Rapido X31a
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One down, 7 to go. Ok I know, not much modeling just changed wheels and couplers, and weathered it. But the cars are nice.
Brian J. Carlson -- Brian J. Carlson, P.E. Cheektowaga NY 
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Eric Hansmann
Upgrading wheelsets and couplers are important to meet your standards. It's the first thing anyone should do before putting an RTR freight car into the fleet. Weathering and updating the weight and repack stencils are other components to consider.
Those boxcars look great, Brian.
Eric Hansmann
Murfreesboro, TN
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I experimented with laying a strip of blank Champ decal film over the bottom of the car body to represent the patch these got without having to repaint the car. This was a suggestion from Bill Schneider I think. Looks like it is going to work.
Mike Clements Wakefield, MA nyc65.wordpress.com |
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Chris Barkan
Mike, As you know, this is an important modification for these cars in their later years. Would you mind posting a photo of how that looks?
-- Chris Barkan (still in Deerfield, MA) |
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I’ve got 5 decal projects going right now, and this is at the bottom of the stack. I’ll post photos of the final result, I think the weathering will help make it pop, but this is what I’ve got right now. I had to hold it at angle to see it.
 -- Mike Clements Wakefield, MA nyc65.wordpress.com |
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WILLIAM PARDIE
Mike What paInt did you use on this car or is this the color of the undecorated car? Bill Pardie Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: "Mike Clements via groups.io" <mbclements@...> Date: 1/2/22 12:08 PM (GMT-10:00) To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: Re: [RealSTMFC] Rapido X31a  -- Mike Clements Wakefield, MA nyc65.wordpress.com |
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That is a pre-lettered car. The idea is to save the paint by using a clear, thick decal to represent the patch along the bottom of the car body.
-- Mike Clements Wakefield, MA nyc65.wordpress.com |
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 Still playing with the patch. I did the other half of the car and added an oil paint wash. It is *kind of* working. I had to use direct overhead light to get it to show up in the attached pic. You can see it on the layout upon close examination. For the other side of the car I will thicken up the Champ film with several coats of Microscale decal film. I made this one a little too tall anyway. -- Mike Clements Wakefield, MA nyc65.wordpress.com |
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Bill Keene
Lookin’ good.
Not sure that I would thicken the decal very much or at all. Remember, in HO scale the patch plate of 1/4 inch thickness would only be 0.00275 of a real inch when reduced to scale size. It has been along time since I have actually seen a real steam era box car but I would believe that some of the contrast of the offset plate is because of weathering that has accumulated atop the overlap. One question from a modeler that must confess has not paid much attention to the PRR… when did the X31s begin to have the patch plating applied? Also was this a class wide program? Cheers, Bill Keene Irvine, CA |
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For me, I’m fine with exaggerating this feature to make it visible. The main idea is to give a lip for the oil wash to settle on. I went back and used a pointed q tip with horizontal strokes on the patch as opposed to vertical on the rest of the car. It helped build up grime on the lip and set it off much better. This also makes the rivets on the patch fade away- which is good because there appear to be less of them on the patches. From what I can tell these got repaired on an as-needed basis. I model 1965 though, so any car that lived that long probably had something done to it. I’m sure one of the PRR die hards can give a better answer. Mike Clements |
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your patching look fine to me and not really oversized On 1/22/2022 2:02 PM, Mike Clements via groups.io wrote:
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Tim O'Connor Sterling, Massachusetts 
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I have a broader question on weathering the Rapido cars: So far I have precious few photos of these cars from the immediate end of WWII when I model. I’m trying to get some sense of what the cars might have looked like at that point. I have a bunch of guesses about things that might factor into how the fleet looked, but not sure how material any of them are to this group of PRR cars.
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We generalize about various factors such as quality of paint products used prior to WWII, the effects of acid rain in the east, of coal and smoke; about paint peeling off galvanized roofs, and weathering and wear and tear. But how were the cars used in WWII? How did that affect their appearance after the war? Did PRR maintain them during the war? Or only gear up that form of maintenance sometime in 1946 or 47 . . . ? I’m thinking a) aged worn paint, within a range from pretty good to almost unrecognizable. b) some with peeling paint on the roof (was it small spotty paint failure, or large failures?) c) lettering still pretty good & legible? I’m thinking for my modelling period they may be in rougher shape than within a couple of years post war, when repaints might have caught up? But all of this is just speculation, not PRR-informed insight. So, is there something more informative to go from when weathering the Rapido cars? Rob On Jan 22, 2022, at 11:02 AM, Mike Clements via groups.io <mbclements@...> wrote: For me, I’m fine with exaggerating this feature to make it visible. The main idea is to give a lip for the oil wash to settle on. I went back and used a pointed q tip with horizontal strokes on the patch as opposed to vertical on the rest of the car. It helped build up grime on the lip and set it off much better. This also makes the rivets on the patch fade away- which is good because there appear to be less of them on the patches. From what I can tell these got repaired on an as-needed basis. I model 1965 though, so any car that lived that long probably had something done to it. I’m sure one of the PRR die hards can give a better answer. Mike Clements |
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Bill Keene
Thank you Mike for your additional comments. I understand what you are trying to accomplish. It is most likely that these cars by the time they reached 1965 did have a number of modifications and repairs. I model 1952 thus the reason for my questions.
Cheers, Bill Keene Irvine, CA |
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