Katzhagen - Archive - October 2010

RhB depressed-center freight car Sb

Adding such a car with a cement container to my rolling stock was thought to be a good idea. Or even better two of them...

Once again it was Hans-Peter Langula who significantly helped me with implementing a project - this time by providing two pre-assembled frames based upon double T-profiles and most of the small parts (some of them being Resin casts). This definitely added a lot to simplify building both of the cars.

The car's trucks are made from metal casts of the relating parts of the RhB Fad model made by LGB. These were equipped with the RhB-style ball bearing axles from Magnus, which successfully were tested with the Rp-w car before.

After (almost) all parts were handy, their partial assembly was begun. Since numerous of the parts had to be varnished in different colours, their final assembly had to wait until the basic varnishing's completion.

Frame made from double T-profiles with platform parts and board

The banisters were made from soldered brass rods.

Setting jigs made from plastic plates helped to exactly solder the banisters' parts to each other. Without these simple jigs it was next to impossible to keep the parts in their required position when soldering them.

A partially assembled model and a chassis with some details after having applied the basic grey varnish.
Almost incredible...

but the car indeed consists of approximately 200 parts. Some of the parts need a varnish in three different colours, like for instance the brake hoses and their mountings do.

Correspondingly it was quite time consuming to prepare each of the steps for varnishing all the parts and likewise their final assembly (which will be reported about later here). The pictures below show a bunch of small parts like the brake hoses, mudguards, buffers, parts of the coupling and the banisters as well as parts of the compressed-air and brake system before and after their first varnish. Before applying a second clear varnish, the parts have to be mounted and the lettering has to be applied.


Nine different colours were necessary for varnishing the small parts and the chassis. The cement container will require two additional colours.

Assembling and mounting the brake system's parts was like playing Mikado, but this is another story...

September 2010 | Archive "Current Affairs" | November 2010