I found the "Original" Palmolive at Target today and will experiment with it. I don't want to make a big deal of this as my desire is to darken some very small parts. Given the "crap" styrene the

I made jewelry for a living, once. Paraphrasing Clint Eastwood, it wasn't much of a living. Anyway. I had a blackening solution that worked reliably on silver and gold alloys. I never tried it on

Without getting too far into our proprietary process, when blackening brass in a permanent and correct way, heat is required. It's a chemical process. I agree that the gun blackening (not blueing

Jim, The Sunshine sales flyers have some detail.Here’s the one for the kit you have. It has some notes on other heightMather cars. http://www.sunshinekits.com/sunimages/sun06.pdf Eric

More importantly, chemicals needing insulation were shipped in reefers, until the large-scale arrival of insulated boxcars in the late 1950s. Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press,

Sorry, I confused the X31F roof line with the apparently one-off roof line with reinforcing panels of X31B #61511...I'll go back in my cave now. Apologies for causing a stir... Clark Cone

At one recent RPM, I found a FtDDM&S P2K Mather boxcar and lept at the chance to get one. Once in hand, some research evaporated my enthusiasm. Turns out there were only ten such FtDDM&S boxcars,

Bob, The list of ingredients for cosmetics, especially historically is long indeed. A current (not STMFC era appropriate) list can be found

Thank you, Justin! The teardrop body made me think it was Equipco, but those late pressed steel wheels always make me doubt I have it right. Thanks! Elden

Elden, It appears to be an Equipco Type 3750-C hand brake with a Universal M1602A pressed steel hand wheel. Moloco offers an Equipco 3750 as does Kadee. The steel hand wheel is also available from

There were a lot of experiments with aluminum hoppers (and other car types, too) in the 1930s and 1940s: MP built or bought one aluminum hopper around the same time as the Alcoa cars, for

Union Station in Seattle had one of those wood bumping posts with the cast iron face in use till the 1980's. Rich Wilkens

The tried to minimize by extensive use of sealant between different components, but in the RR environment, the sealant/gasketing gradually pounded away, resulting in surface-to-surface contact, and

Guys; What maker and model is this? http://digital.hagley.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A2366355 Thanks! Elden Gatwood

Bill, The largest ingredient tends to be non-additive 30 weight motor oil. It was delivered next door away from the production facilities and not attached to the main facility. Usually in 55 gallon

"They didn't last on at least one RR - Montour. Bulging, corrosion at juncture between steel and aluminum, etc. " Wow! I'll say not - who wouldn't expect dissimilar metal corrosion especially in

Canton Car Company built 10 70-ton, aluminum-bodied hopper cars for the Alcoa Ore Company, subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) in November 1931. They were 41' 11" over strikers,

And how do you “have it”? As a documented photo? The Hagley photo shows the car (#61511) stenciled as an

Clark Cone wrote: "Hi all - I have it as an X31F... and I have several X31B pix with that roof line..." Please elaborate: - Do you "have it" (the same car number) as an X31F later in its life? - Do

Hi all - I have it as an X31F... and I have several X31B pix with that roof line... Clark Cone