new item: the ck holliday colorized poster

I’d like to introduce a new item: the CK Holliday colorized poster, showing three views of the engine in her 1955 colors along with text of the engine’s history, statistics. It also label the major (or what I find interesting on the engine) components with extensive description.

The drawings and text comes directly from the Plan Book. The poster will be priced much less than the book, so this will allow many more people to get a taste of the detail in the book.

Click on the small picture to see a larger version.

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And of course, the real poster does not have watermarking.

The poster will be available on ckhollidayplans.com for $35 plus S&H starting sometime next week. I will also be selling them for $30 at the coming Sacramento train show, and as usual, I’ll be there to sign them too!

the plan book special is now available for order!

The Plan Book Special Edition is printed on heavyweight paper and darker drawing lines. It comes shrink wrapped and has newly designed front and back covers, also on hard, heavyweight paper.

Earlier I had said that the Special Edition is hardcover. It’s not like textbook hardcover, but more like very stiff paper.

Here are some pictures comparing the thickness of the regular vs. special edition, and of the back cover. A preview of the inside has been posted earlier.

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The Special Edition is now available for purchase at ckhollidayplans.com for $134 plus shipping and handling.

finished! the completed ck holliday model pictures

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The kit comes with 10 pages of plan sheets, similar in quality to the Plan Book. Here’s a sample.

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The model semi-kit is a collection of custom made parts to compliment the Plan Book. The parts were made directly from the designs in the Plan Book ensuring consistency and accuracy. The large 1:20 scale will showcase many life-like details, yet compact enough to be displayed proudly in any room. It features over 140 parts to help you build your very own CK Holliday, or your favorite 4-4-0 locomotive.

The kit is available for ordering at ckhollidayplans.com. Please note that there is a lead time of up to 3 weeks from ordering to shipping.

pilot deck, cab windows, and getting nearly close!

The pilot deck is cut out from styrene sheet using a pattern from the plan.

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(By the way, if you have the plan book, you might notice that there’s no drawing of the pilot deck. If you want this drawing for study or your own project, you can grab the plan book’s addendum here).

A long strip of styrene wraps around the edge of the deck to form the apron. Here’s the underside. I signed my name with a little drawing of a boat I sailed on, the Lady Washington. This is just one of the many Easter Eggs scattered throughout the model!

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Here’s the deck fitted in its place.

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The smokebox braces are added and the entire front details painted gloss black. The circular flanges have three “bolts” instead of five like it should because I couldn’t fashion bolts small enough to fit on the flange. Now I know I should have pressed the flange with metal point to create false revit. I use this technique later on the boiler apron.

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Next, the cab’s window frames are drawn on a styrene sheet. Each window gets two frames, one inside (painted green), one outside (painted red), and of course the glazing pane in the middle.

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In all, there are eight windows, four of which are operable by the cab crew (but not here).

After much tedious cutting and painting later, the windows are fixed into the freshly painted cab.

True to Disneyland Railroad’s tradition, I left all the operable windows opened. The cab crew needs all the ventilations they can get in the cramped space so you’ll rarely see the windows closed.

I fixed the windows in at about 90% opened to give them a sense that they are operable.

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Next in the engine finishes, the bell. I bought it from tracksidedetail and it is wonderfully detailed. It’s part number TD10 and the bell itself is slightly larger than what’s required, so the model would wear a 13″ bell instead of 12″ but this is not visually noticeable. The yoke, however, require minor modification.

Here’s the yoke, casted from brass, painted dark red.

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And here’s the bell. It also comes with its own striker!

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Ok. Earlier I mentioned the boiler apron. It also gets cut from styrene sheet. And as I said earlier, I used metal point to press into the sheet to create false revit pattern.

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The cab looks pretty realistic with the windows opened up.

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And finally, the front shot of the nearly completed model!

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