Sn3 Boxcar Build (Part 1)

Since I'm starting on a new kit, I figured I would try and post a better "photolog" as I go.  I doubt anything I mention will be ground breaking, but I know I personally like following along with other's builds and figures others might be interested in one of mine.  One thing I want to point out is that on a whole, the PBL instructions are fantastic, and in many ways the steps I'm taking are just following what the kit is already telling me to do!

This is the kit I will be building, a PBL Sn3 D&RGW 3000 Series 30' Boxcar kit.  These kits are priced ridiculously affordable, $29.50 retail, which includes Kadee couplers, metal wheel trucks, and decals.  Caboose Hobbies regularly has 10% off sales around the major holidays, which brings the price down to $26.55, an absolute steal if you ask me.

Here's what mine will hopefully look like once I'm done -- minus the decals.  I'll probably letter mine for a fictitious road.

Any kit which has cast parts starts off with a good clean with warm, soapy water.  This is primarily to reduce the presence of mold release agents which might still be on the parts.  If left on it could prevent paint or glue from adhering to the parts which would be bad.

I usually do this by setting up a little stashing using flat plates from Target.  It starts with one filled with warm water and a dot of dish soap, then a cool water one, and finally a papertowel or two for drying.

After all the parts are run through I end up with a sheet of drying parts.  Colorado is an arid environment so things usually dry out within a few hours.  If a part has a distinct "outside" face to it, I try to put that facing down so the papertowel wicks away as much moisture as possible.

After everything is dry, I put it back into the box.  Another thing I love about the PBL kits is they come in this really nice plastic box.  It makes it easy to open, close, and keep everything together.

I store the small sprues of detail parts in small ziploc bags.  I think this gives them a little padding to prevent damage during storage, and also lets me find things easier when I go back to work on the model again because they're not loose all over the bottom of the model's box.

In this case I sorted the parts, anything to do with the underbody in one bag, and anything above that in another.

Ok, almost starting time!  Before I really jump into a kit, I like to begin by de-spruing the major body parts of whatever car I'm working on.  I just finished a build of a PBL UTLX Sn3 car, and I started with one by cleaning up the tank parts.  In this case, I started by cleaning up the boxcar body parts.

Why?  Because I'm an impatient person and I typically have a lot more patience at the start of a project than at the end.  Perhaps know the feeling.  The way I see it, if I invest in de-spruing and really cleaning up the main visual components now, while I have the most focus, it will pay off in the long run because those are the parts everyone notices first.

The process isn't anything I'm sure you've never heard of.  In this case because the sprues going into the body were so large, I didn't want to use the sprue nippers.  I've had some unfortunate "incidents" where the nippers went down into the plastic and cut more than I intended.  Instead I used my x-acto knife and ran it across the sprue several times, 3 or 4 passes, before putting enough pressure to snap the sprue free.  Remaining sprue areas were then cleaned up with a file.