A Card model of a drop centre in "O" scale part 5

Another model that has been sitting around for quite awhile has been finished, well almost. The final items. the window glazing and the adverts are done but as I was taking the photos for this post I realised that I haven't finished the headlights. The model sides and interior have been sprayed with a couple of coats of Testors glosscote and reflections on the model make it look as if it has only been half painted in places. I can assure everyone that this is not the case, The model was sprayed by airbrush.


Most of the roof ads are from photos I took of the ads on the museum's droppie and were modified, recoloured and resized using Paint Shop Pro. Printed onto photographic paper they were then given several coats of Testors glosscote before being cut out and glued to the brass boards.



I still call this a cardboard model but some other materials found their way into this one. There were some things that cardboard was just not suitable for, The roof ad boards for one as it wouldn't have been strong enough. These were made from shim brass with brass wire soldered on the back for the mounting brackets. After several attempts to make the seats I decided to make them out of Evergreen V grooved styrene sheet. The original seats were made up of individual slats and the V grooved sheet has worked out well.


I have drawn out the patterns already for the next droppie, an earlier model without the lower skirt and I think that this one may be a styrene version. The large number of cardboard edges in this model were difficult to finish off properly. Something that is much easier in styrene.

I shall soon have a number of different thickness, full size styrene sheets at the right price so I am holding off starting the next model for awhile. But I have been experimenting with different ideas in marking out the paterns on the styrene. More about that in a future post.

For now I'm happy to get this model finished and move on to a couple of other projects. A fellow museum member did masters and has lost wax castings for most of the sideframes that were used on Brisbane trams. With his kind permission I am about to start producing masters suitable for polyurethane casting from his originals for the diamond frame trucks used on the earlier droppies and the Brill trucks used under the centre isle cars. So there is plenty to keep me going for awhile.