Salt Wagons 01

The salt wagons are slowly taking shape.  It's been a while since I have posted for the simple reason that posting repetitive tasks gets really dull for readers. . . "look, more flash removed from detail parts" is just not exciting.  Most of them are still in the tray, waiting to be put together.  Never mind that a wheel is off the track in the photo above--it was the only way I could keep it from rolling off one end or another.

I made several wood trays to hold projects--actually, I had originally built them to hold color sample sets for my architectural clients, but they are more frequently used to hold models in progress.  This way, everything can be sorted.  Filling the tray tables took a bit of effort with 8 cars in progress.  Staining, preliminary "salting" (with some white paint diluted in alcohol), and rusting (paint in alcohol, not really mixed).

The trucks and under bodies are airbrushed--the rest is poorly mixed paint and stain.  So far cars 312 and 314 are about 90% complete.  I have a little more detailing to do on them, and some final painting, but I need to get the other six up to standard first.

Making these cars has been an interesting adjustment.  Size wise, a 24' car in ON30 is the length of a standard gauge freight car in HO (at least one in US outline).  I found myself looking at slim gauge cars repeatedly in order to get some sense of proportion.  Getting them on the rails, I am glad that I changed my coupler height to ON3 standard, lifting the car body somewhat.  Doing so really helped with the chunky proportion--something I like.