I have a Spectrum "Long Vanderbuilt" tender that is about 6 1/2" long. How long is a "Hicken" tender? Are they available with coal bunker, or just oil?
Thanks.
Todd
The Hickens tender is about the same size. I believe it's an oil tender only. OTOH, the one is an eastern tender and the other a western. I don't think they would ever be found together.
Gene
The "Hicken" tender is fairl;y much a Southern Pacific design, although I never heard it called that. SP Class is 160C xx. the xx being subclass numbers. Means 16,000 gallon Cylindrical tender.
The reason I'm asking about the Hicken tender is it looks pretty close to a CN/GTW 4-8-2 tender. The long Vandy tender I have looks to be about 10 scale feet too long, and it looks like a nightmare to try to shorten it. If the Hicken is about 5" to 5.5" long, I can make it work. Unfortunatly, the info. in this catalog doesn't list dimensions. If someone could just hold a ruler up to a Hicken tender if they have one, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Todd
I did a very unscientific measurement, but added to the comment that the Hickens tender is also a 16,000 gallon tender, I'd say the two are very close to each other in length. You may well be able to cut some out of the center section to shorten it.
Gene
40 ft over the end beams. Same length as a standard boxcar. gj
Thanks for the input fellas' my long vandy tender measures about 44 HO scale feet long, so I guess I'll just live with that.. It just looked much shorter in pictures. ( the Hicken tender). Check out GTW/CN 4-8-4 and 4-8-2 photos to see what I'm trying to do here.
Todd
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/Tender-h.jpg)
Here's one of my Hicken kitbashes
http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/?start=40 (http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/?start=40)
Shows more photos
That looks great Roger. How difficult was it to shorten the length?
Todd
Quote from: T Cline on April 13, 2009, 10:03:03 PM
That looks great Roger. How difficult was it to shorten the length?
Todd
Easy, really. I just removed one tender water course, the one directly behind the oil tank, which shortened the water tank. Carefull filing resulted in a rather smooth joint that was then camouflaged with a piece half round strip that looks like the water pipe found on CN tenders.
I modified the front of the tender to match a vestibule cab. I did this by removing the tender front, turning it around and filing off the details and the added some Plastruct "U" channel to represent the weather proof "tunnel" between engine and tender. I added matching "U" channel to the rear of the cab for the cab half of the "tunnel" and filled that with some Bachmann black packing foam so that there'd be no visible gap.
Adding the coal bunker was a simple styrene addition. Any other unwanted gaps were filled with body filler and or thin styrene. A coat of paint and some weathering tones everything down.
The toolbox was repaired using styrene and body filler.
See the link in the original post of other photos.
OK Roger, I have decided to shorten my long Vandy tender for my GTW 4-8-2. I just tore it apart today. Past the point of no return now. I think I can do it thanks to your advice/pictures. A bit different than your Hicken conversion, but close. I cut a piece of tape 8 scale feet wide and wrapped it around the tender body to give me an even cutting guide, and did the same for the underframe. I need to do the cuts in different areas though, it quickly turned into a more complicated project than I had first thought. Given the location of the water hatch, and the placement of the truck bolsters, this has to be done in 2 seperate sectionings. It still won't be a "perfect" GTW U-1-c tender, but it will be a lot closer than the C&O prototype stock Bachmann tender. Thanks for your info. and inspiration. P.S. If I totally screw this up, would you be willing to do one for me? For a fee of course...
Todd
Todd.
Best of luck with your conversion. If you stick with it, you'll be successful.
Mission accomplished! Thanks for your inspiration Roger. I'd like to share a photo or two, but I know next to nothing about computers. Can I get some tips on posting photos here?
Thanks,
Todd
Still waiting to find out how to post photos here... I'd like to share. Keep in mind, I'm no computer genious.. Simple idiot-proof please....
Todd
To post photos you really need to open a photo account somewhere, like Photobucket.
http://photobucket.com/ (http://photobucket.com/)
Up load your photos to Photobucket, follow their simple instructions.
Once you've uploaded the photos to Photobucket, you can copy a link by hovering your mouse over a photo and a menu will open. Select IMG Code, right click on it and select "copy"
Then you come back here and paste the link into your post, thus: -
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/rt_W33a-Newport1.jpg)
When you post you'll see the link, to ensure that a photo has been posted. "Preview" your post and if your photo(s) appear(s) in the "Preview" window you can then finish entering your text and finally click on "Post" as usual to post your message, complete with photo(s).
Best of luck. And ask again of you need more help.
Look forward to seeing your photos.
Quote from: T Cline on May 16, 2009, 02:37:23 AM
Still waiting to find out how to post photos here... I'd like to share. Keep in mind, I'm no computer genious.. Simple idiot-proof please....
Todd
Hi Todd
When you get an account, try to plan your albums in advance as this can really get you to uploading and sharing the photos and only one album can become cumbersome quite rapidly.
When you put a photo in an album, do not move it to another album as any place your posted that photo will not see the photo anymore.
There are four options you will see at the Photo Bucket site when you are signed in and looking at a particular photo. You want to click on and copy the last of the four options. IMG I think as I am not signed into my albums right now.
I believe I use the second option when posting the photo in emails to people.
The beauty of this is, you can immediately delete the photo if it does not look correct. You can also delete the photo in the Bachmann forums if the photo does not look correct to you and try again.
I played with this a few times and finally got it correct.
Another thing to consider is the brightness and contrast of photos you take. I do not know what photo program you use as I use Linux, not Windows. Some people take photos that can be rather on the dark side so you have to increase the brightness and contrast. Again, ask here about photo processing applications/programs for Windows and then practice
I am not a geek, just an old man. I just like learning new things.
If you want to continue on this photo subject, start a new thread as it will be easier for some to keep up with this subject rather than get buried in this thread.
You might also save this page to your Favorites Folder for easy reference. Another option, is to copy and paste the text into a Word Document.
Some day you may want to share this information with someone else. This is a community and it is nice to give back.
Rich
I suggest downloading the following FREE image management program. If you want everyone to see your pictures, they should be no larger than 500 pixels wide, with a file size not over 75 to 100 kilobytes, BEFORE uploading to Photobucket.
http://www.irfanview.com
I continue to see members posting pictures with filesizes as large as 500 kilobytes. Those who have broadband don't realize (and in some cases don't care) what hardships are imposed on those who are on slow dialup. It's just a matter of courtesy to all.
At Photobucket, you can also select 640 X 480 as your largest picture which will help a little, but the site reducing process will blur your pictures. As Rich mentioned, with a file management program, you can adjust brightness, contrast, even sharpen an out of focus picture, crop out excessive background to add impact to the main subject, and reduce both the physical dimensions (pixels) and the filesize (kilobytes).
Image filenames, user and album names, should not have any spaces. Windows allows spaces, HTML hyperlinks do not. To separate characters, use the hyphen (-) instead of a space. For example, if your album is T Cline/my layout/box cars/car 01.jpg (note the spaces), it will show up as T%20Cline/my%20layout/box%20car%2001.jpg.
I was Webmaster for many years for several commercial and personal web sites. Images are useless if "customers" can't view them.
I wrote a detailed tutorial on installing and using Irfanview and will be glad to send to you if you want. It only takes about 15 seconds to optimize a picture for posting on the forum.
About a year ago I posted a thread on image management, but took it down when some members accused me of trying to set forum policy. If you need detailed instructions, it will have to be by email. I have privately tutored several members, who are now proficient at posting pictures.
Hi Bob
yeah, I keep forgetting about dial up users. I will work on shrinking my photos in the future. I use a Linux Operating System and a photo management Application called Gimp so I have to find an easier method of shrinking photos. Ir works fine but I have a lot of photos and the ones on Photo Bucket I do not want to mess with, though as time goes on that may become a moot point. I just do not remember a lot of places that I have posted many of the images.
Email me a copy of what you have and I will see how I can adapt. I have just purchased a Acer 5515 wireless laptop for $325 that has Vista Basic so maybe I can use that PC for photos and dual boot it with Linux Mint 7 for secure Internet connections.
Thanks.
Rich
Hi Rich,
The tutorial is in your inbox. Irfanview works in my XP, I'm sure the latest download will work in Vista. Considering the program is FREE, anyone posting pictures on the net should have it. Learning curve is about 15 minutes for essentials by using my tutorial.
Thanks Bob. Just got it. Yes, I am very familiar with following instructions first.
Rich
Another fully featured free software is:-
http://www.photofiltre.com/
I use it myself on Vista and found it easy to learn. It is a French application but has an "anglais"link on home page and you download the English version.
Eric UK