Joe's 1/22 Artesania Latina San Francisco Cable Car

[spanner570]

How I would love to get my hands on one of these.

Cracking job, Joe!

[flyjoe180]

Cheers guys. First coat of red colour sprayed with the blue bottom masked off. The shade is as close as I could get to the reference photos. One more coat after 24 hours should do it.

[Mini Me]

That is looking down right "Spiffy" I suspect that red will deepen with the second coat.
Rick H.

[JR]

Looking good Joe

[flyjoe180]

Hi guys. Mega update again, I've been busy with work and building this cable car in my time.

Final coat of the red colour, deepened the shade as expected, and it will further deepen with a varnish coat.


Masking tape removed.


Then we move on to constructing the side windows. All primed.


Sprayed yellow


Using painted thin strips we make the white outline framing.


Sandwiching the clear acetate between the framed portions and the plain yellow pieces we get the completed side window sections




And then we move on to the four small windows for each end of the cabin

[flyjoe180]

The small windows are varnished prior to sandwiching the acetate


The result


Prior to fitting all these windows I altered the order of things slightly and used strips of Tamiya masking tape cut into 1 mm widths to create the pin striping around the cabin. I had already glossed the cabin prior to this stage.




I had a bit of a nightmare with the very small curves on the sides, creating that old style carriage theme. Kept it simple, achieved something resembling the shapes I wanted. Not perfect but I'll accept it or I'll never get anything else done.

[flyjoe180]

Then came attaching the horizontal bars to the end windows. First the brackets. As you might appreciate, these are extremely tiny and fiddly.


The horizontal bars are made from a length of wire provided. Unfortunately Artesania Latina saw fit to roll this up tightly and it made straightening the pieces out very difficult. Hence they are not precisely straight, but the effect is okay as you will see later on.


They are supposed to 'slot' right into the end cavities. Yeah right. A bit of sanding and persuasion and they go in. I found the actual best way to do this was to dismantle the window halves, put one half of the frame in, then attach the trimmed glazing in, then insert the other half. This is because if you force them in as a whole piece, the stress distorts the acetate glazing. No need to ask me how I know... A piece covering the gaps between the seats and the cabin walls was been inserted on each side.


The side window sections are inserted, and it's looking like a cabin now.


Then I placed the rubber matting down in the remaining deck areas per instructions. The white arrow is interesting, and appears on all the photos of actual cable cars. No idea what the reason is for that. On that note did you know the Powell Street Cable Cars are one-direction only. They must be turned on a turntable at the end of their routes. The California Cable Cars are multi-directional, the Grip Man simply walks to the other end of the cable car and drives back the other way.

[Mini Me]

That is a beautiful job and the taping really accents your work. Will you be varnishing the tape to permanently fix it in place? Yes Joe, I do know about the turntables and they are manually operated.....ask me how I know. Cheers, Rick H.

[flyjoe180]

In the next installment...

The vertical poles within the cabin are attached to two horizontal overhead beams. each end of the white vertical poles have a brass cone hiding their attachments. The horizontal beams are measured and drilled with 2 mm cavities, in line with those pre-drilled on the floor and in the rubber surface.


The poles are now white


The poles are then mated with their brass ends, measured precisely so the ends protruding are the same. No one likes an uneven horizontal beam. The poles must be at 90 degrees for this to work, there is stuff all play in them and they are fragile...


This is what we get, one side completed. The horizontal beams are varnished afterwards.


There is a door of some sort that sits inside the frame of the exit leading tho the front of the car. I'm not sure where the door disappears to, but it's there in real life too. Maybe it is a concertina door? We must make the door up from these bits. The door panel is a laser cut piece, the brass brackets are the same pieces seen earlier, and the handles are from the same wire that made up the horizontal bars on the windows. I shaped the handles using the pliers shown in the photo. A bit of overkill perhaps, but it was effective. The scale is very small. The flat brass strips are cut from a strip provided.


I've taken to using Zap No-Drip Gel, it's superb stuff and I'm a fan now.



Varnished ready for insertion



Inserted, inner left side of the door at the front of the car cabin. Also attached is a varnished beam along the rear step of the cabin

[Mini Me]

Stunning piece of work Joe. Your attention to detail will pay huge dividends upon completion. Rick H.

[flyjoe180]

Now I'm building up the front section of the cable car. The main panels are painted yellow on both sides. The white strips are painted the red colour and will create the outer frames. The grey primed pieces are painted white and fixed to the bottom halves of the main pieces.




My nemesis, those fecking tiny brackets again, and the rolled up horizontal bars :surprised:


Same process as earlier, the acetate is sandwiched between the frames, which were gloss varnished prior to the acetate.

[Mini Me]

Looks like you are on a roll Joe.....keep it coming. Rick H.

[flyjoe180]

Last update for today. The front lamp is assembled and inserted into the centre front panel. The centre front panel will not be glued into place, it has a 1 mm hole drilled into the top and into the bottom of the front frame portion of the structure. 1 mm wire has been inserted and fixed, and will slot into holes that will be drilled into the base and overhead piece later.

The lamp is made up of four pieces. A brass outer ring, a clear acetate cover, an aluminium lens, and a brass bell covering that protrudes through the rear of the centre panel.


Assembled lamp:




Fixed into the cavity.



That's us up to date guys, thanks for looking in and for any comments. I'll try to get to them quicker than last time. Keep safe

[papa 695]

Fantastic work going on Joe

[flyjoe180]

That is a beautiful job and the taping really accents your work. Will you be varnishing the tape to permanently fix it in place? Yes Joe, I do know about the turntables and they are manually operated.....ask me how I know. Cheers, Rick H.

They look mighty heavy Rick, you must be quite fit to turn these around?