Back in December last year I shared with you my designs and 3D prints for a pair of O Scale Union Pacific Water Tenders for the excursion trains. You can find the post here.
In this week’s post, I wanted to show you how the finished tenders came out and tell you where you can get them.
The computer models for these tenders, as shown below, are based on the HO version of this tender I had previously released. The main differences being that the handrails are part of the main body and details such as the ladders and steps have been thinned to make them look more realistic.
The trucks and chassis were also not 3D printed this time, unlike the N scale and HO Scale kits, but came from Lionel. They are spare parts for their Union Pacific Water Tenders: you can find the parts here. The reason for doing this is explained in the December post.
The kit, as shown below, has everything required from the chassis up to complete the tender.
Once all the parts had been cleaned up, in the photo below, they were ready for spraying.
The first coat was done with Pollyscale’s (Floquil) UP Armor Yellow paint. These paints are perfect for spraying 3D printed models made for Shapeways’ Frosted Detail and Frosted Ultra materials as it’s an acrylic paint. Enamel paints do not dry properly when applied directly to the material and some other brands of acrylic paints don’t spray so well. Sadly this paint is no longer available. Straight out of the bottle it was a bit too yellow so for the second coat I added a spot of red into the paint which brought the right amount of orange tint to the color.
Once dry the yellow areas were masked off and the remainder of the tenders were sprayed with UP Harbour Mist Gray also made by Pollyscale.
Then, with the mask removed the tenders were ready for decals, well almost. I had a bit of gray bleed through onto the yellow which had to be brushed out. This was because a section of the mask had lifted. The trick with spraying is 95% of the time should be spent in preparation, the actual spraying part is really quick.
The trucks that come with the Lionel chassis are black so I stripped the parts down, then sprayed them with a basic silver. Again I used acrylic paint but as all these parts are metal I could have used an enamel paint.
I regularly like to do test fits as I go to check things are okay, and below you can see the assembled bodes and chassis with some of the detail parts laid out in front.
The yellow in the picture above still looks way too yellow for UP colors but this is a bit of an optical illusion due to the lights I have in my work room. Also once the red decals are applied it will greatly change the look of the color.
The next stage was to apply the decals. The lettering and flags where again supplied by Circusdecals, the red lining decals I made myself. The flag on the sides of Jim Adams is just about the same shape as the flag plate which is provided with the kit. This plate is very thin and I recommend gluing it to the tender before you apply the decal as decal setting solution will cause the plate to bend if unsupported. Wet slide decals also like flat surfaces to adhere to and these tenders are covered in rivets. Cutting out the decals as small as you can and then test placing them on the model is a good idea. If there is still a rivet detail under the decal I recommend carefully cutting that one-off with a sharp craft knife to create a flat surface.
I find taking pictures as I go also helps me check what I am doing. In the picture below you can see I had just finished setting the PACIFIC as the side of the tender is still wet. Looking at the photo I noticed I had the O in UNION rotated by 90°. As the O decal had not been down long I was able to lift it off and rotate it.
Once all the decals had dried I sprayed the tender with Testors Dullcote. This seals the decals to the tender. The last stage was to glue on the final details such as the tool boxes, ladders, cut levers and brake wheels. The cut levers and brake wheels were also spare parts ordered from Lionel. Below is an image taken halfway though this step. The tender in the background is a HO model.
Once complete the last thing to do was fit them to the chassis and take some photos.
And finally all three size tenders together; N, HO and O.
The O Scale tenders are available in two kits and in both FD and FUD materials from Shapeways.
The chassis and parts are available from Lionel here.
The decals are available on request from Circusdecals.
The price for Ready-To-Run models are available on request, please contact me through the contact page.
The new owner of the two O Scale tenders has promised some pictures and maybe some video of them running on his layout with big steam and I will share those with you in a later post. But for now there are more photos of this pair in the gallery.
In next week’s post I will bring you some photos and videos from my visit to the Southampton Model Railway exhibition which was held at Barton Peverill college in Eastleigh.
James' Train Parts 
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