from an American Model Builders core kit, or recently, the etched SS toolbox front from the M & R Sides running board fret. Precision Scale Co. Ltd. plastic wabco airbrake detail kit and brass piping, and BLMA or Precision Scale Co. Ltd. air hoses, plus Z-scale couplers (with the dongles cut off) and my own bent up uncoupling levers and etched brake wheels finish off the ends and undersides except for the trucks, which now are Shapeways manufactured, Eric Cox designed T57p 5ft CB&Q #7 trucks (which are identical to the U.P. "Q" trucks except for bolt-head details on the top wooden beam) in FUD, painted black and finished off with Fox Valley 33" wheelsets. I'm not even going to get into what's entailed to make a CA-5 or CA-6. Basically, only the kit's caboose body and end-rails are all that's usable...and even they have to be modified considerably. Practically ALL of the details (running boards, tool box, ladder tops, trucks, wheels, brake details, smokejack) are tossed and replaced with either aftermarket replacments or scratchbuilt replacements. When it's time to paint, it first MUST be primed (because it's cast in a yellow, almost translucent plastic, with a lot of really thin parts) to make it opaque when the final Armour Yellow coat is applied. After all that work, it turns into a really fine model that is better looking than the much more expensive brass models out there. Pre-assembled Intermountain cabooses derived from this kit are nowhere close and look very toylike in comparison. BUT, the only outside-swinghanger trucks available are on the Intermountain kits. I've purchased several of the kits, just to swipe the trucks and use 'em. (Have you seen an Intermountain cabooses on eBay without trucks? Uh huh...that was me) Yep, I have brass outside-swinghanger trucks from scrapped Hallmark "U.P. Riveted" cabooses, but they have roller-bearing trucks, not the correct friction bearing trucks like Intermountain's plastic models. El complicado if I say so myself. Intermountain's reefer kits go together very nicely with Tenax and a sprue cutter. Xuron flush cutters will make the grabs go into the inter-dimensional parts bucket very quickly, as does a #11 blade in an X-acto handle. I've still got 50 or so of them to build. If you're building a lot of plastic models, pop for a Micro Mark sprue cutter...it's well worth the price! Try building a Central Valley 150' Pratt Truss Bridge kit without one! Cheers! Bob Gilmore
