Neat link Mike, wheel & all! On with the show with the first & last chorus line of the pre-livery bench queens together…











Spot the fare-dodgers. All misalignments (e.g. roofs, doors) are still due to loose dry-fitting ahead of painting, & the drivers’ destination boards are resting on their respective roofs so I don’t mix them up. Meanwhile Mike’s brake-wheels brushed up just fine…



…although cab installation was challenging without any location points. The first lined up (on the level) with tweezers in 10 seconds & fixed with a droplet of cyano delivered on a wire to the fascia bracket in another 10 seconds. The other one took over an hour despite being identical, canted at the only angle the sub-assembly didn’t mysteriously fall over – a zone of neutron-star gravitation seemed to materialize under the work-bench. It’s OK Glenn, she’s being held in a (precariously) tender embrace by the vi*e…



Expletived into position & eventually held in place with a droplet of semi-dry PVA instead of cyano…



When completely dry I can tease the floor bracket out a millimeter or so to get it properly vertical & fix it with cyano. Here’s the other one…



Meanwhile Tram 1 (#10) goes incognito ready for priming…



Those two redundant side-panels are just test-beds to receive the red & pale yellow paint first, so I can practice.

Outstanding work Tim. I love the line up of the trams.
The looks are just amazing. Wish you good luck with the primer and paint jobs.

Kind regards,

Robert Jan

Excellent line up Tim, all those details are paying off.

very nice

Glad to see the tram work back on-track after that ridiculous wait for my package delivery from Colorado. ... Oh, wait... did I just speak in code? ... No, no, no! Sir, they were only resin hand wheels! ... (sound of black helicopters whirring) ...

Thanks guys and a special Привет добро пожаловать (hello & welcome) to Tony from the Republic of Adygea, I'm honoured you first-posted on my blog. I had heard of Adygea but couldn’t point to it on a map before now, check it out on Wiki because we should all learn something new every day - it has one of the best flags in the world although my personal no. 1 is still Sri Lanka’s.

Hey Mike waaay too spooky you should say that, a police chopper actually was shining its searchlight around our suburb late last night, we were driving home (in the Stealth-mobile natch) from the other side of Sydney harbour at the time so evaded detection. But wait…I’m hearing sirens approaching now…save yourself! …I

Exceptional work Tim , wheels were worth the wait and came out beautifully . Now I can't wait till they come out of the paint shop .
Sorry I haven't posted this past week but my grandfather passed away . My grandmother told me at the funeral he had a heart attack Sunday morning while they were making love . I didn't want to ask but did anyway , how the heck do two 95 year old folks manage that ? She said slow and easy , they used to make love to the church bells on Sunday mornings , a slow ding , dong rhythm , and that he would probably still be alive if that dam ice cream truck didn't drive by the house ..................

Yep,interior looks great with the new wheels in place.
J

Glenn that was way below the belt & I was just reaching for my post-prandial Corpse Reviver too - Gin, Lillet Blanc, Cointreau, Absinthe, and…I forget…everything.

Glad y’all like the wheels, although I regret to report earlier today T1 was rushed to the Kit-bashers E.R. - I’d been giving it a final sand over the first primer coat with a firm grip amidships when…GRKKKch, no resistance against my thumb. Shoddy workmanship was always a possibility, but seasoned lurkers may recall me singing the praises of Tamiya’s Limonene extra thin cement which I used (only) for that first tram. To be fair it was designed for clear plastic parts & er clearly it ain’t as strong as the standard stuff.

After un-masking it on the operating table there was the full horror - the entire side panel had separated along the floor joint. After the anaesthetic had taken full effect (two more Corpse Revivers) I injected several shots of cyano (no Glenn I’m not touching that gag) into the joint & sent it to Recovery in clamps. Did I mention I made most of my mistakes on T1?

Try this for an ear-worm, great to model with – as are most of his other tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qji1cn-s-k

Sorry to hear about the bench bummer man , and here I was always worried about that durn vise . I guess there's no rest for the wicked . With what you've accomplished so far though hopefully this won't hold you back too much . Your skills and alcohol should be able to handle this . Why , just this morning my wife came into my room and whacked me on the back of my head with her hand , holding a piece of paper with the name Nancy on it , demanding what it was all about . I told her it was a horses name my buddy gave me to lay a few bucks on . She apologized , which was a shocker in itself . About four hours later she came back into my room and this time cracked me in the head with a frying pan , I asked her what the heck that one was for , she said " your horse is on the phone !!! "

https://youtu.be/HKtsdZs9LJo

…and it said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg8oyvjFGbw

Cool clip G, love the slide geetah. Meanwhile the air outside’s been thick with atomised paint the past few days, although the result’s not suitable for publication until some touch-ups & minor repairs are done. The numbers & lettering arrived from Custom Hobby Decals today (looking great) so maybe we’ll see what a couple of those look like too, although I’m tossing up whether to wait for the pinstripes from U.K., possibly they should go on first.

Of course this entire project could just be a hoax and all I really wanted to do was make a fortune out of selling my paintings. I call this one “Custer’s Last Stand” (airbrushed enamels on paper, 14 ins. diameter)…



…maybe destined for the next Contemporary Art sale at the well-known auction house I used to work for in the 80’s (the one that’s just been bought by a French billionaire…so where’s my pension dude?) - what do you reckon, a sale estimate of let’s say US$ 3 mill…o.n.o?

great stable o' trams here!

👍 ...... Wait, wait, wait, that was just a thumbs-up! It was not a bid!!!😧

Too late Mike (luckily for you) it’s since been wrecked by overpainting - didn’t they used to call that a Happening? So here’s a couple of test shots after touch-ups…and yet all I see is more touch-ups to do, it’s that camera-never-lies syndrome again…





The bulkheads & most windows are removed, roof & doors are still loose, & I improved a few things but regarding the paint job I think it’s looking OK? A lot of time was spent picking the red and eventually Tamiya’s TS85 rattle-can won. Indoors under white light it looks more blood-red but outdoors – where it matters for my purposes – it takes on that slightly scarlet hue required because sunlight’s slightly yellowish. If I’d started with what looks more like the correct colour (eg Revell 34) it would have turned too orange-y. The (gloss) yellow’s just 80% white/20% mid-yellow airbrushed. Incidentally I haven’t altered the image colour or any other settings.

Next step’s to actually finish touch-ups & assuming the pin-stripe decals arrive Monday it’ll probably take most of the week to get those & the numbers on. That second image shows the starboard side that’ll figure most in the final shoot, doors open & passengers alighting with Gabcik in the foreground levelling his sten as Heydrich’s car makes the turn around the tram-stop

👍👍👍 Bahnannah‼️

Jaw dropping !
J

Just outstanding dude, MAD scratchbuilding skills!
And not too bad in the "Historical Research and Development Dept." either!

Cheers
Dave

Like Stanley Kowalski could have tell Blanche DuBois

"What a nice streetcar !"

H.P.

I think it's a dam fine paint up man , cool !!

Many thanks guys, seeing as how I was talking about monochrome tones on Jerry’s Odon blog last week I ought to put my money where my mouth was…



Surprising, I was expecting that red to come out much darker. This comparative image is about the lightest I could find…



I’m not sure it proves anything as there are too many lighting & reproduction variables but sometimes it can be revealing...yeech those power lines give me nightmares. As does decalomania, it’s either the ultimate test of sanity or proof of insanity so if you ever see a kit that requires pin-striping…run away. Run far, far away…



I could have spent over a hundred bucks buying enough stripe-sheets to use just the six 0.25mm and 0.5mm ones on the left, but being cheap I calculated I could slice up the thicker stripes too with plenty left over. Initial calculations also showed that black & yellow pinstriping for all three trams requires about 2 metres of stripes cut into 128 separate lines of various lengths…



I’ve since revised that downwards about 33% because in some places both colours have a thin stripe, and then an ultra-thin parallel stripe on the real thing which is just too fine to decal because it disintegrates while being nursed off the carrier paper. To scale, that 2nd stripe needs to be about 0.33 of a millimeter, so for 1/35 purposes it’ll be just one stripe. From scale distance away, double-stripes would be barely distinguishable anyway.



Not happy with my own decals – Custom Hobby Decals reproduced them far too faithfully (the ultimate compliment!), they’re oversize because I failed to properly re-check the proofs before sign-off. Live & learn, I’m way too over it to re-do/re-pay for another set & console myself with the excuses that hardly anyone will know (present company excepted) or care, and did you know it’s a little-known fact that Prague tram-livery painters originally used to make the numbers larger than the restored versions we see today



Yes I need more Mr Mark Softer on that number & yet another touch-up on the panel line above it. I experimented with a pencil line-bordering the yellow panel, tidied up it’s probably the sanest option. I keep reminding myself this is allowed to be the worst tram of the three, seen from furthest away. Progress has been far slower than I’d foolishly thought – e.g. each of the eight doors on this tram needed 4 black & 4 yellow stripes & the first pair alone took me 1.5 hours. So climb aboard, here’s how long I reckon it’ll take to complete painting & decaling all three trams…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tA1rVKv4EE

Another ear-worm & vintage moving pictures from around ?1972? I know exactly how that guy at 3.43 feels…

Great stuff you're showing here. Panel lining is about every Train / Tram builders Nightmare.
And I know it.

Kind regards,

Robert Jan

the color pic of the decalled up tram is just NOICE!! Easily pass for the real deal.
J

Back in the day, that guy spent hours in a darkroom processing negatives and prints... and we don’t have to anymore! 🎞 🚫
Ultimately, I have faith in your artistic abilities to find a b/w software solution in order to capture that period’s overall feel. ... As for now, that color image looks amazingly real!

BTW: If you happen to be looking for an alternative to Adobe Photoshop’s exorbitant annual subscription fee, I can recommend Affinity Photo at a much more affordable price. I made the switch from all things Adobe to Affinity about a year ago and I’ve never looked back. (Note: no company affiliation)

Keep ‘em rolling!🍺
—mike

Dam Tim , I think that's some beautiful work !!!
I don't know which would be a bigger nightmare , I most likely would have taped and sprayed the lines , either way paint or decals , mine would have looked like a Marx brothers movie .