For Christmas I received, among other things, a pair of Ye Olde Huff'n Puff On3 kits. One is a 30' wooden boxcar and the other is supposed to be one of the DSP&P's 1883 27' Tiffany refrigerator cars (cars built under license of the Tiffany patent).
This kit has several problems:
#1 the hinges are the wrong shape...a VERY important feature for modeling the Tiffany's.
#2 The lettering wasn't quite aligned...most noticeable where the black & red don't overlap...no one knows what color the lettering was on these cars...red or black is fine...mentioning the color will also make many-a south park fan's blood boil (I lean towards the white faction...some say straw yellow...some think mint green...the waycar debate is similar...white vs. straw yellow)
#3 The car is 6" too tall...which looks very bad next to my accurate cars...and reducing the clearance above the rail causes other problems
#4 The core is perfectly dimensioned to 27' long and 7'6" wide...except that 2" of siding needs to go around all 4 sides...causing the car to acceptably too long...but very noticeably too wide (a huge problem for my eyes).
#5 No distinct Tiffany air inlets
#6 the brake cylinder is way too big
#7 the needle beams are 50% too wide
#8 The truss rod wire is way too small
#9 intermediate sills are too small
#10 no end sills
#11...a few other small details such as no brake rigging and incorrect roof walk boards.
So...the kitbash is on! My On3 roster has 2 divisions: close enough/non-DSP&P and dead on DSP&P. At the start, this was to go in the former...but now it might make it into the later.
The first picture is of the unmodified core...which I hacked 6" off of the height of the end blocks. I also flipped the roofwalk support sideways...to get nearly the proper width...and notched the ends to offset for how it would have been raised by my alteration...suddenly it is the right height (or nearly...the floor will sit 2" too low...and the sills be 2" too short...oh well...it is close enough.
Next I trimmed 4" of width off of each block...and 4" off of the floor...since it was a serious kitbash now...I also trimmed 4" of length off of the floor and off of the roof parts.
I then glued the core together.
Next I laid out the floor with my calipers, my scale ruler, and a pencil. I mounted the altered bolsters, the shortened center sills (which were shortened to provide material for the end sills), the end sills, and the side sills (not following the floor...but rather my calipers so they'd be square).
Next I filed the hinges to shape. I quickly learned that cutting them was easier & more accurate than filing...after I'd done the first 6
. This picture shows both...the alignment issues on Tiffany and DSP&P aren't quite
obvious.
Next I cut the sides to size...centering the lettering & making sure they'd fit nicely onto the core. I also trimmed the ends to length and mounted them.
This kit has several problems:
#1 the hinges are the wrong shape...a VERY important feature for modeling the Tiffany's.
#2 The lettering wasn't quite aligned...most noticeable where the black & red don't overlap...no one knows what color the lettering was on these cars...red or black is fine...mentioning the color will also make many-a south park fan's blood boil (I lean towards the white faction...some say straw yellow...some think mint green...the waycar debate is similar...white vs. straw yellow)
#3 The car is 6" too tall...which looks very bad next to my accurate cars...and reducing the clearance above the rail causes other problems
#4 The core is perfectly dimensioned to 27' long and 7'6" wide...except that 2" of siding needs to go around all 4 sides...causing the car to acceptably too long...but very noticeably too wide (a huge problem for my eyes).
#5 No distinct Tiffany air inlets
#6 the brake cylinder is way too big
#7 the needle beams are 50% too wide
#8 The truss rod wire is way too small
#9 intermediate sills are too small
#10 no end sills
#11...a few other small details such as no brake rigging and incorrect roof walk boards.
So...the kitbash is on! My On3 roster has 2 divisions: close enough/non-DSP&P and dead on DSP&P. At the start, this was to go in the former...but now it might make it into the later.
The first picture is of the unmodified core...which I hacked 6" off of the height of the end blocks. I also flipped the roofwalk support sideways...to get nearly the proper width...and notched the ends to offset for how it would have been raised by my alteration...suddenly it is the right height (or nearly...the floor will sit 2" too low...and the sills be 2" too short...oh well...it is close enough.
Next I trimmed 4" of width off of each block...and 4" off of the floor...since it was a serious kitbash now...I also trimmed 4" of length off of the floor and off of the roof parts.
I then glued the core together.
Next I laid out the floor with my calipers, my scale ruler, and a pencil. I mounted the altered bolsters, the shortened center sills (which were shortened to provide material for the end sills), the end sills, and the side sills (not following the floor...but rather my calipers so they'd be square).
Next I filed the hinges to shape. I quickly learned that cutting them was easier & more accurate than filing...after I'd done the first 6
. This picture shows both...the alignment issues on Tiffany and DSP&P aren't quiteobvious.
Next I cut the sides to size...centering the lettering & making sure they'd fit nicely onto the core. I also trimmed the ends to length and mounted them.
