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Post by harborbelt70 on Feb 9, 2024 16:57:32 GMT
Yeahhhh, Not doing that! But thank for the info.
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Post by jayhawk500 on Feb 12, 2024 18:35:46 GMT
I have a member on the other site willing to produce me the hump using his 3D printer. I just need to get the measurements, or try to convince the person making the HO car to allow me to use his files, or lastly build it from scratch. This, I dont want to do.
For the Union Station parts, I'm in contact with Mark and he's helping me out as well.
Thanks
Chris
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Post by jayhawk500 on Apr 9, 2024 16:49:28 GMT
If anyone is still interested, please see the attached link to where I am in the process of this build. I have an OGRR member helping me with the 3D printing of the Hump. I have a feeling this will be a very time consuming process since it'll require printing the Hump in two pieces due to the size of the printer. ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/modeling-union-pacific-s-generator-car-upp-2066Until next time... |
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Post by harborbelt70 on Apr 10, 2024 6:10:35 GMT
If anyone is still interested, please see the attached link to where I am in the process of this build. I have an OGRR member helping me with the 3D printing of the Hump. I have a feeling this will be a very time consuming process since it'll require printing the Hump in two pieces due to the size of the printer. ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/modeling-union-pacific-s-generator-car-upp-2066Until next time...
If you have sourced the same parts that I have from Union Station Products then you have probably already seen the attachment that came with them, which I have used to check measurements I had scaled from various photos of the Power Car. I have decided not to use 3D printing for the humpback structure, which is in fact constructed out of sheet metal and my version will primarily be based on sheet ABS. I may have an update on this in the next couple of weeks. I have worked out that the humpback is somewhat more than 44 feet long and have decided to take 11 inches or slightly more as the O scale equivalent. That of course is rather more than half the length of the car body. I saw your post on OGR and did not follow AlanRail's diagram measurements but if the structure is being printed in two parts that may explain his approach.
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Post by harborbelt70 on May 16, 2024 14:10:08 GMT
If anyone is still interested, please see the attached link to where I am in the process of this build. I have an OGRR member helping me with the 3D printing of the Hump. I have a feeling this will be a very time consuming process since it'll require printing the Hump in two pieces due to the size of the printer. ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/modeling-union-pacific-s-generator-car-upp-2066Until next time... I’ve got far enough along in my version of this car to have something to show for the effort – although this is still in rough shape as I have not got on to any priming/finishing sanding. That makes a big difference because unlike jayhawk500 and other modellers of this car I haven’t used 3D printing in the main structure that I have done so far. The prototype “humpback” or superstructure of UP 2066 is made out of sheet metal and my effort is in sheet plastic:
The bottom photo was of a test fit of the humpback with its whalebone interior supports sitting on the one thing that is a professional 3D print – the original car roof – which was done in two parts and for reasons I’ll mention below is currently the bane of my life. At this stage some of the parts such as the roof fans are only taped in place as a test fit.
Aside from the fact that there is no commercially available O scale 3D print of the humpback, I concluded, rightly or wrongly, that 3D printing couldn’t replicate some of the finer details or indeed some of the three-dimensional features in the center portion of the structure around the diesel exhaust. I’m using some O scale brass and other photo-etched detail parts for that and I haven’t applied more than a couple of these yet.
Also, on surveying the better examples of this car that have been built in HO/N scale, I found that builders had taken some shortcuts and used some artistic license. For instance, on peering and zooming in obsessively on the below rooftop shot of the prototype I saw that there are diamond pattern screens over the side vents and the louvered exhaust covers underneath and even on two sides if not the top of the exhaust. I opted for larger gauge screens on the sides purely because I preferred the heavy industrial look of them. The circled part of the photo shows how this feature was rendered in N scale, which is small enough that it probably doesn’t matter that it’s only a partial representation of the real thing.
Anyone interested in trying to do this car in O scale will benefit from seeing this monumental if not epic account of an Italian modeler’s efforts in HO scale reproduced in full on the website of the Swiss US model train dealer “Werner the Trainmaster”
I’ve extracted just a couple of photos from this:
There’s also a YouTube video by a US modeler who has made both versions of UP’s power cars and he describes in detail how he did them using commercial 3D printing:
I can’t say that I’m a fan of the two-part 3D printed roof I got with the car body kit. For want of a better word it has warped, mainly lengthwise (because the ends just keep curling up despite my efforts gently to get them back in shape) but also sideways in some places. I can build around the latter but I am contemplating embedding a steel rod or rods lengthwise in the center of the roof to keep it straight for the car body assembly when I get that far. I’ve found working with this part infuriating and at one stage thought of cooking it in the microwave and if that didn’t work starting from scratch in sheet plastic. So far I have only resorted to less extreme measures!
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Post by jayhawk500 on May 25, 2024 12:24:48 GMT
You Sir, have done a very excellant job up to this point. Keep up the great work! It should turn out fantastic.
Chris
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Post by harborbelt70 on May 25, 2024 15:10:30 GMT
You Sir, have done a very excellant job up to this point. Keep up the great work! It should turn out fantastic. Chris
I'll reserve any self-criticism about the way it's going for a later stage when I am more advanced and in particular because I am about to embark on installing the humpback on the car roof. I'll be relieved when that is done because in comparison to dealing with the wretched 3D printed roof, painting and decal placement seem relatively easy.
BTW, did you have your humpback structure finally printed yet? I'd be very interested to see it.
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Post by jayhawk500 on May 27, 2024 11:30:47 GMT
Not as of yet. It's difficult to get pictures to get acurate measurements. I cant believe no one has aerial drone pictures of this car. I think I have down loaded just about every photo on the net of this car. But I am making head way...
Keep checking my link above, I have posted a few more pictures since my first posting of the link.
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Post by harborbelt70 on May 27, 2024 11:59:26 GMT
Not as of yet. It's difficult to get pictures to get acurate measurements. I cant believe no one has aerial drone pictures of this car. I think I have down loaded just about every photo on the net of this car. But I am making head way... Keep checking my link above, I have posted a few more pictures since my first posting of the link.
I'll explain this when I post my next update but basically I scaled the humpback from such photos as I could find and the diagram enclosed with the Union Station car sides I have already posted above. I've inserted most of the measurements I used in a side-on view of the car which I'll unearth and post next time. Some of these I had to adjust from a strictly prototypical approach because I lacked building materials that were ideally suited but the same has been done by builders in HO and N scales.
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Post by jayhawk500 on May 27, 2024 15:46:10 GMT
One thing I noticed after I had the sides glued on...Is that I had more side material (length wise) than I needed. So, consenquently I don't actually have the windows/door in the exact position as compared to the rivet lines in the roof. I'm off by about 2.5 scale feet. Oh well, it is what it is, I guess. I'm now going to try and replicate the antenna nightmare on the low end of the car. I'll use a photo I was able to find online, as there are very few of the roof. I did notice with the top of the car, that the antenna configurations are different at different periods of time. The photo I have, has all the antenna mounts, but only has one satellite dome just short of mid-point on the cars roof.  ![]() I did notice that the Trainmaster's cars, while very close, are still not prototyplical probably due to the size of the car. But he did an awesome job on the build. |
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Post by harborbelt70 on Jun 11, 2024 10:39:00 GMT
Some further progress on the humpback structure (and some parts of the rest of this car). This shows the main stages so far in building this structure:
Allowing for some rebuilding I still might do I think that it terms of progress bars mine are:
90% building humpback
40% painting humpback
10% installing humpback on main roof structure
0% building the car body.
Regarding the two-part 3D printed main roof, I finally lost patience and had to resort to embedding a pair of stainless steel rods in it to keep its ends from curling/warping as I have previously described. It was only when I first tried to put the rods in place that I realized how totally out of whack the print as a whole really is, and I am not going to show any photos of how I braced it because it is very messy. Still, I have got the roof to level out to the point where I think any residual curling of the ends will be fixed by using the JB Weld plastic bonder that I’m using when I come to attach the car ends and sides.
I think that like jayhawk500 I am using separately applied parts to add some realistic touches that I am sure 3D printing could not replicate. Case in point is the grills over the roof fans, which according to this picture are simple grates: The photo shows that there are 18 rods lengthwise and 3 across, which I fabricated out of styrene rod. A compromise is that even being meticulous about assembling these, which was not easy, I could not fit in 18 rods so used 14. This is probably because the apertures I built for the fans are marginally too small. However, no other build of this model in either H or N scale that I have seen replicates this basic feature. (I certainly haven’t done so perfectly and am contemplating doing these again with smaller diameter rods.)
I am not a rivet counter but I confess that, again like Jayhawk500, I tried to match the roof prints’ rivet lines to the placing of the humpback, but I realized that based on my measurements those printed lines just don’t match the car photos. Besides, the rivets are indistinct on one whole side of the roof print so to the extent I decide I can duplicate them (somewhat dubious at this stage) decals will have to be used.
A bigger compromise, not necessarily obvious from my photos, is the humpback’s roof profile. Mine follows the curve of the main roof but on the prototype the upper panels are more vertical. Belatedly I realized how I could have replicated that in creating the whalebone supports, but in fact I have rebuilt the sides of this structure three times, and I am not going to try again. My only excuse for this is that I spent a vast amount of time staring at this set of photos I made on a grid pattern where the roof curve seems to run directly to the upright sides, and I scaled the main dimensions using it and the Union Station print I have already posted:  I have moved on to completing the side panel ventilation screens and for this purpose via eBay have found enough British 4mm scale engine parts in brass that are the same shape/proportions as the originals. One is seen in the first photo, the other side has a kind of duplex arrangement:
 Next, I will probably assemble the body panels and their own internal whalebone supports to see how well or not they line up with the roof.
The only respect in which I have lucked out with this project is that when I applied primer to the humpback, I found that there was relatively little heavy-duty filling and sanding I had to do.
One last thing: I am not a fan of weathering but the prototype has significant amounts of it around the diesel exhaust and most side exhaust panels. For this purpose, I “treated” myself to an $8 bottle of Alclad lacquer – which on model aircraft can produce amazing metal effects. I am not skilled at applying this stuff but used an effect called “jet exhaust” for certain features shown in the first photo and on this one of the “tray” insert I built to represent the diesel exhaust:
 The fact that there was an incandescent lamp directly over this when I took the photo accounts for why the gold/bronze metallic element of the Alclad paint shows through. Notwithstanding that, the advantage of Alclad is that it dries fast and diamond hard and so at least once lacquer clear-coated it can be masked with painter’s tape. The downside is that any imperfection in the surface it’s sprayed on will show through, especially fingerprints. So far (more sanding and another coat are required), I have got the parts I used it on to come out to my satisfaction and the finish certainly makes a nice change from plain black. Not anybody else’s thing but up to this point I am happy with it.
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Post by jayhawk500 on Jun 11, 2024 12:12:40 GMT
I like it! Keep doing a great job. You'll have yours completed before me.
Can you please provide the links for the screens?
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Post by harborbelt70 on Jun 11, 2024 14:49:34 GMT
I like it! keep doing a great job. You'll have yours completed befor me. Can you please provide the links for the screens? The screens came via eBay from a UK vendor called A1 Models located in Doncaster who are makers of photo-etched brass products mainly for 4mm scale diesel engine details. As regards the larger screens on the main side apertures I think similar diamond mesh screens are available from US detail part markers but I needed more than a standard size and found it first on the auction site. You need more than a standard size pre-cut screen to be able to cut and bend them into shape to fill the whole of the side openings; the one I got was about 4.5" x 2.5" in size. If you don't have any luck finding them let me know and I'll see whether I have enough left for your purposes.
The smaller rectangular screens/grills came from the same source but I know I have a few spare of these which I'd be willing to let you have as soon as my project gets to the finish painting stage, which is likely to be in August. I need to hold them in reserve until I am sure about whether the ones I have used can take yet more paint layers.
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Post by curtis on Jun 11, 2024 22:18:16 GMT
harborbelt what a project, Your patience is outstanding as id the results so far. Thank you so much for taking us along. The big question is going to be "Would you do it again?"
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Post by harborbelt70 on Jun 12, 2024 6:30:11 GMT
harborbelt what a project, Your patience is outstanding as id the results so far. Thank you so much for taking us along. The big question is going to be "Would you do it again?"
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