can be added, but I prefer staying with styrene. It’s versatile enough to model most materials and simplifies assembly. A few gouges with a hobby blade, followed by sanding with coarse sandpaper and a few swipes with medium paper gave it a heavily used look. The first pieces added to the cars were the timbers that held the marble off the decks, so chains or slings could be run under the slabs for loading and unloading. I spaced eight timbers out evenly along the deck. A styrene scale 6x6 strip was coarsely sanded on all sides, cut to rough lengths, and glued with solvent for a se- cure, invisible bond. Once set, the end of each piece got trimmed flush with the end of the decking and grained with a needle. The timbers looked like they had been an integral part of the deck rather than added on top. That graining hid any seams in the joints, so the pieces look like solid timbers. The rest of the decking ends also got scribed. The prototype rivet patterns differed from the Athearn mod- els. John built his flatcars before
styrene rivets or rivet decals were available, so he employed a then- common technique of emboss- ing new rivet heads with a stylus. At normal viewing distances, the small dimples with raised edges are indistinguishable from the molded rivets. However, they are noticeable in close-up club pho- tos that often get taken. Although rivets can now be readily found, none worked in this situation. The smallest sty-
rene rivets on stalks are larger than the Athearn rivets. None of the decals I found matched both the kit rivet size and spacing, so I modified John’s technique. It’s a good idea to practice this method on scraps before trying it on a car. First, I copied selected rivet pat- terns from the kits onto narrow
“B” End Once painted, the simpli- fi ed hand brake fi xture doesn’t look too bad.
Rutland 2753
Rutland 2753 with the monument for the Unknown Soldier tomb, c. 1931. Noti ce the rivet patt erns on the side of the car. — Photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy
NOVEMBER 2015 73
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