Scratch Build of 1951 Pullman Carriage

[Kushan_Farsight]

well, i will be certainly following this build with interest, and may up with another piece of equipment clogging the office at the end of it!

I had not heard of Chitubox before you mentioned it. interesting stuff, will have to keep an eye on it.  Slicers are that key dark art that can make or break a printer. I had used Makerbot and Cura for months, then got Simplify3D and found it changed things overnight. Perhaps Chitubox  can do the same for DLP/resin based prints!  thanks for the info.

[hendie]

4 hours ago, Kushan_Farsight said:

I had not heard of Chitubox before you mentioned it.

 

FYI, I use Chitubox in conjunction with Photon File Validator which I have found to be invaluable.  I create my slice file in Chitubox then run it through Photon. - Photon will pick up any "islands" or unsupported surfaces which could lead to a failed print.  It identifies the islands, and also which layer they are on which is really useful as I can then add a support manually in Chitubox.  It also has some simple "fix" functions to eliminate islands of a few pixels.

 

[perdu]

I see what you say

 

I understand absolutely none of it

 

But I hear rumours that the transfers are on their way, so I brought this six pages forward to save you spending half an hour looking...

 

 

👍  👍  👍

[hendie]

thanks Bill.  yup, I'm just waiting on the invoice from my transfer bloke and the stuff can start winging its way across the pond to me.

 

Then I'll need to declutter my workbench, it's getting to be a bit of a mess

[perdu]

Tidied  that bench yet?

[hendie]

Almost Bill. The transfers arrived yesterday so I'm just finishing off the Venom. Then I'm off travelling all next week again so I'm going to try and get the Venom completed this weekend... if I can avoid the chores

[hendie]

knock knock

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Who's there? Could it be the wine waiter?

Splendid looking transfers old chap. You know you'll be thinking about applying them all the time you're away.

Bon voyage. Hurry back now, y'hear!

[hendie]

I've just sat staring at it for the best part of an hour... and don't know where to begin.

I think I'm going to have to leave it until I get back

[Heather Kay]

1 minute ago, hendie said:

I've just sat staring at it for the best part of an hour... and don't know where to begin.

I find I’m like that with most of my client jobs. 

[perdu]

On 28/02/2020 at 11:55, hendie said:

Almost Bill. The transfers arrived yesterday so I'm just finishing off the Venom. Then I'm off travelling all next week again so I'm going to try and get the Venom completed this weekend... if I can avoid the chores

I hope you noticed I spent the while weekend NOT replying to this Alan

 

One day I hope to stand at the bar with you and ask the inevitable one

 

"What chores?"

 

And then we shall raise a glass or two and salute our friends herein I hope

 

I am looking forward, as are we all, to your return and getting on with this marathon labour of love

 

Safe travels mate

[hendie]

On 2/29/2020 at 2:07 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

Who's there? Could it be the wine waiter?

Splendid looking transfers old chap. You know you'll be thinking about applying them all the time you're away.

Bon voyage. Hurry back now, y'hear!

 

You were right Pete - many evenings were spent running through the stickers application. A nice way to get to sleep though

 

On 2/29/2020 at 4:25 PM, Heather Kay said:

I find I’m like that with most of my client jobs. 

 

It's always worse when you take a long break in between isn't it? - especially when you have so many bits and pieces of the jigsaw

 

On 3/2/2020 at 2:57 AM, perdu said:

 

One day I hope to stand at the bar with you and ask the inevitable one

"What chores?"

And then we shall raise a glass or two and salute our friends herein I hope

I am looking forward, as are we all, to your return and getting on with this marathon labour of love

Safe travels mate

 

Bill, that would be an honor should the occasion ever arise. Mine's a Traquair Ale by the way

 

Well, I'm back.  A great trip with one of the most challenging projects we've undertaken so far.  Day one went well and we got 80% of the way to a good part. The mold went back to the tool shop for a couple of minor tweaks then came back the next afternoon.  We spent the following day process developing and had one defect that just wouldn't go away no matter what we did.  We were almost at the point of considering a part design change when my pet processor (the guy's a genius, he really is!) had a Eureka moment and provided a theory that explained the defect under all the circumstances we had tried. A minor mold tweak is required but we are extremely confident we have found the root cause and have a good path forward.  I wish I could tell you more but it's all top secret and all that. Anyways... trains.

 

I spent an absolute age staring at these parts trying to figure out where just to begin. I also spent about half an hour looking for an wayward door frame, going as far as having to read many pages back through this thread to see if I had actually made the darned thing. It turns out I had made it - and then eventually found it - the frame had somehow crawled underneath the chassis and found a nice little nest to live in.

 

 

Therefore, in order to avoid the fear and apprehension I had about applying the transfers I found something else to work on as usual.  This time I dug out the other sideframe.  I had applied the cream color a while back but never got around to applying the umber - mainly because I had ran out and then found out that Testors no longer produced that color (Italian Dark Brown).  After scouring the country I did manage to find a source that had two jars in stock at exorbitant prices and promptly purchased both of them. I probably only need less than half a jar, but just in case y'know.

For the masking I used Aizu tape 1.5 mm to lay down the boundary lines, that was followed by Tamiya 6mm just overlapping the Aizu, then poly sheet laid down and taped in place with Tamiya 10m just for good measure.

Masked up and ready to go

 

 

The brown sprayed beautifully. 

 

 

The inner child got the best of me and the masking was carefully peeled off as soon as thought the paint was dry enough.

 

 

Despite the abundance of protective covering, somehow this little blotch or two of brown got through the defenses.  No big deal though, that will come off with a light micro-meshing

 

 

That has now been curing for the last week and all it needs is a light micro-meshing before applying some clear gloss - followed by the orange pinstripe up at the cant rail level.

Now I'm not entirely sure why I took this shot. I know I had a reason at the time but buggered if I can think of what it was now - maybe to show where I got to last time around and where I was starting from now?

 

 

AAAAAaaaaaaannnnnnd the first transfer is applied!  Squiggly? yes, but try laying down a 0.75mm wide line over 3 inches or more and keeping it straight.  I'm calling that a win.

I know the electrical warning (orange) line should go over the top of the pin-striping, but minor details?   pah!

The more I look at the pin-striping and it's not-quite-straightness, the more it's growing on me and I think I like it. It gives it that hand painted look. It was an unnerving experience paying that line down though and has really put the fear of the modeling gods in me for the remainder of the pin-striping.  The horizontal pin-striping is nearly two feet long. Gulp!

 

 

So I found another squirrel to chase instead, this time the PULLMAN logo along the upper umber band.  These letters were individually printed as the spacing made it impossible to fit on one sheet.

I had been quite worried about applying these but they weren't too bad once I got started.  Maybe it was all relative and they seemed easy after applying that single pin-stripe.

 

 

When drawing these particular decals up I could not find a single photo that showed the PULLMAN logo straight on in a decent resolution. In the end I think I used about 4 different photos to trace over and then try and match up the detailing of the lettering. - Every car had been painted by (I assume) a different painter so there was a slight difference between the lettering detail on each car.

 

 

The first side completed. I think my spacing is ever so slightly off.  The P & N of PULLMAN are evenly spaced over the second window in from each end.  I thinkI should have started with the P about another millimeter over to the left, but when viewed at any distance the offset is not really noticeable.

 

 

Then there was no way to avoid more pin-striping.  This time these single lines were over 6 inches long.  I'm definitely going for the hand painted artisan look here.  I think you'll be able to tell that this car was not mass produced by the time I finish this transfer sticking malarkey

Sheesh - these close ups are really unforgiving aren't they?  That lower pinstripe is as wavy as the water at Portobello beach on a windy day

 

 

During that application above, I had a few heart stopping moments as the scroll work decal which had been in place for months started to be affected by the microsol and started wrinkling. A few moments of panic ensued while I tried to mop up the excess and get that decal back down and settled.  Given that I have to apply a double pin-stripe immediately below it along the two foot length, I think I am going to have to apply an intermediate gloss coat to seal these down before I start to work with the double pinstripes.

 

In order to keep my heart rate at a reasonable frequency I changed tack once again and went for the double ended arrows bounding each window. 

 

 

My goodness, even those look wavy.  No wonder though - my eyeballs are probably all shrivelled up and wrinkled after applying those pinstripes. You might think these were easy after the pinstripes? Well... no!  They weren't.  I've found that leaving the decals too long in microsol really softens them up - that means they stretch!  Even just the act of brushing microsol along the length can stretch them quite easily, so I have to try and get these in place really quickly as the arrow tips are supposed to be in line with the top and bottom edges of the windows.

 

That was fun wasn't it?   I have to say that it feels good to finally be applying some artwork to the car - it's only taken me about 6 years to get to this point. It was starting to feel like a Bandsaw Steve build it was taking so long.

and now it's time for another coffee and I'm going to head back downstairs for another round of holding breath while trying not to tear things apart with the shaky hands.  Oh what fun!

 

 

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

I recommend a course of leeches erm, what I meant to say was, use spit. I soak the decals as little as possible, spit on the surface of the model and use that as a lubricant.

The decals slide around nicely and a gentle wipe with kitchen towel settles them into place. We may be talking Grannies and eggs here but I thought it might be worth a mention.

[bentwaters81tfw]

I'm waiting till you pinstripe the little model in the souvenir cabinet.

[Pete in Lincs]

One hair in the paintbrush and hand in a clamp. Simples.

[JeroenS]

You're doing great on the decals! I feel your nervousness, I'm always apprehensive about them and manage to screw one or two up normally. I think yours look very fine and it makes the whole thing come alive.

[CedB]

They look good to me Alan - great work matey, keep it up (fnaar!)  

[perdu]

It is looking brilliant Alan, wow.

[hendie]

17 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I recommend a course of leeches erm, what I meant to say was, use spit. I soak the decals as little as possible, spit on the surface of the model and use that as a lubricant.

The decals slide around nicely and a gentle wipe with kitchen towel settles them into place. We may be talking Grannies and eggs here but I thought it might be worth a mention.

 

These decals are so fine that they need an extended soak in water just to release them from the backing Pete. Otherwise they'll tear as I try to remove them. I think I'm finally getting the hang of them though.

 

16 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

I'm waiting till you pinstripe the little model in the souvenir cabinet.

 

There's always one in every crowd isn't there?

 

8 hours ago, JeroenS said:

You're doing great on the decals! I feel your nervousness, I'm always apprehensive about them and manage to screw one or two up normally. I think yours look very fine and it makes the whole thing come alive.

 

They are certainly adding another dimension to the build, that's for sure.

 

4 hours ago, CedB said:

They look good to me Alan - great work matey, keep it up (fnaar!)  

 

3 hours ago, perdu said:

It is looking brilliant Alan, wow.

 

Thanks Ced, thanks Bill.

 

This sticking on transfers business really takes it out of you doesn't it?   I finished up a bit earlier than usual yesterday as concentrating on keeping things straight was starting to get to me.

 

 

 

As each transfer is applied I have to move to another area to ensure it dries completely without the opportunity for me to dislodge or otherwise mangle the transfer while laying down the next one.

The doors were a good opportunity to leave other bits to dry off.

 

 

The double ended arrows were all put in place with only one casualty lost in action - the very last one. By that time my hands were starting to shake a bit and I think I was rushing to get finished. Thankfully I have plenty of spares, so I ripped it off and made a conscious decision not to rush and that time it laid down without any issues. 

 

 

Yesterday - end of day and we have made serious progress on this side frame.

 

 

I think it's still going to take a few sessions to get this side finished though. The pin-striping is tedious work and with some of the pinstripes being so close to others, I think I am going to have to gloss coat to protect already laid down transfers from more application of microsol.  lets see how today goes.

 

 

 

[Brandy]

A long wait, but worth it. She's really starting to look the part now, and I don't see any wavyness!

 

Ian

Edited March 8, 2020 by limeypilot

[hendie]

8 hours ago, limeypilot said:

She's really starting to look the part now, and I don't see any wavyness!

 

Thanks Ian.  The waviness is there believe me, though I probably notice it more since I've just spent a day staring at the thing until my eyes lose focus.

 

More time spent sticking transfers on today, but nothing worth showing, just more of the same.  I went to spray a coat of clear gloss on to protect the transfers I've already laid, and discovered that there is some kind of mould growing in a new unopened pot of gloss. Sods.  I've ordered a new one but it will be a few days until it arrives but I have other things I can be going on with in the meantime.

 

 

[hendie]

A touch more progress. I ended up taking the day off work as I was at the animal hospital for most of the night with a sick cat. When I got home last night I found him lying beside the water bowl pretty much motionless. He couldn't even stand up and refused food.  It turns out Stripey Cat has a serious UTI and blockage so he's in hospital for 2 or 3 days with a whole bunch of procedures and medications.

So the morning was spent laying in bed trying to catch up on missed sleep but after lunch I headed downstairs.

 

It turns out that my Helo Helper is also a train helper.  It came in very useful when applying these end pinstripes.

 

 

Current state of play for the first sideframe.  This is about as far as I can go at the moment as I am waiting on some more clear gloss arriving.

 

 

So I turned my head from transfer sticking back to actually making things. I don't seem to have done that for a long time on this build.Now that the decals were on the doors I could start to assemble the doors themselves.  A 0.2mm sheet of clear polystyrene was used to create the window

 

 

Then scrap strips of the same thickness were glued to the outer edges (and I don't know why I just didn't cut the clear stuff to the door dimensions as I would have saved myself some trouble)

 

 

Then the door inner face was glued in place.  I used two brass square tubes and a coupe of clamps to hold everything straight while the glue cured.

 

 

With the doors underway I started to attack the door hardware.

Some times it pays to sit down and think things through instead of jumping right in like I did here.  I think I was so excited at being able to make things again I just rushed in without thinking.

On the inside of the vestibule doors are some chromed bars - more for decoration than for preventing people form falling through the windows I think.

My first iteration started off like this before I realized that both the vertical and the horizontal bars should be on the same plane... 'doh!

 

 

That led to version number two.  I was quite pleased with this version.  I had some scrap aluminum channel lying around from some LED lights I fitted in the kitchen last year.  I also had a steel scriber that I found was a bit vicious for plastic, but ideal for the aluminum.

I scribed two lines for the vertical bars, followed by another across the channel for the horizontal bar.

 

 

When the lines were scribed deep enough they formed a nice little V groove that the brass rod lay in and didn't roll about, holding it nicely in place for soldering.

I chose aluminum for the jig as it repels solder which meant that the parts wouldn't stick to the jig when soldered.

The two holes were drilled to allow the solder to flow around the brass to the back face to make the joint complete.  My first version did not have the holes and I found that the solder would not flow to the back face.

 

 

Test number 1:  Success by the looks of it.

 

 

After the solder and the brass was cleaned up, I superglued some small plastic C channel to each end segment of the frame, then gave everything a quick spray of Alclad Chrome.

 

 

That should suffice to do the job.  I'll leave the Alclad to cure for a while before hitting it with some clear gloss to protect it - when the clear gloss arrives.

Now I need to figure out if I fit all the hardware to the doors then assemble everything or do I wait until it is assembled before fitting the hardware in case anything goes wrong - namely getting knocked of by my clumsy handling.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2020 by hendie

[JeroenS]

I hope Stripey will be ok!

[hendie]

1 minute ago, JeroenS said:

I hope Stripey will be ok!

 

Thanks Jeroen. I'm sure he will but it was a bit worrying for a while there.  He's in the best place right now.  I'm just glad we have a 24 hour Vet hospital available to us.

 

 

[Heather Kay]

Aside from the ongoing modelling excellence here - loving that jig, by the way: an idea firmly stored for future use - it seems Stripey Cat and me have lot in common right now. I am sending virtual ear scratches to him, and giving our floofball some extra cuddles, too.