Union Pacific F7 part II

I haven't been idle over the summer, but other hobbies and priorities took precedence over modeling and blogging. Now that fall is here in full force, indoor sports once again bubble to the surface...

This is a continuation of a story started over a year ago, where I picked up an even older planned project to convert a Life-Like F unit in SOO colors into a UP passenger hauler: http://theatomfurnace.blogspot.com/2020/09/on-bench-life-like-f7-bodies.html. (click here)

I had last attempted stripping the body using Pine-Sol, but wasn't happy, and moved on to other parts of my backlog. I've been on a railroad kick for a while, and decided to pull this back out and give it the Easy-Off treatment. The original black, white, and red was unaffected, but it removed everything I had added and attempted removing in my last attempt. This gave me a clean starting point. I gave it a coat of white enamel overall as "primer", which proved adequate as a base color, but...

After the bad experience with the Badger UP Armour Yellow acrylic, I sourced a new-to-me brand, Tru Color which required its own mostly acetone thinner. This was sprayed over the white after a 24 hour drying period.

Covers well, nice color,  even sheen. So far, so good. I used Modelmaster Dark Gull Grey for my "Harbor Mist" because a. I had it, b. I am comfortable spraying it, and c. It looked reasonably close to.the roofs of the cars it'd be hauling. A little Tamiya tape for a sharp edged mask, and...

Crap. Lots of paint failure under the normally gentle Tamiya Tape. It was over a virgin, 24 hr dried enamel surface, and had itself cured for another 24. I would not recommend using tru-color over anything they don't specifically recommend, in order to avoid all of the rework.

Next High Risk item in my quiver: Walthers decals dated 1957. What was I thinking? "Gee, that's a good price on Ebay".

Fortunately for me, Walthers made a good decal, and the man who had these in his stash all those years kept them clean, dry, and sealed. Went on like new.

Film's a little thick but should largely disappear under a coat of acrylic matte varnish.

Fortunately the decal set came with a generous supply of red stripes which, after my tape mask disaster, would be preferred to mask and spray.

The trucks and fuel tank casting got the gray treatment as well. It will get its cab numbers, then an overall matte varnish layer. Then I'll add glazing and grabirons, and a pilot coupler. But first, a quick glamor shot:

Vallejo matte varnish applied:

In this shot you can see a trick from aircraft modeling applied to railroading, namely, preshading on black. Under the horizontal stainless steel grills of the prototype are openings into the carbody which show the internal framing. Not part of this old budget RTR model, I painted in acrylic black these openings, and once dry, oversprayed in chrome silver, but intentionally not heavy enough to hide the black. It allows those faux  internal openings to be revealed. 

........

Now for glazing,  horns, grabirons,  number boards. And some break in of an old, rarely run electric motor and drive train.

November Weekend - 1/48 2.5 Ton 6x6 by Tamiya

A few firsts for me. A - first vehicle not sporting a cannon of some sort. B - the first Tamiya kit I have built.  While my wife was burrowed in with hundreds of other "Griffinites" I was left to my work bench virtually undisturbed and essentially completed this build the first weekend in November (2021).  This is a companion piece  for the eventual diorama using the Revell P-61 I have built, which is the post that immediately follows this one.  So when you finish perusing just keep on going.

The Tamiya kit is very clean.  Other than the bits to be removed from cutting off of the sprue there is no flash.  Also, as you will see later, the tires are molded so cleanly there was hardly any "parting lines" to scrape away.

A very cool part of the kit is the white metal cassis - super clean mold.

The drive train and suspension are finely detailed.  The entire kit is molded in an olive drab; however, as with all plastic models, they will look like plastic without painting.

The first assembly is the drive train and exhaust to the cassis.  This is the one place the Tamiya instructions fail in that they suggest that only the exhaust be painted (gun metal).  As you can see, the under side and drive train really need a detailed paint application.

The wheels are easily prepped using Testors flat black.  I did not have to mix the black to give a good tire black look, but I did dry brush dark gray followed up with the Tamiya Weather Master colors later.

While the cassis sits I move to the cab assembly.  The seats are cemented in place and the floor painted and splashed with a bit of brown wash to give a typical used appearance.  Simply dipping the brush into flat brown and then into the cleaning thinner and flicking it over the cabin floor gives a good random pattern - no stippling necessary.

The cabin assembly continues with seat paint and weathering and installation of the steering wheel, shift levers, instrument panel and the carbine racks.  The driver is a five piece construct (arms, head and pot).  Painting of the face was interesting using toothpicks besides a fine tip brush.  He has blue eyes and sort of resembles Marty Ingles IMHO, which was unintentional.

The rest of the cabin is put together including the clear windscreen with the frame and wipers painted, The canvas top is a khaki (tan and yellow mix) with a little Tamiya Weather black rubbed on,  Black wash was used to highlight panel lines followed by the Olive paint.  The molded louvers I had to carefully paint (the rear face) with thickened black wash to give the appearance of openings. It was a steady hand, breath holding operation with an extremely fine tip brush.

Speaking of black wash, I used it on the back of the grill in order that it might show through to the front

which turned out successful.  Now we applied a bit of mud weathering to the underside of the fenders 

before putting it all together and attaching the completed cabin to the cassis with the included self tapping screws.

As can be seen, decals are applied as I go.  The Tamiya decals remove from the paper backing very quickly and they are sturdy as well.  Some of the best decals encountered in my experience.

Moving to bed construction I experiment with paint on the tailgate.  A brown wash applied to the "wood" after the Olive is applied gives a weathered look. I figure that the olive paint would not hold up or look quite the same as the olive on the metal framing.

As I put the bed together I continue to use the brown wash to all parts. 

I paint the upper slats while still on the sprue.  These are used since my intent is for the truck to be for cargo hauling and not for troops

I black washed the entire bed floor so that it appears used!

Detailed parts are added such as Jerry Cans and tools and headlamps to the fenders.  

This view shows the weathering of the underside and tires using brown wash and the Tamiya Weather Master "makeup", my go to weathering kit.

Now for a bit of DIY.  After applying decals, the tail gate is to be glued in place, but my intent with the anticipated diorama is to have the tailgate open and close, so I pulled out the pin vise drill and bits of 26 gauge wire, drilled the hinges and force fit the wire in place (no glue) and it works!

YES, the Jib Crane arrived and I immediately set to work.  The assembly was straight forward, but getting the pulleys and chain correct was challenging.  The instructions call for drilling and wire not supplied.  The key was getting the chain attached at the top pulley.  I ended up using monofilament to tie and glue the end of the chain to the pulley.

Then the chain is threaded through the bottom pulley and back up around the top pulley to be then wound around the winch drum.  The instructions were to attach the chain to the drum first, but I could not figure out how practical that  would be as the extra chain is to be cut off at he drum end.  So I worked from the top pulley and down to the drum where I wound it around four times to cover the drum, hit with the acc gel and then snipped off the tail that was left.

It seems that my procedure worked well enough.  I can pull the chain and raise and lower the bottom pulley.  You can see that the base plate has been attached to the truck bed.  The crane is force fit into the base so I can rotate the crane.  A really nice job of adaptation by those boys in the motor pool!!

Truck 37 - July 1944 - Normandy - which fits my scenario perfectly.  I did not know that the decals in the kit had this option.  I got lucky with this one.

So here is a staging photo using the truck with the Radome hauled into the bed.

My brother suggested some brown painted gauze to use as as a net for lifting.  I think I like the idea.  I guess I am not quite done yet, but keep scrolling down to view the P-61 build.😁