small parts. I was more
familiar with “shake-
the-box” kits that go
together in under an
hour. These looked like
they would take days to
finish one kit. Hmmm….
While I do enjoy build-
ing car kits, the number
of cars needed for the
layout made me real-
ize I needed some tech-
niques to speed things
up a bit. Over the years,
I learned some methods
from very skilled local
modelers to help in the
efficient construction
of rolling stock. In this
article I offer some tips
for building more detailed cars in less time. We’ll start by look-
ing at some kit building techniques, and the process of building
kits in batches. We’ll follow this with a step-by-step demon-
stration of some of these ideas in a batch-build of four Proto
2000 stock cars. To start, let’s take a look at what we mean by
“highly detailed” and how that idea applies to three basic cat-
egories of rolling stock kits.
What makes a kit “highly detailed?”
A highly detailed kit builds into an accurate model of the pro-
totype that features finer parts and correct dimensions. These
kits feature separately applied grabirons, running boards, lad-
ders, and stirrups. The rivets and cast-on details are molded in
2: Notice the high level of detail
possible in the craftsman kit
compared to photos 1a and 1b.
2
