What follows is my first attempt at posting photo images here from a brand new Photo bucket account. This is a "try-it-and-see-what-happens" deal!
I have resurrected a project intitially embarked upon in 1989. Everything has been packed away in boxes until unpacking from a recent move.
The project is to convert seven $1.97 "Sale Table" AHM RTR toy four-wheel bobber cabooses into detailed scale models for my currently cabooseless Lehigh Susquehanna & Western. The first photo (if I can get it to post) is an essentially "out of the box" RTR caboose, with curved side rails shaved off and board grooves scribed through.


The next photo shows the end rails shaved off, the cupola lamp removed and the platform railing mounting holes plugged.

The third photo shows the body given a quick shot of primer to show where work needs to be done, the huge holes in the end platform filled, the end railing mounting holes plugged, the "tar impregnated canvas" roof covering applied and given its initial trim, and the first coupler pocket and draft gear installed. It also shows that I have a lot of work ahead of me!

There ya go! Now that your photobucket account is cooperating we expect updates! Nice work, by the way!
Ralph

That looks very similar to the bachmann caboose I reworked for HOn3, but the windows are slightly different. Nice work. I await your progress - those bobbers are neat cabooses.

P5se Camelback Wrote:O.K., I'm on a roll! Man, they're HUGE - they're not that big in real life!

The third photo shows the body given a quick shot of primer to show where work needs to be done, the huge holes in the end platform filled, the end railing mounting holes plugged, the "tar impregnated canvas" roof covering applied and given its initial trim, and the first coupler pocket and draft gear installed. It also shows that I have a lot of work ahead of me!
I'll post more later, as more gets done. biL

Work !? There's that nasty four letter word ending in 'K' again :o ......it's fun ! Model Railroading is fun !

You are off to a good start.......with the cabeese, and the "bucket"

Very small, but pack a very cool punch!

Nice start! Keep on rollin' along!

They DO make great little starting points for detail jobs. Without too much additional effort you can have a nicely upgraded model.

Looking forward to your progress.

Galen

Looking good. Cool little cabooses. Hope to see some progress photos.

Lookin' good, Bil. I'm glad to see that you've finally got the "bucket" working and that you're documenting your progress here, too.

Wayne

Here's a similar one I did back in the '60s following an article in MR. I moved the cupola to one end, replaced the cast on hand rails, and added a roof walk. As you can see, after following me around for many years, it's in need of some repairs and updating.



Tom

Reminds me a little of a caboose at IRM:


Hopefully this link works right:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.irm.org/gallery/album117">http://www.irm.org/gallery/album117</a><!-- m -->

nachoman Wrote:That looks very similar to the bachmann caboose I reworked for HOn3, but the windows are slightly different. Nice work. I await your progress - those bobbers are neat cabooses.

Nachoman ... it is the same caboose, sorta, but this one is from the molds being used back in 1988. Good eye!

Progress ... at a snail's pace. Some of this stuff takes time - lots of time to do each operation seven times. This photo shows the fleet of "Cute Little Crummies" lined up for their daily mods. Most have had their roof walks removed (parts for new free-standing roof walks have been cut from stock or fabricated, as the case may be, and reside in a clear plastic box behind the L&NE coffee cup.) All have had cast on grabs and rails removed. One has had roof grabs fitted for dimension notation (so I can put them all in the same locations, along with the NBW casting.) A couple have had the major hole in the end platform, left by a cammed slide in the mold, filled with evergreen styrene stock (a pain in the bum kind of job - I can only make myself do one a night.) The mounting holes for the 10" diameter end railings that were originally installed have been plugged with evergreen styrene rod with some toluol - makes for a nice tight fit.

Yeah, and all that stuff is on my breakfast table!

I tried to resize this and make it a bit smaller - those first ones were HUGE! Eventually, I'll figure it out.

P5se Camelback Wrote:I can't remember...

I am happy to see you have some backup in case one of the little guys gets lost
What is your intention to have a complete fleet?

I know there's no continuity here ... I have ADD But I've learned to use it to my advantage as a product designer developing concepts for new products. I'm just hard to follow sometimes ... even for me!

Here's an early shot, when they had just been unpacked and saw the light of day for the first time since 1989.

A few other cars managed to get unpacked as well ...