That moment

I’ve just spent much of my morning on a special resin kit a friend has created. The sides and ends were glued into a box yesterday and I wanted to complete the brake hardware on the underframe today. I’ve been excited to push this model along so it will be ready for display at the upcoming RPM Chicagoland event.

I’ve installed brake hardware and this underframe was straightforward. I started right in and made a couple of mounting brackets for the Tichy KC brake hardware. Then the brake hangers, rods, and levers were installed. After the glue dried and excess wire snipped away, the underframe was fit into the bottom of the car body. I sat back in my chair and snapped the above photo then realized I had made a horrible mistake. It’s that moment when your heart sinks and happiness has gone away.

Yep, I mounted the KC brake components on the wrong side of the centersill. Welcome to my Friday the 13th. I think I’ll go mow the lawn.


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12 thoughts on “That moment”

  1. Hi Eric,
    I didn’t want to click the “Like” button 🙂
    Hope your weekend improves!
    Rick

  2. Eric,
    We have all had at least one OS moment (and I don’t mean reporting On Sheet). You did the right thing: stepped away from the apparatus, found something relatively brainless to occupy your mind and chilled down. The good news is that everything fit nicely. The sun will rise again tomorrow.

  3. You think that’s bad?

    Tichy introduced a model of a later GSC cast frame flat car. The model, as I recall, doesn’t have any brake equipment at all (you can’t see it anyway with the typical L-O-W side sills)–but the brake wheel, and the recess into which it would fit when folded down, was on the wrong side of the car!

    How would you like your error to be in a steel die?

    It was corrected very soon after, but I still have the first car with the brake wheel on the wrong side.

    I wonder what I should do with it? What road should I letter it for?

  4. Sorry to hear that Eric. All of us have done something similar at one time or another. Maybe an application of debonder will free up the parts and they can then be assembled in a manner more to your usual standard of work.

    Even if it is wrong the workmanship is first rate. I maybe building some of these in the near future, (resin kits) to show one of the new guys what they look like. I believe I will build a 100 ton battleship gon from a flat kit for my first stab at these types. Watching your nice models on your blog has made me really want to try them.

    http://www.fandckits.com/images/2071thumb.jpg

    1. Just a thought, but for a first effort on one of Steve’s kits, you might want to try one of his one piece kits first. They go together pretty easily and are imho pretty high quality. There is nothing wring with the flat kits, but the alignment process is a bit twitchy. Plus, the battleship gon has some odd trucks that can be hard to find.

      1. Hi Joe,

        I have the trucks, purchased them with the kits. I do believe the part about twitchy with all the different parts. Right now I have been holding off on building them because I just do not like super glue and the possibility of gluing my hand to something. I will be getting some debonder before I start, I just know I will find a way for it to happen if I don’t have it.

        I have been tutoring some of the new guys on building rolling stock at the club and while they are building the accurails and similar cars I have been building the Red Caboose, Blueprint, Gould, Tichy, Inter Mountain, and Proto 2000s.

        I am not sure if I have one of the kits that is not a flat kit but I will check. Thanks for your input.

        I have a trepidation regarding the super glue but realize I will need to get past it as I really like the detail of these resin kits and would much rather buy them than the rtr stuff out there.

        A fellow club member has a funny story about super glue and lubricating an engines trucks. He made the mistake of mixing up his glue and lubricant and needless to say the truck is glued fast. Inter Mountain sent him a new truck for free, he told them the truth and he is a very loyal customer now. I’ll bet the laughter on that one could be heard a long ways off from the Inter Mountain offices.

        Thanks again for your tip I will check to see if I have one that is not a flat kit.

        1. Not to completely hijack this post, but re the super glue point, the real issue for me was the trepidation part. Once you get comfortable with the idea and have a few parts under your belt, the whole process gets a lot easier.

          One thing I found of great assistance was something to hold a drop of the super glue — pour out a drop and then tooth pick tiny amounts onto the parts to be joined. Odd as it sounds, I use the little plastic things that my son gets his contact lenses in. They are nearly perfect for holding small amounts (drop or two) of super glue. I used to use small pieces of aluminum foil but the little plastic things work much better.

          One more “tip.” Re the flat kits, the sides are the only real hard part. I tried all kinds of things to get them to align squarely, but nothing really seemed to work. Steve and Sharon recommend using machine squares, but I finally broke down and bought one of those Right Clamp thingies (technical term). They are not quite as easy to use as they seem in the ads, but once you get the hang of adjusting sides carefully (and BEFORE you hit them with glue — this is more obvious after you have not done this once or twice or in my case three times), they work really well. I use the really thin super glue to “tack weld” the sides. The Right Clamp I have has a little slot allowing access to the inside of the joint. Once that dries and seems reasonably secure, unclamp and go back with thicker stuff to fill in the seams. I also work on a glass surface to minimize the “glued to the table” errors.

          Hope this helps.

          BTW, re Steve’s one piece bodies, his newer gondola bodies are a real treat. The one piece nature of the kits allows him to detail the INSIDE of the gon with things such as stake holders and the like. VERY cool kits.

  5. There is so much wonderful information in your blog – it’s a great find via MRH! I’ve just returned to model railroading after twenty some years and feel as if I’m learning all over again. So much I didn’t know and so much of it in your blog. I look forward to new posts. Thank you.
    Jim

    1. Thanks for your comment, James! I enjoy sharing my hobby adventures and helping other modelers understand different techniques and an earlier industrial appearance. – Eric H.

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