WOW Max, that caboose looks fantastic.
I am interested in how you made the ladders, because I have been contemplating doing that, too. Did you drill through the verticals for the rungs, or just solder them on with some sort of jig for spacing?
Also, you seem to have used a lot of parts that I am familiar with in HO, but have never seen available in N scale. Can you share where you found some of those detail parts?
I'll try to answer all the questions in one go.
First, it is S Scale. Some of you may recall that from time to time I have said that if I ever switched scales, later in life (when my eyes started to go), I would choose S over all others because to me, it strikes the ideal balance between level of detail and visual proportions. <bigger than HO, but not huge like O>
big enough to carry on-board battery power so no more track cleaning! I'm not saying that I'm bailing out of N Scale just yet. My eyes are fine. I just wanted to build some kits and experiment to see how I like actually building in S. I have always loved the way S Scale track and ties look. This model has fine-flange trucks made by a place called Pre-Size models, and I am showing it sitting on Micro Engineering code 70 S Scale track (which they JUST started making this year). Really digging the fine flanges and low rail. In the past 10-15 years, unfortunately, a HUGE number of S Scale manufacturers went bust,
so if I really do decide to switch scales, it will be quite a scratch/craftsman enterprise. Finding any sort of steam loco in S that would
suit the 1910 era is next to impossible.
The kit is by "B.T.S" (stands for "Better Than Scratch"). (... but since I replaced some of the parts with scratch built metal and wood, mine is "better than better than scratch", ha ha).
Yes, wood cabooses in that era had wood roofs wrapped in canvas and coated with roofing tar. That's how they water-proofed them.
The couplers are HO scale Kadee, because just like putting Z couplers on N rolling stock, putting HO on an S scale car is much more in scale. The lighted markers are Cal Scale brass HO castings, and the tiny brass turnbuckles on the truss rods are also HO. That's one bright spot about modeling in S. HO detail parts are much more correctly sized for S, and there is a ton of HO stuff around.
For the ladders:
- I cut slots in a block of wood for the main side pieces, with tiny slots between them for where the rungs go. I did this in a milling
machine so it's very precise on depth and spacing, but you could certainly do it with steel straight edges and some sharp jewelers files
- Then I placed two pieces of nickel silver 1mm rod into the side slots, taped them down good with masking tape, and then
cut and placed phosphor bronze wire pieces into the slots for the rungs and taped those down too.
- Then I just used flux and silver-bearing solder to solder the joints. The rungs don't go through the sides. It's just too small to drill out for that.
I have used this exact technique for building things like this in N Scale. It works; it's just smaller. The kit is actually for D&RGW, but the cabooses were nearly identical to the WP, except for a few critical differences that are "spotting marks", like the the ladders and
the truss rods.
The decals... hoo boy. They are a mish-mash of HO and N scale WP and generic RR Roman lettering. There is a dearth of S Scale decals now too, unfortunately.
