doctorwayne's New Years Resolution Challenge...

[doctorwayne]

Despite the improvement in the weather, I managed to get some more work done on these cars.  Casting the weights was first, and while that work is not shown here, the basic work to make cast weights is shown HERE.
Because the Central Valley floors are quite thin, I decided to mount the lead weights vertically at the cars' ends.  The short lengths of strip styrene are cemented in place using lacquer thinner, while the weight itself is not glued, but simply held in place by the strip material.



The assembled car weighs about 7.5oz., a little heavier than intended, but not enough to be an issue.


With the weights in place, the cars were washed with warm water and dish detergent, then allowed to air dry.  The next day, they were ready to be decaled with the Archer rivet detail.  The main areas needing attention were above the new upper door tracks and at the lower side where the original bottom door tracks had been removed.  Here's the bottom area, with the rivets missing:



I cut the rivet strips from the main sheet using a sharp blade (working on glass, to provide solid support, means that the blade should be sharpened frequently), then placed them face-up on the glass, adding water with my finger tip.  I normally used distilled water, available at supermarkets and drug stores, but this was from the dehumidifier and was simply poured into the almost empty jug.  I've used it for decals before, and it works well and is cheap, too.  



...and with the new ones added (with Solvaset not yet applied):



Here's a car with all the rivets added and treated with Solvaset.  In addition to the ones over the door, I added larger ones (7/8" as opposed to the 5/8" used elsewhere) to represent the attachment points at the side sill to the car's bolsters.

 

In retrospect, I should have used the large ones where I used the 5/8" size, and bought even larger ones for the sills.  This wasn't noticed until the cars were primered, but I think that they still look better than with no rivet detail at all.





I hope to start the finished paint on Monday or Tuesday, with the cars' sides done first.  Once dry, I'll brush-paint the areas on the roof and ends where the colour change to black takes place, then airbrush the rest of those areas without masking.  

Wayne