On Dec 5, 2004, at 2:07 PM, pierreoliver2003 wrote:

List,
I'm about to commence building one of Sunshine's vinegar cars. I was
wondering if anyone had any advice/warnings about this kit. I like to
see the speed bumps before I hit them.

Pierre:

I am just finishing construction on mine and there are two things that
I would recommend, besides just taking your time. The first is that in
a effort to make a solid, true tank, I "squared" up the edges that are
glued together to form the bottom of the tank. This involved filing
off material until those edges would come together along a clean,
square adjacent surface, as opposed to merely touching. Either I
removed a LOT of material (I don't think I removed that much) or the
variances in the casting process produced a tank that is not of great
enough diameter to abut against all the tank saddles, once placed in
the saddles. If I were doing it again, I would remove almost nothing
when forming the tank and go for the maximum tank diameter. The second
thing, and it's small, is that the instructions do not tell you that
the "thin cast strip with large bolt heads on either end" that "fits
into the top horizontal channel of the end frames" does have a correct
and incorrect orientation. Those large bolt heads should angle
upwards. Look at the parts and you'll see what I mean.

There is a lot of variation in this kit that makes it a little
"sloppier" than I'd generally like. However, the overall effect of the
model, which is really quite striking as I am sure you have gathered,
renders most of the these little imperfections moot. I already know
it's one of those models I will continue to enjoy for years, because it
embodies everything that makes kit building so satisfying.

Regards,
Ted Culotta

Speedwitch Media
100 14th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94402
info@...
www.speedwitch.com
(650) 787-1912





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-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Morrill [mailto:badlands@...]

The solution is Johnson

& Johnson unmedicated baby powder.

There's two (or more) kinds, not including the Aloe impregnated kind.

There's talc, and there's corn starch, both sold as 'Baby Powder." Which are
you referencing.



BTW, I have found that the corn starch kind is NOT good if your sample baby has
a fungus problem. The corn starch (which may well have been shipped in steam
era freight cars) serves as FOOD for the fungus. Took weeks to figure that out.

SGL





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--- In STMFC@..., "Bill Darnaby" <WDarnaby@w...> wrote:
I recently finished assembling a Sunshine vinegar car, kit 60.3. This kit
is of the Standard Brands wooden horizontal tank vinegar car. The
instructions are printed on the usual, for Sunshine, glossy paper with in
process photos and completed model photos. In addition, there is a
prototype
data sheet of in service cars from the1930's through the 1960's and some
museum
cars. Finally, there is a supplement sheet with close up photos of a museum
car. The decals were printed by Rail Graphic and are of the usual high
quality. The resin is the usual easy to work with gray resin.
This kit has a lot parts. First the tank wrapper is preformed into a
cylinder very close to the final diameter. This was done after the wrapper
was taken from the flat mold and formed while it was still soft. The
wrapper is around .040" thick and has excellent wood stave detail. Although
it was formed into a cylinder the areas near the two edges to be joined to
form the completed cylinder
tended to be straight which made less than a perfect circle when joined. I
sprung the edges apart and inserted a professional grade emery board between
and worked it back and forth to prep the edges for bonding with CA but found
it difficult to force the wrapper into perfect circle because of the
straight areas near the joint. This was solved by cutting a one inch wide
strip of 1/32 of lead to the length of the tank less end pieces and forming
the lead into and arc along its length using and old broom handle as a form.
The lead surface and interior of the wrapper were roughed up with sandpaper
for "bite" and the wrapper attached to the lead with CA while both were
formed over the handle. This forced the wrapper into a good circle and
added necessary weight to the tank. Now, the instructions say the wrapper
is sized to the exact diameter and that the finished tank diameter should be
7' 6" or less. I took them for their word on this as the final tank
diameter is difficult to judge from the unjoined wrapper but I ended up with
a tank of 7' 9". This larger diameter causes problems later in assembly and
the modeler should make the effort to get this correct. I should have made
more passes with the emery board along the joint. The tank ends are cast
oversize and the modeler has to take care in sizing them to fit inside the
tank so that the vertical end braces are centered in the tank from side to
side and that the end braces line up from end to end after installation.
The tank has at least 28 support hoops and the kit provides cast resin
turnbuckles and .015 brass wire to create the hoops. Applying these was
very remenisent of building the wood water tanks for my layout. Taking a
cue from that project I found it much easier to substitute .013 monofilament
fishing line for the wire. I would insert the line into a hole drilled in
the turnbuckle, attach it with CA, hold the turnbuckle on the tank, wrap the
line around the tank, cut the line with a bit of overlap past the turnbuckle
and insert and attach with CA the loose end of the line into the other hole
in the turnbuckle.
The underframe is a nice one piece resin casting that includes all sills and
crossbearers. Resin molding has progressed over the years to where flanges
and channels can be cast undercut and open and this underframe is a fine
example. The only flaws were found in the side sills which are C channels
facing inwards. Some of these had started to fill in as castings made
previous to mine had torn away the rubber mold material causing resin
impressions of the torn mold pieces to remain in the channels of my casting.
I was able to clean these out with a modeling knife.
There are 3 types of tank supports or saddles that are attached to the
underframe and the instructions recommend attaching the end saddles to the
underframe and sanding to fit the tank diameter by wrapping sandpaper around
the tank. The first difficulty my oversize tank caused was in the fitup of
the end saddles to the tank. The extra 3" caused the tank to be too large
for the saddles and the sanding operation for a good fit up caused all of
the simulated cast wood saddle blocks to be removed. I ended up sanding all
of the wood blocks away, down to the "metal" frame, and I had to add new
blocks made from .010 styrene. The instructions say to mount the end
saddles in the center of the underframe but I found this hard to judge
without having the tank in the saddle. I would recommend sanding the end
saddles to fit the tank diameter as loose pieces and then use the tank as an
aid to attaching them to the center of the underframe.
The tank end supports are nice castings with simulated vertical H beams that
are supposed to line up with vertical wood beams on the tank ends. The
result will be disappointing if the modeler doesn't take care to making the
tank ends centered in the tank, the tank centered on the underframe and the
tank end support centered on the underframe. The instructions say to add
the coupler box after all of the tank saddles are in place. I would
recommend that the couple box be added to the underframe just after the tank
end saddles so the bolster and coupler screws holes can be conveniently
drilled and tapped. Otherwise, the coupler box hole drilling will get into
the tank end support structure.
One of the neat details of the car is the large cross bracing to support the
tank. These are fabricated out of resin casings, styrene turnbuckles and
.025 styrene rod. The instructions say the lower ends of these fit into
holes in the bolsters but I did not find and had to drill my own. The upper
end fit into holes drilled into the back of the tank end frame support in
line with cast bolt heads on the opposite sides to simulate the nuts at the
ends of the bracing. Here is the other issue I ran into with the fat tank
as I had to drill the hole a little outboard of the bolt heads to clear the
tank diameter. One thing to note even if the modeler gets the tank diameter
correct. The instructions recommend building and painting the frame
assembly and tank as separate components because of all of the surfaces to
paint and then assembling after. However, if the tank cross braces are
fastened to the upper portions of the tank end frame with CA in line with
the cast bolt detail the tank cannot be installed. I therefore left the
upper ends of the cross braces loose in their holes so they could be popped
in and out for tank removal/installation. One complaint is that the
instructions call for the application of a discharge pipe at the bottom of
the tank but provide no clue or photo as to where it goes.
As mentioned, the kit comes with many resin detail parts and the kit even
includes a plastic bag just for their safe storage after removal and cleanup
from the resin sprues. All of the casting deatil is clean and neatly done.
The brake detail consists of a Bowser AB part sprue and etched brake levers.
The kit demands a lot of attention as so many things have to line up
correctly for a balanced appearance. This kit is not for the faint of heart
and required three times the effort that a simple boxcar would have
required. However, it builds into a really neat car.
Bill Darnaby
--- End forwarded message ---

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Morrill [mailto:badlands@...]

& Johnson unmedicated baby powder.

Is there a commercial source in HO for the drop end gondola door with
Pullman-Standard style straight corrugations?

The P2K 'Greenville' cars that were made a few years ago had two different
door styles that were both dreadnought style. However several of the
prototypes that had been been built by P-S actually had the proprietary
three-rib style end door. At least RI and SLSF had cars with this style
of door.

These cars were covered in RMJ, January and November 1996.

Ron Merrick