made a nice small window so that helped out in the time department. Sometimes my pride gets me in trouble, and this time was no exception. These guys were not just club members, they were my friends. I had to do this right. I had to produce nice models. Friend and fellow scratchbuilder Dr.
Wayne Wesolowski had just done a fine article on RTV casting, and it occurred to me that this was my way out of this mess. My thought was that I had bet- ter re-read the piece with a little more attention to the process. Wayne then referred me to a few other articles, and loaned me some literature from Dow- Corning, the maker of RTV rubber. As per usual, the good chemistry professor came to the rescue. Here is what I did: I crafted the door and front wall together, from board-on- board pre-grained styrene strips. Like- wise the other three walls were done with those individual strips. I made the corner posts integral to the end walls, as the model was going to be modeled in only two colors: mineral red for the main structure and a green roof. The roof halves were shingled with individ- ual chips of .010″ styrene, then grained after being affixed in place, with a new hobby blade. The mold consisted of the four walls and two roof halves, thus re- ducing 150 boards and 400 shingles to six pieces. That pattern work and sim- ple mold took a full day to complete. The resin I used cured quickly enough to do a “run” every 15 minutes or so, thus enough castings were done for the 18 buildings in about five hours. That same day also saw 64 walls paint- ed mineral red, and 36 roof halves painted dark green. I laid out the cast- ings on flat luan plywood trays and blasted them with rattle cans of Flo- quil. The over all assembly, such as it was, took about ten minutes per build- ing, so they all went together the very next day. The windows were painted,
DONNA WALKER
glazed, and installed, along with some final touches and weathering on that same day. There you have it, 18 scratch- built handcar sheds were done start to finish in three days. It certainly was not the four or five months of drudgery I had anticipated. The resultant buildings all looked like scratchbuilt originals, un- til some smart-aleck picked one up, looked inside, and “outed” me. The coal pocket on my Rio Grande Southern layout had seven complicat- ed doors. I made just one, then cast the mold seven times. This procedure not only saved a lot of valuable hobby time, but gave a nice look of consistency to the model. The one inch scale RGS 4-6- 0 No. 20 that I built several years ago made use of many castings. The drivers were CNC’d by Accurail’s then tool- maker Frank Glatzl. He made a flanged one and a blind one. I then made what I needed from a mold. Like- wise the tender truck parts, cab win- dows, the rest of the wheels, and many smaller details were made from cast- ings of my hand-made masters. I emphasize handmade, because to use other people’s work is not only un- ethical, but illegal. Do not believe the rubbish that “If you change it, it is okay.” That is not so! And yes, I consulted an attorney in regards to this issue. Copy- ing or piracy was brought to the atten- tion of the MRIA (Model Railroad Indus- try Association) board while I happened to be a member. If it is just for yourself, no one is likely to take you to court, but it is still best to do your own work. If you’re building it to sell, perhaps on eBay, that is a whole other ball game. While I was on the static one inch scale binge, I also built a caboose (RGS long caboose No. 0404) and a D&RGW rotary snowplow. The rotary (took third place in Maintenance-of-Way at 2010 Narrow Gauge convention in St. Louis) made use of a multitude of castings for the blade assembly and weird stan-
dard gauge trucks. I wrote an extended column on the caboose in June of 2009, and covered the No. 20 in December of that same year.
I am headed off for our annual Fall vacation to Colorado as I write this (September 2013), and will be taking the 20 and caboose with me to donate to the Galloping Goose Museum in Do- lores Colorado. I am thinking that the Colorado Railroad Museum may be in- terested in the rotary, since I’m fairly convinced that the Cumbres & Toltec has no intention of giving either one of their’s up any time soon. When all my one inch models are gone, I might try an RGS short caboose, a stock car, and maybe a combine. Who knows? I have a long thin (2′-0″×32′-0″) On30 mining and logging layout that was in need of a half dozen gondolas, that needed to be scratchbuilt of course. I made the underframe from di- mensional styrene strips, leaving room for a coupler box, then added notches for the needle beam location. The re- sultant mold was cast up six times in the time it would have taken me to build one more underframe. An Accu- rail weight slipped between the floor and underframe. Perhaps I should try some flat car bodies as well. Create the body to fit over that same frame, en- capsulating the weight. A lot of buildings have a lean-to type addition to the side or rear of the main structure. These simple additions con- sist of three walls and a roof. Usually there is a single door, and perhaps (only perhaps) a window. If you paint and weather them differently, few,
if
any, will notice that more than one model has the same lean to on it. They also make good gifts for friends, since everyone can use a few.
I used to do spin (metal) casting for a living. The stuff I did is still avail- able from Wiseman Model Service (
www.locopainter.com). I am not sure weather they will do custom work from your metal masters or not. East Gary Car Co. (3828 St. Joseph Ct. Lake Sta- tion IN 46405) has done some spin casting work for me since I sold out. They will work from your original met- al masters, and do very nice work. I highly recommend silver (hard) solder for use in the creation of your masters, since the heat from the mold-making process will melt most soft solders. We concentrated on some reasoning and such for making castings instead of labor intensive original model work. Next month, we will get into the nuts and bolts of mold making and casting, as well as cover a bit on the use of plas- ter rather than resin as a casting medi- um. This month was philosophy, and part II will be more technical.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 71
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