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Erie Railroad Boxcars, p1 - 5
Lessons Learned
Continued ...
5. Small sanding scratches that are not visible in the master or
in the unpainted casting show up when the parts are painted. I
needed to do a better job at finish sanding. I should have taken
time to get out the 600 grit wet dry sandpaper to polish the
masters.
6. Painting, detailing, and decaling the cars before assembly
worked great. In the end I only had to replace 1 grab iron and 2
stirrups. For me it is a lot easier to decal on a flat surface than
on the raised surface or ends of a boxcar. I can rest my hands
on the work surface, which I find very beneficial. I will use this
procedure with any future craftsman kits I build.
Will I continue with this project; absolutely. Some time away
from this project is necessary. Some of the changes that I will
make are:
1. I will try different casting materials.
2. Learn to control the thickness of my molds by making a back
piece to control the thickness.
3. I am considering remaking the masters and building com-
plete bodies. This would eliminate the problems with different
thickness of the various parts. The drawback, although minor,
is that I would have to learn how to make two-part molds and
how to pour the casting material into a two-part mold.
4. I am strongly considering purchasing the necessary com-
puter programming to have a 3D print, such as Shapeways 3D
printing made for my masters. I don’t think that it would be
cost-effective at this time to generate a 3D print of each car
that I want to model. That could change in the near future.
It's one of those items that will need to be investigated. The
cost of the program to make the drawings is $495, around the
price of an AB engine set with DCC and sound. The question is
will I use it enough on other projects to make it worthwhile? I
suspect that once I have it I will wonder how I ever got along
without it. However I haven’t been able to cross that mental
hurdle yet.
5. I need to look into the cost of a small vacuum machine for
casting in the future. While the smooth cast product I used said
that it does not have air bubbles, they are an issue. A vacuum
system is one way to eliminate them.
With all of that being said, I am interested in hearing about the
experiences that others have had. Or am I the only one crazy
enough to attempt something like this? I hope that the last bit
of musings will help others avoid some of the pit falls that I ran
into, and encourage others to take on the adventure.
I think the most important lesson to be taken away from this is
that things don’t always work as planned or as we thought that
they would. Just because the goal desired was not achieved,
does not mean it wasn’t worth the effort.
At the very least I learned new skills. I learned areas I need to
improve on, and more importantly I thought outside of the box
(for me) when it comes to modeling. If you never try something
new and above your current comfort zone, you will never grow
in your modeling skills.
MRH-Apr 2013
