Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Coal Containers, Metal Tarps and Mr Impatient

DB says: Of the personalities that inhabit the United States of Darryl, Mr Thoughtful, Mr Careful and Mr Analytical have been tied up for the past few weeks making DX bits, and today Mr Impatient popped his persona into the trainroom for a look about.

You may recall that I made a few unspectacular HCC first-generation coal containers a while back. Then a short while after that, bored with HCCs, I turned a few castings into HEC urea containers.

Scholars of West Coast goods trains will note that you don't see either of those about on the Midland in the current millenia. The Dec 2003 Journal does have a good article though (including NZ120 plans) covering the newer HLC containers that currently ply the Coal Route carting black diamonds over the hill to domestic markets. The third 'series' of HLCs supposedly recycled the bases of HCCs or HECs with vertical side extensions added on top, so knocking a few up from my existing castings might be a good addition to the fleet as well as completing the 'three things you can do with coal containers' series. In the quite awful picture above, three of these ribbed containers can be seen as well as a curved-sided series 2 HLC near the middle of this appalling picture.Some tarp bars were made up out of round styrene, raised in the centre, on top of the extended castings as above.

More interestingly, earlier in the day, I spotted a bit of half-used tinfoil in a kitchen drawer, which made me think about tarpaulins. As of course it would. Lo and behold, it turns out that tinfoil makes quite good tarps - showing detail, but not being as flimsy as my previous favourite material: Glad Wrap. Just call me Gordon Ramsay.

I gently ruffled it up a bit, flattened it out, contact glued it and the bars, stuck it on and then applied a finger to carefully push it down to bring out the ridgepole detail. Noice.A bit of over-weathering later and we're done. Not bad for a couple of hour's work. I'll mellow out the weathering and finish the PK in some future sitting.Tarp Detail:

6 comments:

Amateur Fettler said...

How well did the foil take paint, Mr Bond?? Any secrets on how to get it to hold hands while it dried??

beaka said...

nice work once again. I have used tinfoil off 1kg yoghurt containers on my DF Loco. I washed them first of course and also use a metal rod to roll the dimples or pattern out of them. On my DF I used a piece to cover the cab as I had used 3 pieces of styrene to make the roof and the joins were abit ugly. a spray of undercoat first and it has taken the paint very well. I intend using it for tarps later on.it is thinner foil than the normal garden variety on a roll.

Kiwibonds said...

The foil seems to have glued and painted fine. The foil had two sides, so I contact glued the shiny side inside and left the matte side outside. I used floquil montana rail link blue (as that's what I had) which went on well and seems to have held up fine. The paint covered better than expected (without primer!) and it naturally 'thinned' a litle on the raised details, and I encouraged that look a little. I finished it off with a wash of light gray acrylic on top and flat black on the sides and will dullcote the thing sometime soon.

Kiwibonds said...

p.s. per beaka's final comment - this stuff is quite a bit thinner than the super-shiny tuff stuff I grew up with too.

Someone will have to do a Woolies run to supply a suitable NZ brandname.

Alternatively you can bathe in yoghurt for the tinfoil lids.

beaka said...

yes, but just think how much smoother and softer your skin will feel. all I will need then is to find a range of vitamins that use tinfoil as lid seals,etc.

ECMT said...

Alternatively you could use the foil that is wrapped around the top of the neck of bottles of Jacob's Creek sparkling wine. It may be a little thicker than yoghurt foil, but you could still bathe in it.