steamers with puffing smoke stacks- my BMR OcTRAINber 2021 odyssey

[XG BC]

looks super close! awesome building technique i am very curious about the details on how it is build

[zephyr1934]

22 hours ago, Paperinik77pk said:

Nice and good looking!!!  

You are very kind!

 

18 hours ago, XG BC said:

looks super close! awesome building technique i am very curious about the details on how it is build

22 hours ago, Asper said:

Great shape, that is very close to the original. looks complicated (with a lot of clips and hinges?) or fragile (with chain links?) ...

Thank you both. Yeah, it is a little complex with a lot of hidden work that I'll reveal in the coming weeks. No clips, no chain links and only one hinge in the above build. It's mostly gravity so don't turn it upside down (grin).

 

[zephyr1934]

I have gotten close enough to the end of my first draft digital model that I placed my first round (and hopefully only round) of parts orders. Before I show off the build there is still some detailing to do, particularly the wood sides of the carbody. Here's my latest test build exploring the technique of snotted plates for wood siding with the occasional grove from tile-like parts to accentuate the board pattern

[Feuer Zug]

The roofline looks good with the curve. Adding the tiles into the walls does give an interesting effect. Keep up the good work.

[Paperinik77pk]

14 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

I have gotten close enough to the end of my first draft digital model that I placed my first round (and hopefully only round) of parts orders. Before I show off the build there is still some detailing to do, particularly the wood sides of the carbody. Here's my latest test build exploring the technique of snotted plates for wood siding with the occasional grove from tile-like parts to accentuate the board pattern

 

This is really a great way to visually reproduce the (painted) wood effect! Great! 

[zephyr1934]

As noted in my previous post, I got the digital build close enough to order parts and start building in real life. I wound up with 3 BL orders, now currently listed as "shipped" "shipped" and "pending". If I had known seller #3 was not very responsive I could have gotten some of the parts from the other two sellers (!@#$%). Fortunately, there are two other sellers in the US that have the critical parts if this one flakes on me. Good thing I'm building in red.

Meanwhile, being this far with the digital build I can finally share what she will look like,

 

Here's another on-line reference photo for those not familiar with the book

 

 

[Paperinik77pk]

LOVELY!!! 

[XG BC]

58 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

As noted in my previous post, I got the digital build close enough to order parts and start building in real life. I wound up with 3 BL orders, now currently listed as "shipped" "shipped" and "pending". If I had known seller #3 was not very responsive I could have gotten some of the parts from the other two sellers (!@#$%). Fortunately, there are two other sellers in the US that have the critical parts if this one flakes on me. Good thing I'm building in red.

Meanwhile, being this far with the digital build I can finally share what she will look like,

 

Here's another on-line reference photo for those not familiar with the book

 

 

nice work especcially for the curve steps and the roof ofcourse! 

[Hod Carrier]

Man, you're channeling Mr Peet. That's not just close to the illustrations but pretty darn near identical. What did you say your day job was...? Illustrator for Disney...?

[Ts__]

On 10/11/2021 at 7:03 AM, zephyr1934 said:

Here's my latest test build exploring the technique of snotted plates for wood siding with the occasional grove from tile-like parts to accentuate the board pattern

The tiles and slabs give a beautiful texture. It looks more alive with it, great.

Thomas

[zephyr1934]

23 hours ago, Paperinik77pk said:

LOVELY!!! 

Yer gonna make me blush

 

23 hours ago, XG BC said:

nice work especcially for the curve steps and the roof ofcourse! 

There were lots of challenges along the way, but I credit the great looks to the original source material. I just edited the bricks into the right place.

 

15 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

Man, you're channeling Mr Peet. That's not just close to the illustrations but pretty darn near identical. What did you say your day job was...? Illustrator for Disney...?

Thank you (thank you all) but you are way too kind. I had some lucky insights first the roof, then the steps.

 

8 hours ago, Ts__ said:

The tiles and slabs give a beautiful texture. It looks more alive with it, great.

Thanks! I've seen plates for siding many times by others and had to give it a go with this build. Wound up with 90% of the model studs back (forward to the face) as a result.

[Feuer Zug]

Your Katy Caboose is already wonderful. Can't wait to see you complete it in bricks.

[zephyr1934]

My bricklink orders have now all arrived (I was worried about seller #3 but they finally shipped). Most of Katy is studs towards the rear, i.e., her face will be studs up. So that means studs away from her aft end, or in conventional building, her aft is her bottom. The aft is designed to be functional, and it will eventually have a normal coupler attached to the leading truck that has to swing left/right below the deck of the caboose. So I kept the anti-studs on the bottom-most brick exposed, a 1x4 plate in this case. Here is the first part that I built, the rear deck with the stairs.

 

I got this far in my build session, about 1/3 of Katy's cabin is complete at this point. Those inverted tiles really throw me off, my brain sees flat and thinks the studs should be facing that way.

 

[zephyr1934]

Katy's cabin is complete and without her trucks she looks like she's been converted into a chicken coop. The copula is next, then the roof, then the trucks.

I might have the only OcTRAINber entry that is intentionally smiling (grin). Here's her happy side,

and her not so happy side,

While it is visible in the previous two shots, here's another view of the groves in action to accentuate the "plates as paneling" effect. It actually has an unanticipated benefit of masking the four spots where the groves from tiles were unavoidable by blending them in.

 

 

[mark6399]

Oh man, this looks awesome! Love the build and inspiration! Makes me want to dig this book out of my parents' attic and read it again.

[Hod Carrier]

You're really doing Katy justice here with your build. It's looking super-slick. I can't wait to see her finished. 

[Paperinik77pk]

Nice progress, Katy is becoming alive! 

[zephyr1934]

13 hours ago, mark6399 said:

Oh man, this looks awesome! Love the build and inspiration! Makes me want to dig this book out of my parents' attic and read it again.

If you haven't looked at The Caboose Who Got Loose since you were a kid, reading it as an adult you will see so many great details in the trains that you missed as a youth. The couple of pictures of the locomotive are really nice (if you have more money than time it looks like the book is going for $10 new and $5 used)

Meanwhile, thanks all for the words of encouragement.

 

Last night I put the roof together for the first time and it kind of fell in. I had to move the supports between the test build and the actual model, turns out that was a mistake. But I've already figured out how to rework it, so hopefully it will be a quick fix.

[XG BC]

first off all i want to say that this is a masterpiece with its tile design to simulate the paneling but one thing i noticed is that the hinge of the magnets is allowing the magnet to swivel up and down rather then side to side. it should (atleast in theory) swivel side to side to allow kathie to go through curves without possibly derailing herself or the wagon infront of or behind her.

edit: this comment is irrelevant i missed something

Edited October 23, 2021 by XG BC

[zephyr1934]

9 hours ago, XG BC said:

it should (atleast in theory) swivel side to side to allow kathie to go through curves without possibly derailing herself or the wagon infront of or behind her.

You are too kind, but I too am amazed at how well it is turning out. That magnet is purely decorative. Katy has a coupler right in that spot in the illustrations and so keeping it Lego, I put a magnet coupler there too. The 2x4 tiles will get window/eyes to complement the 1/2 plate mouth at the bottom of the door. The other end is strictly business and has an actual coupler attached to the truck.

Meanwhile, the chicken coop is complete (but not the entire build, trucks are next, then I'll worry about stickers). The roof is a little fidgity to get right, I've smoothed it out since taking this shot. You can see the bottom of the hinges that hold the outer tiles in place in the center of the body. It turns out that the tiles need to be 1 mm from "completely pressed in."

 

 

[Asper]

Wonderful! The side wall with grooves is great.

[Murdoch17]

That's a wonderful MOC of Katy, I can't wait to see her finished!

I may need to get one for myself for my collection of trains from multi-media of various sorts, such a the BTTF-3 Time Train, Polar Express, Conjunction Junction freight train, as so on.

How fiddly of a MOC is it to build? If you don't mind, @zephyr1934, I'm going to try to reverse engineer Katy for myself.

[Paperinik77pk]

The roof is very very nice and fits perfectly - the overall look is so smooth and refined!  

[zephyr1934]

Thank you A, M + P for all of the kind words!

 

11 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

How fiddly of a MOC is it to build? If you don't mind, @zephyr1934, I'm going to try to reverse engineer Katy for myself.

I'll post a reveal of how the roof goes together, and I will aim for right before the submission deadline. The two hard bits are making sure the outer tiles are not completely pressed in and also being careful not to flip her upside down. The roof tiles have a little friction holding them in but they can fall out. As for reverse engineering her, do not underestimate the rest of the build, there's a lot of craziness going on inside, but if you don't try to do the little smile it becomes a lot simpler.

 

 

We have wheels, the Katy has landed! And she has taken several spins around my layout. I was a little worried that the steps would interfere with the trucks, but no problems even on R40 curves. Of course with such a short wheelbase the trucks hardly pivot at all. She's 16 studs long and fits nicely on a single track segment. Almost there, just need some eyes.

 

 

[Feuer Zug]

Katy is sooo cute. You've built a wonderful bobber caboose that matches the book.