Milepost 918
In a recent roundtable discussion (via email), the Pirates ware talking about a variety of subjects. One of the Pirates, Kyle, shared a couple of pictures of some Archbar trucks that he had printed with a 5'2" wheelbase. They looked pretty good but he mentioned that the material that he had them printed with was rather fragile; he broke some while installing the wheelsets.
The discussion went on about the difference in the ones he had drawn & had printed and the ones that were readily available in most any well-stocked hobby shop. The commercially available ones have a 5'0" wheelbase, a difference of two inches. At this point, I opened my big mouth (again, via email) and asked why he would go to the trouble (and expense) of drawing then printing trucks when there was only a two scale inch difference. Mind you, two scale inches in HO scale equates to .0229 inches. Or, by rounding, 23 thousandths of an inch! For those of you who use them, that's right around the diameter of a #74 drill bit. Or... somewhere about half way between a 1/32nd and a 1/64th inch. In other words, not a lot of difference between the wheelbase of the two trucks.
Here is his response and I think it says a lot. It is well worth a read...
Dan you make a good argument and the question is fair one. Why would I take the time and energy to create something that is close enough that no one will notice, more durable, and cost less than the one that is commercially available? From a practical stand point you are correct. My simple answer is that I try to model the Big Four railroad as accurately as I can, whether anyone notices or not, with the tools that I have, and many times working from general to specific like a sculptor does, working and testing on different fronts, trying to pick my battles as I go, exploring what is possible, how far I can go, and in the end what is worth it. How is that for a simple answer?
Fair warning I am going to wax on…
Not all battles are worth it and the arch bar truck experiment is probably one of them, but that doesn’t mean that it was a waste of time, money or energy. Why do modelers concern themselves with foobies, the correct ends for a gondola or boxcar, deal with underbody details, build resin kits or look for the correct trucks when most people don’t know what is correct or not unless they have done some research themselves; and this is especially apt if you are concerned mostly about operation. I don’t model what people will or will not notice and I would submit that many modelers don’t either. I would venture that 99% of modelers, and that is being generous, don’t know what is correct for an 1897 Big Four boxcar or gondola and yet I press on trying to get the details correct. If they don’t notice should I? I am being slightly facetious here, but I wanted to make the point. And I am not trying to pick on the comment of “no one will notice” I understand the practicality of your overarching question. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it…
Let’s do a thought experiment. If you were modeling the Big Four and Tahoe built a 5-2 truck (the correct one for the Big Four and time period) along with their 5-0 truck but the 5-2 truck cost a dollar more. Would you spend the extra dollar for the correct one? I don’t know what your answer would be, but I would want it to be correct. The point is that I am trying to model a long gone time. If I know that a detail is wrong and it is practical to correct it I want to. Devil is in the details? I think an under lying theme of your question is, “what battle in the quest to get the details right is worth it?” Where does the madness end? I guess if the detail is easy to do why not? Is 3D technology the answer? In this case, probably not.
I want to slightly pivot here and talk a little about 3D print technology, which will tie in to the broad question, I promise, at least I hope it will, I guess I better not promise. I know that there are detractors and doubters of 3D technology, but mark my words, it is here. It will get cheaper and better. We currently live in a time when it is possible to build full size anything that we want, take out our magic ray gun and shrink it down to what ever size we want. Think about that. It is just as easy to put in the correct details on a 3D car as it is to put the wrong generic details on, so why not do it correctly. All of my print cars are essentially a full sized car shrunk down with few compromises. We are at a time when we as modeler, for the most part, are no longer dependant on manufacturers for anything that we want. Now the models might not be as cheap or durable, but we can have them, which is better than what we had before this technology was available. And yes many things you can scratch build, but I would submit that for the most part print technology allows for much greater control, finer details, and saves time. (I am talking in somewhat general terms about print technology here so for the sake of this argument, let’s not rehash the short comings of print technology right now.) I have scratch built several cars and because of cost I am in the middle of scratch building a flat car and coal car currently. While I want accurate cars, I can also live with generics.
The only way to get a hold of this new technology, this new medium, is to work with it. Every print project that I do has a purpose beyond creating a model that I want. My first boxcar was to see how prototype measurements would print, my first caboose was to see how well stairs print and how well a floor would fit in a body, the second caboose was to see if I could print a working journal and if I could make a better way to fit the floor to the body (dovetails), the gondola was to see if I could get the small bolts to print and if I could print a brake ratchet with a hole for a brake rod, the second gondola was to refine the details and continue to get small bolts to print, and finally the trucks were to see how well a delicate print, would come through the print process, and if it would be viable. Every failure that I have had, and every model so far has had some kind of failure, has been a learning process.
It's like I am trying to tree my point like a hound dog, but I guess here is the take away, I build models that represent the Big Four with all of the short comings that modeling miniatures comes with. Some of my models are broad stroke representations (scratch built) and some of them are detailed studies (print cars). While for me, personally, I would like all of my car to be the detailed study kind; I must pick my battles.
Some very good comments from a real modeler and some interesting things to think about why we do what we do...
dlm