Railbricks Corrugated Tanker Mod - Advice

[Toxic43]

Hi all.

I'm currently working on a mod of the corrugated tanker from Railbricks issue 10.

I have an issue I have caused myself because of the colour choices I went with. Dark Azure for the wheel support structures is fine, but for the ends of the tanker looks wrong as I went with metallic silver for the outer skin. The dilemma is now how do I fill the end with 4 2x2 metallic silver 2x2 tiles.

The 2x2 tile is necessary as there aren't any metallic silver bricks of plates I can find that would fill the gap successfully.

There is one plate and one tiles worth of space and several attachment points inside the end of the tanker. Problem is that the sideways building and upside down building doesn't give me an easy way to centre up the studs to create a strong attachment point. Heck, I'm having problems getting the tiles to centre up at all.

I have posted a render of the open end of the tanker here if you'd like to take a look at what I'm dealing with.

This is going to be a long term project as it will take many months, if not years, to accumulate the right amount of metallic silver pieces. But until then, I still need help with figuring the end out. 

Many thanks in advance.

-Andy

[Shiva]

The least modifications needed, could be like this, either with 4x 99781 or 4x 44728 as an example.

This page has some tricks https://bricknerd.com/home/snot-basics-geometry-techniques-and-pitfalls-3-18-2021

 

 

[zephyr1934]

Checking the instructions, the end of the hidden superstructure consists of a pair of identical constructions flipped upside down from one another. The top one is studs up, going from top to bottom:

curved slopes

headlight bricks

2x8 plate

2x2 plate

 

The easiest change would be to move the 2x2 plate away from the end of the car by one stud and then add a 1x2 x 2x2 up bracket in the gap you created. You can then use a 4x4 plate covered with tiles to fill the hole on the end of the car.

[Shiva]

Ahh, there is instructions.

https://brickmodelrailroader.com/index.php/download-railbricks/railbricks-issue-10/

Well, then I would say. Remove the 4x black 1x4 plates on both ends and replace with either  8x 99781 or 8x 44728. + a fitting colour of 2x 4x4 plates + your silver metallic 2x 4x 2x2 plates.

zephyr1934's version needs less parts. Unless 99207 have the same issue as 99780 . They don't have it, right?

Ok, tested, they do have the same problem.

The Pitfalls of SNOT. -> https://bricknerd.com/home/snot-basics-geometry-techniques-and-pitfalls-3-18-2021

But it is a bit less with 99207 than with 99780.

Actually, 44728 or 99781 could be replaced with 8x 36841's

Edited September 18, 2021 by Shiva
36841 addition + correcting item numbers.

[Toxic43]

Many thanks guys! I hadn't even considered swapping out the 1x4 plates for brackets. I was trying to use brackets but of course I was always well out of spec. 

I'll find a solution from one of the above once I'm back home and get studio loaded up.

 

Cheers again.

- Andy

[Shiva]

No clue about studio, but I think LDD will consider everything of those as legal/working.

Best is to do a test build with real bricks.

Hope all goes well :)

 

/edit

Using a single 99207 on both ends, that I now think that zephyr1934 wrote, that should work totally OK.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Shiva

[zephyr1934]

Doh! I never thought about the "pitfall" of putting two up brackets bottom to bottom like that, good to know. Also underscoring your point of doing a test build out of real bricks (always great advice). The obvious fix of using just one bracket should be sufficiently strong for this application, or possibly using an up bracket stacked on top of a down bracket. Alternatively, I think there's room to put two down brackets coming off of the sides. This build has a lot of empty space to work with.