Roy, Tom & friends,
This discussion of passenger cars and how best to make them is
interesting. If memory serves me correctly wasn't Ladd Houda going to
make a basic body kit that we could attach various sides to. It seems
to me that might be the best approach at this time. Match those body
kits with Laser Horizons sides and you're mostly there. Of course if
we go back to wanting to use wooden roof and floor, this attempt would
be a duplication of the Chester/JC Silversides kits from the earlier
darker days of S. My feeling is that one of the major manufactures
could be encouraged to make up passenger cars in at least two lengths
(remember to be viable, these cars would have to fit the typical hi-rail
layout and those scale people who need to run shorter length cars
(remember many HO Passenger cars are shorter also). I would think that
a lightweight metal extruded to various lengths would fit the bill.
Punching out the window and door openings as been done in the past with
success, so let's do it again. I would also suppose that the
floor/underbody could be made in semi kit form for those who don't want
or need the detailed underbody. The only major problem with be with the
skirting that most passenger cars started with. Most railroads found
them a pain to deal with and therefore removed them as time went
on--this might be hard to make in two versions, with cutouts to match
various length cars! Just a thought!
Now to address the feeling from Roy that the craftsman are no
longer building, is of course, partly correct. I love popping open a
SHS boxcar and having it operate on my layout is 15 minutes (for the
wheels and couplers). However one should attend one of the prototype
modeler's get togethers' to get the other point of view. Those guys
build to the Nth degree and are responsible for the success of the resin
type kits from Westefield, Sunshine and others. These kits are becoming
easy enough to build without going crazy! The S scale Kaslo kits fall
into this grouping--challenging but not impossible. The problem I have
personally is that, as life speeds by, we only have so much time to do
these kinds of things!
Bob Werre
Roy Inman wrote:
>And Tom , I couldn't agree more with you.
>Except that in my approaching golden years, I have neither the patience nor
>the eyesight to do much "real" modeling. I have nothing but admiration for
>those who continue on in the great tradition. Knock yourselves out guys.
>But I am now almost strictly a plug-and-play man, when it comes to engines
>and rolling stock. I do still put together and weather the occasional
>structure. However, when you start to talk about getting passenger sides
>here, roofs there, etc., etc., my eyes glaze over, and just a decade or so
>ago, I would have been on the same page. I also gave up building model
>airplanes from scratch and plans, and even from kits. (Have a bunch of
>electric stuff for sale, if anyone is interested.)
>
>
>
>>From: Thomas Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 11:24:03 -0500
>>To: [email protected]
>>Subject: S-Scale Modeling Passenger cars
>>
>>Recently, a number of people have expressed interest in streamlined,
>>smooth-sided passenger cars. The comment came up that it is hard to get cars
>>that fit a particular road because most cars were custom built to plans
>>created by the railroads. Do we still have the man, Sautters was the name I
>>think, in Ohio who will laser cut any given window pattern if we furnish the
>>scale drawings? He apparently even has a repertoire of plans that he could
>>laser cut right now if one were to notify him.
>>
>>It appears that any mention of wood is a cardinal sin in the modeling world
>>these days. At the risk of being kicked out of "church," I suggest that the
>>streamlined wood roofs are available from various--probably obscure--sources.
>>One might inquire among the readers of this list, for example. Certainly
>>creating an prototypical end in the form of a styrene overlay is not beyond
>>the skills of modelers on this list. If Mr. Sautters could laser cut the
>>correct window pattern, if one could get the wood roof based on the old
>>Northeastern pattern, one could certainly cut support blocks and a floor.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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