Help with Kato Super Chief Dome v. Burlington car

[sirenwerks]

I am kind of shooting from the hip right now, with no research documentation of my own to access, but I was wondering if anyone with knowledge could comment on how close the Kato Super Chief Dome Car is to the original CB&Q Silver Dome? Car side windows aside (easy enough to change that) I was curious of the dome and roofline were a match.

Thanks, 

Bryan

[jnevis]

Wouldn't the CZ Silver series domes be closer?

[Vince Gortner]

Hey....   that's a neat thought.   Right - that original experimental CB&Q dome was very angular with flat dome window panels.  Not staring at the models right this minute, but I'm thinking the major obstacles would be that the Super Chief car has a smooth welded roof as opposed to the fluted roof of the Budd product that original CB&Q dome was based on.  But I think the idea is cool and why not follow the prototype’s lead:  take a Kato Budd coach and graft that dome section from the Super Chief car right onto it?

And this aptly named website http://www.vistadome.com/vistadome/ had enough photos of both to at least allow you to stare at the dome configurations a little to see if it's worth the sawing.  It would appear that the window count on the domes are the same at least. 

[Nato]

           One big difference the original pattern domes on the two Burlington cars were slightly taller with straighter front and rear windshields. Also the flat roof glass was made up of smaller panes with a divider support bar(two rows of top glass on either side. The Kato 1930's budd coach (a model of the type car the road converted) might pass with the SF Pleasure Dome dome grafted in. There was no low floor under the dome ,there were high backed (think resturant booths) benches along each wall facing in towards the isle,and the cieling was lower in this area (the bottom of the dome floor). Charlie Vlk had Shapeways (I believe ) do the correct roof for himself ,but has never offered forsale conversions. Nate Goodman (Nato).Salt Lake, Utah.

[Sokramiketes]

As noted above, start with the Burlington Coach offered in Kato's original set of Budd corrugated cars.  These pre-war coaches were shorter in length, and the side windows are exactly correct even after conversion to a dome car.

I start grafting an old Rowa dome section on a Budd roof once, but now am just waiting for Charlie's RP version. 

[sirenwerks]

I start grafting an old Rowa dome section on a Budd roof once, but now am just waiting for Charlie's RP version.

Charlie the Tuna? Is someone actually going to produce this or is it urban myth materials?

[CBQ Fan]

The original two domes were converted coaches and would have the same side pattern as a standard Q Budd coach.  The ATSF domes do not look anything like the Q produced domes.  Just my opinion.

[Sokramiketes]

Charlie the Tuna? Is someone actually going to produce this or is it urban myth materials?

I've seen the first flush at Shapeways, which was shrunk and warped because they have a tendency to overbake when cleaning wax...  I sent along contact information to Charlie's CAD guy for another RP shop, so hopefully we'll see another sample soon. 

[bbussey]

There's also a scaling/shrinkage issue with the X axis and Y axis when translating the STL files, where the rendered parts are slightly under scale on those measurements if not adjusted ahead of time (either on the STL or on the ProJet).  It's supposed to be constant, 0.55% on the X axis and 0.25% on the Y axis (there is no variation on the Z axis), but it varies from machine to machine.  I've been running up against that with the casting masters I'm trying to create that contain hybrid parts.  The etched parts are accurate but the RP parts fluctuate slightly, even with the scale compensations modified and calibrated for the specific ProJet machine factored in, and with very little baking to remove the wax.  With the Shapeways contractor constantly changing the orientation of the parts, there is no way to get parts exactly right.