Photos of Your AC/N-Scale Kits

[HoboTim]

Greetings!

I wanted to start a thread whereby Modelers can post photos of the kits they have built using Alan Curtis/N-Scale Kits. I want to say if it were not for Alan Curtis for producing his kits and Peter Harris for taking over where Alan retired, the N scale community would not have such a great diversion of Heavy Duty Flats and Intermodal Equipment.

Here is a photo of a 195ton HD Flat I just finished yesterday!!!


I purchased the kit for certain reasons and then I didn't need it anymore. So, instead of it accumilating dust and spiderwebs I decided to airbrush it, print custom decals on my ALPS printer and finish it with MTL trucks and couplers. I figured someone out there could use a beauty such as this running their rails. My rails are a bit smaller!!!! Won't fit. If anyone is interested I posted it to that auction website.

Now, back to the subject, AC/N-Scale Kits products and posting Photos!!!! Post your photos here!!! The world of N scale is waiting!!!!!





Have a great day!

Hobo Tim

[tehachapifan]

That's a nice looking heavy duty flat!

I Agree, Alan Curtis Models and N Scale Kits have opened up many possibilities in N scale that wouldn't currently exist otherwise.

Here's part of my lineup (in various stages of completion)....


48' spine car from the original RTR release, with a 28' trailer fro Alan Curtis in Viking livery. This one's going to be re-detailed and re-weathered soon.


"Triple-57/Long Runner" wide body flat. I added some inner rubrails in bulge area. Still needs stirrups and weathering.


"Triple-53/Long Runner" with scratchbuilt 53' platewall trailer on the left (built before the DI 53' trailers came out).


Unit D of another 48' spine car. More on the detailing of this car can be seen at 48' Spine Car Detailing Project - TrainBoard.com

More to follow...

[tehachapifan]

A few more (does a kitbash count?)....


3 unit TTRX 57' spine car kitbashed from a 53' spine car kit.


Unit B of TTRX spine car loaded with 28' trailers.


Same kitbashed TTRX spine car loaded with containers.


Overhead view of kitbashed TTRX spine car platform.

Russ

[Alan]

This is interesting! Thanks for starting the thread Tim.

Russ, you did a great job on the TTRX conversion, I remember you doing it, but never saw the results. Nice hitches, BTW.

[Carl Sowell]

Alan made the best intermodal kits and flats available:





My modeling skills don't do the excellent kits justice.

[GaryHinshaw]

Well y'all know I'm a sucker for these kits and this topic - great to see the shots so far! I'll try to take and upload some new photos when I'm more awake. In the meantime I'd love to hear more from Russ about how he bashed the TTRX unit. Did you ever have a thread on that?

Cheers,
Gary

P.S. Are those the soon-to-be-released 03 hitches?

[tehachapifan]

Thanks, Alan!

Love the Triple 57 and the trailers, Carl!

Originally Posted by GaryHinshaw

Well y'all know I'm a sucker for these kits and this topic - great to see the shots so far! I'll try to take and upload some new photos when I'm more awake. In the meantime I'd love to hear more from Russ about how he bashed the TTRX unit. Did you ever have a thread on that?

Cheers,
Gary

P.S. Are those the soon-to-be-released 03 hitches?

Gary-

There was a thread on the TTRX spine bash, but all the photos are gone from it now so it's not very helpful at this point.

Here's a photo that gives you an idea of what the project was like. These TTRX spine car platforms were made by splicing parts from an Alan Curtis 53' spine car kit. The center spine of each platform is made from two center spines from a 53' spine car kit. Glued together with epoxy, the splice was reinforced with a large diameter wire that was inserted into holes drilled in the center of the spine (actually, I think I used a finishing nail). If you look close, you can see the seams where the center spines were spliced and where the wheel trays were lengthened. Each of these platforms were initially built too long and were shortened a scale 3' since this photo (yep...all three of these platforms were completely torn apart, shortened and reassembed since this photo! ).



And, yes, these are assembled and painted pre-production N-03 hitches....



Russ

[GaryHinshaw]

Well it's been more than a month since I promised I would post new photos, but here they are. (The resurrection of my all-time favorite Alan Curtis Tribute thread reminded me.) Here's a shot of one of my AC/NSK standalone Husky Stacks bearing some DI cans:



The reason it took so long is that I've been trying to come up with a way to finish off the container door hardware that I was happy with. I was trying to highlight the customs seal and locking rods with black & silver Sharpie's, as James Costello wrote about a while back, but I obviously don't have as steady a hand as he does because I was making a real hash of it. (The ink in the silver ones runs quite freely....) So instead I tried Microscale decal stripes and I'm very pleased with the results. I used N scale 3" black stripes for the customs seal (MS#71104), and HO scale 1" & 2" stripes for the handles & rods, respectively (MS#91114). Here's a before & after on a COSCO can:




I'm very pleased with how this turned out, but now I'll never be happy with unadorned door hardware...

Next up: finish off a bunch of spine kits, finally!

-Gary

[denny99]

Gary,

excellent job. The weathering on the car is very well done: that grime reminds me of the prototype. Would you like to tell us about how you achieve that effect?

As for the containers, I think you can turn them into even better ones, by appling a wash to enhance the 3D details (especially on the doors). Black or Sepia acrylics with isoproyl alcoohol or Micro Sol as thinner, should work great.

Keep us updated!

[GaryHinshaw]

Ciao Denny, and thanks for the comments. The weathering on the stack car was pretty basic: after decaling I apply a flat finish with a bit of transparent white acrylic paint (zinc white) to get a flat faded finish. Follow with a wash of raw umber/black thinned with windshield wiper fluid (Rich Yourstone's brew), then Bragdon powders for the rust streaks and undercoat grime. The containers were done the same way, but I left them very lightly weathered because I find that many of the international cans stay relatively clean. (Wave action?) If you compare the two COSCO cans, you can see the top one has been lightly grimed, along with a bit of rust on the corners, while the bottom one is straight from the package. This is the type of look I was going for:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/sho...aspx?id=227467

But I do think the YS container needs more grime...

Cheers,
Gary