The Craftsman's Side of Model Railroading

[Santa Fe buff]

Hello everyone!

I was looking at an issue of Model Railroader, from May 1949. It is in an almost store bought state. I was reading, and many thoughts passed through my head. Model railroading was nothing but true craftsmanship. An article is about making a 2-8-8-4 mallet from parts common found. Another article was about how a club had found a solution to track dirtiness affecting their locomotives by scratch-building a sprung contact shoe. I did realize you can just buy contact shoes, but then I realized it would be twice as fun to make one. There were more diagrams. Lots more. All of how to scratch build that building or car they've featured and included drawings for. I really want to make that grain elevator now.

So, I guess I just wanted to post a topic about talking about the craftsman side of model railroading. Specifically, we should discuss and share ideas and tips about making things that we could buy, but would be funner to make. For instance, why buy kits when you can buy the raw materials?

Yes, tools are necessary, but that's just a given.

So, I'll start off. I had this idea for a steam tender.

http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH73790

Doesn't it look like you could chop that tank car up and putty it up to help form the rear of a Vanderbilt tender?

Cheers,
Joshua

[Guilford Guy]

Depends how accurate you want something to be. Just with the link you provided, it's hard to take a modern welded tank car and turn it into the riveted water tank of a 1920s era tender.

[OldTimer]

Model Railroader periodically ran an article that was part of what they called something like the "Dollar Model Car Project."  The instructions were excellent, the plans were excellent and the resulting cars, if you took your time, were great. And, true to the title, they cost about a buck to make, less trucks and couplers.  

I will be starting a new layout shortly, and will be posting pics to keep you all advised of my progress.  I'm working getting the room finished now.  I'll be using what are for me a lot of new techniques and materials and hope to dispell the rumor that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  Woof!?  Anyway, I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences.

[Jim Banner]

I have been having so much fun scratch building things for my 0n30 layout that my H0 layout feels neglected.  Lately I have been working on street lighting: gas lights in the older part of the town, carbon arc lights in the newer part.  Buildings are an ongoing project using plywood scraps, stir sticks, scraps of glass and computer print outs for awnings, floors, and curtains.  Part of the fun is researching what was used when and how it was made, then coming up with something representative even if not exact.  I got a couple of books on logging, lumbering and small saw mill operation that came on CD's from a fellow up in Alaska.  The street lights are based on images from Google.  The buildings are partly from memory (no, I wasn't around in the 1880's when they were built but their lives and mine overlapped in the 1950's.)  Working in a museum also helps.

I really should be putting some of this stuff on my website but it is hard to stop when you are having so much fun.

Jim

[jonathan]

Good Topic.

I have discovered the fun of scratchbuilding.  To me, being prototypical is nice, but I don't let that stop me from making things that are out of my own head.  If they happen to look close to the real thing, that is mearly a bonus.  There must be 1001 uses for paint sticks.  I always pick one up whenever I go to the hardware store.  Other good sources of trash materials are old plexiglass, guitar strings, sprue, mouse/ethernet wire, cereal boxes, paperclips, staples, beach sand, ... etc, the list is endless. 

I never worry about how good the work is.  I'm never going to be good enough to have one of my creations appear in a magazine, but that's not the goal.  The goal is the fun of creating, essentially making something workable out of leftover junk. 

I remember my grandfather making working signals out of old retractable pens, cardstock and scrap balsa.  He had to buy the bulbs, but that was it.  A lot of the detail parts on my old engines are made out of stuff that was just lying around.  I've already posted some of my past work.  I'm scratchbuilding a wooden curved bridge at the moment.  If the results are nice, I'll post that too.

As Spongebob likes to say, it's all about "Imaaaginaaation."

Regards,

Jonathan

[Colorado_Mac]

Waaaaay back in the 80s  the army didn't pay much, so I had to resort to using coffee cans, insides of old radios, plastic pipe and other things on my layout.  I even used a .50 caliber training round painted white with decals from an airplane kit as a missile "display" in my town park. 
As far as the old days, i was recently looking at a Model Railroader from 1990 (a mere 20 years ago) and was struck by how many mail-order ads there were, as well as the fact that it was mostly black-and-white.

[doug c]

About 5 yrs back I bought most of a local collection of MRs 77-80 and RMC '85-'89  I'm slowly reading thru them    Enjoy reading what was available and the articles that could be applicable to all scales.     Especially the ones of the prototypical equipment  . . .   

doug c

[buzz]

Hi all
One of the sad things with todays hobby is that all the published
information on scratch building seems to be disappearing.
You still get the odd 1/2 baked article on it minus the most important bit the drawings.
There don't seem to be many drawings published for anything these days.
I suppose it will stay that way as long as it is passable to build a model railroad out of the box in a day
Even kits seem to be disappearing.
I have scratch built the odd thing but I am not that good at it.
but it was fun and the end result usable.
The MRR dollar models articles where great little use full buildings or car projects
I am sure one of them was a very small false front store but cannot find it to give it a try and see if now I am a bit older I can get a better result
regards John

[Woody Elmore]

The first issue of Model Railroader I ever read was April 1959. There was an article about riding a doodlebug and the craftsman article was about building a Wabash mogul in O scale. The author was Mel Thornburg and he made turnings for cylinders and domes from brass rod in a hand drill (manual crank type) using files. That was craftsmanship. He did all his turnings the same way. The only power tool he admitted to having was a drill press.

As the years passed  I read about builders using strathmore paper or bristol board to scratchbuild buildings. Then there was Al Armitage, another true craftsman, who made the prototype models for Revell's HO building line. He used sheet styrene (which was hard to get 50 years ago) and dental picks (er, dentists must excuse me, the name is explorer) ground to various shapes to cut  into the plastic.

I used to build Main Line and Ambroid kits in college. There was a mail order place in Manhattan, AHC, American Hobby Cneter, and you could get three pair of Athearn bettendorf trucks in little white boxes  - three boxes for a dollar.  They were only a 20 minute subway ride away from me, and I stocked up on trucks and other goodies that they sold at bargain prices.

I used to bring my cars to run in the club where I was a member. My one of a kind kits always stood out among all the Athearn and Varney cars! Of course the scrutiny of club members meant the cars had to be well done.

There is a lot of satisfaction in seeing what amounted to a bunch of tiny wooden sticks and milled siding turn into a reefer or or other car.

My first HO engine kit was a Penn Line mikado - I spent days getting it to roll without a bind. There was a great deal of relief when I put the completed, unpainted engine on the track and watched it run.

The hobby has changed - today modelers want stuff ready to go. DCC was only a dream 50 years ago. I remember when GE Astrac first came out. Later, PFM brought out a control system. These things were astounding to me. Now they are obsolete.

The idea of the hobby is to do what you enjoy and find fun to do. I'll get off the soapbox now.

[ebtnut]

When I was a kid growing up I went from trains to planes to autos and back around again.  My first HO loco was an Athearn Hi-F drive F-7 that cost me $10 new.  I really got the train bug permanently when I was in high school.  It was Christmas vacation and I wanted something to do.  I had an old MR I had picked up years previous that had an article on building a Jones and Laughlin 20,000 gal. tank car from scratch.  I looked at that and said, "that looks like fun".  Well, building it really showed me how much I really needed to learn about everything, both modeling and prototype.  I've spent the past 40 plus years still learning.  I think I still have that tank car in a box somewhere.  I kept as my "humility piece", to remind me that everyone has to start somewhere. 

[Doneldon]

Woody-

Thanks for the nostalgia trip.  I enjoyed reading it.

I have a background similar to yours.  My brother and I started with Lionel "O" and then shifted to HO in 1959.  We had Athearn Hi-F drive stock (I still have an RDC) and lots of Athearn and other inexpensive kit cars.  Later, I got into building Ambroid, Silver Streak and others.  Like you, my first loco was a steamer, a MDC Pacific.  Now the rolling stock is mostly r-t-r and even the kits have evolved into "express" kits.  So sad.  But I still find the occasional Ambroid, Silver Streak or Walthers wooden kit on ebay so I'm not wasting all of my life.

Thanks again for your post.

     --D

[Woody Elmore]

Ye Olde Huff n Puff has some of the mainline and Silver Streak models available.`I always liked Silver Streak kits - I especially liked their cabooses and had several. 

I must admit that I've not had much success with resin kits. I can't seem to deal with AC glue. Give me Elmers or Testor's (I thought the bottles with the little brushes were great!)