Sunday, March 21, 2010

A Simple Kit... or so I thought.


I've enjoyed that time honoured tradition of kit construction this week. For those of you who've not seen my hobby area I have had to store all the railway bits and pieces away in sealable styrene boxes. These same boxes have an assortment of labels, ranging from, 'kits & decals', to 'if you can't find it look here first' and it's mate, 'if you can't find it look here second'.

The boxes are stored around the end of the garage wall up high over the top of the layout area. A thought struck me this week, ' those kit boxes are not getting any emptier'. So there it was, that moment of realisation, it was time to model.

After re-aquainting myself with the contents of the kit boxes I chose a simple one to get started, a Casula K Wagon. It looks a really simple kit, and would be finished with a high tarped load so no interior detail would be required. The sides and base went in with a few adjustments, sole bars adjusted to fit and check the W irons for fitting the wheelsets.

As time has gone on and I've become pickier with my modelling, the wheelsets of a plastic of some type just didn't seem to be ideal. I have purchased previously rp 25/88 8-spoke axles from Steam Era models, and they are great, but these are a different axle length than the kit supplied. The axles are shorter so the W irons all move in towards the centre. A simple change to the model that does have a large difference on how it will look on the rails.

Now an order to Steam Era will need to be put together, but how many packs? Do I now order a few more K wagons and get really excited, or finish a few other 'simple' kits that I've got stashed away? If this hobby does one thing to us all it is this,
that there is always room for a few more wagons!

Have a great week, Geoff.
This photo is unrelated, but thought there should be something to look at as well as read. It will be re created on SSC as the local butcher store. It is actually from Koorawatha in western NSW. Not a bad spot, would have been a great place to see about Fifty years ago.

2 comments:

  1. Undoubtedly this project is some time off just but did you give any thought as to how you were going to do the stone work on the side of the shop. I would be interested in your proposed method as I wanted to have some similar stone work on one of the building I'm planning for "Traders Junction".
    Tess

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tess, my first thought is to use plaster in a rough mould to make up the dimensions that I'll need. The actual stonework will probably be carved into the face of the plaster. The rest of the building will be fairly typical, I really like the combination of materials in this building. The photos were taken whilst Darren and I were doing the tour through country NSW, that was a great week. I think another one is almost due.

    ReplyDelete