great article

Great article and great timing. I have just purchased 11 resin car kits and was looking at building them soon. There are a few more things I will need prior to starting. The techniques will be exceptionally helpful. It would likely be nice to see more resin kits in the magazine with assembly tips or like this a build to follow. The beauty of those kits is in the details they possess. Brake detail, grabs, accurate prototypes, they are fantastic compared to the shake the box types even though they have become much better since the days of the blue box. We now have accurail, atlas, branchline, proto 2000 and some others that can be found even though many are no longer in production.

The resin kits will be the show pieces of your fleet and as the guys at fast tracks say YOU GET TO BUILD THEM!

Thanks for a great article I have to go back to the table of contents as I went right to this with out looking at anything else. Should have known it would be good though, the guy is named Rob.

Perfect timing!

I just purchased over 30 Resin F&C kits, some single piece body, others multi-piece.  This article will be very handy!

Ken L.

Ken which ones did you get.

Ken which ones did you get.

Dont' have a complete list..

..as the kits are already in my "store room" with the rest of the thousands of kits I have to build.  Off the top of my head, I know I bought a couple each of the PRR X26c, X29b, X29, Reading XAD, a couple different depressed flat cars. IIRC, a Wabash 40' SS Box Car, a couple C&O Auto Box Cars, GTW 1 1/2 Door SS Box Car, and a couple PRR K28's.  There were more than that, but those are what  I had on my "shopping list", though I know I purchased some others when i saw them.  I had originally planned to buy twice that many, but because of inventory issues with F&C, they were in short supply on some of the other cars I was looking for.  They should be well stocked by January when I see them at the RPM meet in January so I am certainly to add more to my fleet then!

I had brought about 10 of the F&C kits earlier in the year at the RPM meeting at  Cocoa Beach, FL.  I'm debating using the resin/plastic parts for grab irons and stirrup steps or buying wire detail parts.  For this cars I plan on going "all out" when it comes to detail.  I have a ton of Accurail, MDC, Red Caboose kits that I will build, and weather, but not likely to add tons of detail to them.  Not sure what I will do with all the Intermountain Kits and P2K Kits I have whether they will be assembled or super detailed.  Most likely, since I will need a sizable fleet in a hurry, they will be assembled.  With the Resin Kits (with more to be purchased in the future I'm sure from F&C and other kits like Westerfield and Tangent) I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity to super detail cars.  Though my focus and interest is with Operation so I want to assemble some of these Resin Kits with the super details and see how well they handle being used in an Op-Session.  If I find I am spending a huge amount of time replacing super detail parts then I might just do a few to satisfy my itch of knowing I can do it, and leave the rest with a "good enough" detail level.

Ken L

Ken L

On the few resin kits from F&C that I have the grabs look like wire details not resin. You may not have to buy the other parts, other than trucks and couplers for example. From looking at the builds of the resin cars I have seen I would recommend narrow wheel treads like the intermountain semi scale wheels .88 width as those standard 110 widths really look out of place next to that fine detail.

If the place you tried was in short supply of kits you might try this one,

The best deal on F&C Kit's

....is at the shows where F&C is actually there.  They offer a buy one get one free deal, PLUS for every four single body kits you get a free multi-piece kit.  That is an awesome deal.  The final price for each kit was around $14 a kit I think.  Sadly, because of a very temporary issue that I'm not at liberty to discuss, they were in short supply for this show because they did not have time to replenish their inventory.  I'm looking forward to buying my next "batch" of kits in January. 

It worked out for the best, since I had more money to pay for the NCE Radio DCC system and some Soundtraxx decoders. 

Ken L

Ken do those guys ever go to

Ken do those guys ever go to Texas for shows or Oklahoma, Arkansas, or Louisiana? It sounds like that would be a great time to stock up if they will be at any shows there.

Here's the link to their web page.

For a list of what shows they have done and upcoming shows. 

http://fandckits.com/shows.html
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You might want to email them to find out if they will be in your area.

Ken L.

Thanks Ken, I thought you

Thanks Ken, I thought you might have some inside information I'll try to get hold of them.

Don't forget to wash the castings

No matter how clean the castings appear, always wash them in a solution of dishwashing detergent solution as the first step in the process. This will ensure you remove any residual mold release agent on the castings.

Jerry

If diswashing detergent doesn't get the castings clean

give them a quick spray with "Shout" - then rinse with warm soapy water. Goo Gone also works. 

(Some resin makers use a mold release that's extremely tough to remove - especially Sylvan)

Sylvan and mold release.

Sylvan recommends that you buy their stuff or use Dio Sol, but I am not sure Dio Sol is relaly needed.  Does anyone know what else may work on Sylvan kits?

BTW, I have never had any trouble painting F&C kits.  I just washed them with dishwashing detergent and warm (NOT hot) water or wiped them with a paper towel wet with some plain isopropyl alcohol.

Regards, Vic B.

Vic

See my previous post.

Use "Shout" or Goo Gone (which is basically the same stuff as Sylvan's mold release) on Sylvan resin kits. 

Marty

Does anyone have experience with older resin kits?

I have a couple of old Roller Bearing Model kits,(Pullman Troop Sleepers) and the printed instructions are pretty sparse. I'd like to see an article done showing tips for constructing these old kits.

2slim 

Nice Article

Building resign cars

Good article. I pick-up new tricks.

MRH. More of these hands on articles.

Thank you,

Francois.

Building the car

Thanks guys for all the comments.   I should say that in this case I did not wash the parts before I assembled them.   I normally do but forgot to when I was doing the shoot.   Not to worry everything worked out Ok and so far it has not come apart.  

The article on painting the car will hopefully be in the October MRH and before you ask yes I did wash it before the painting process.   I use simple detergent and water and a very soft brush and then rinse off with clean water. I have assembled and painted quite a few of these resin cars while I have been in the hobby and have never had one come apart, I think it is probably because I always use a file to true up the edges and sand the back of the parts and by doing this I think I remove any of the mold release agents that happen to be on the gluing surfaces. Maybe dumb luck, maybe not but everything has work out so far.

Rob McLear.

'Coming Apart' not the issue

In terms of the mold release agents on cast resin cars, when using CA superglue for assembly the issue is not about the car 'coming apart'. Thanks to all the microscopic nooks and crannies in the polyurethane resin, CA glue has lots of places to attach to the plastic, and resulting bonds are very, very strong. Any mold release residue on the parts will have no effect on that bond.

The issue with resin kits is paint sticking to the model. The mold release residue will cause paints to flake off the resin if it was not cleaned prior to airbrushing.

Through building Sylvan kits (probably the toughest mold release to clean) I have found some paints are more forgiving than others. Current water-acrylics are pretty good, ModelFlex being the best for sticking with PolyScale (RIP) being a close second. Old-school Floquil will flake. The worst performer happens to be my all-time favourite brand of paint; Accupaint (now Tru-Color). Probably from it being acetone based, it really needs a thoroughly clean model in order to stick properly.

Hope this helps.

Hmmm have not had that

Hmmm have not had that problem with paint not sticking either, but having said that I used Floquil almost exclusively and still have a large store of it still available.   I am going to have to switch over to something eventually and will probably go with TruColor as I used Accupaint when it was available and found it to be pretty good so the comments on the cleaning with it are helpful.   I will have to see what pans out in the future.   In the meantime the car has been painted and weathered (not my forte or my best effort) and it will hopefully be in the October edition.

Regards to all and thanks for the comments

Rob McLear.

Shout or Goo Gone

Thanks Marty,

If I decide to build that kit, I will use one of those.  In fact, I will write a note and put that in the box, so I don't forget.  :o)

Regards, Vic B.