Legos and Model Railroading

When I'm decaling a car, I find it a little annoying when I have finished one side of the car and I have to wait for the decals to dry before I can decal the other side of the car.  This is not a problem when I am decaling a whole fleet at once, because I can then go and decal the other cars, and by the time I am finished doing that, the first one is ready.  However, with only one or two cars, you are left with some down time between decaling the sides.  I fixed this problem today with legos.

The problem is not that the wet decals will fall off the car if you turn it over, it is that if anything, such as the desk you are working on, touches the wet decals, it can mess them up.  I fixed this by building a device out of legos that touches the car only on the top and bottom edges, which are very unlikely to be decalled, so any decals on that side of the car can dry upside down while you work on the side that is facing up.

This device holds most types of rolling stock.  I built it around a box car, but it can also hold just about anything else.  I wouldn't try putting a flat car in it, and I would be careful with a tank car because there is a chance it might hit the decals on those.

I am not going to go into a long explanation about how to build this.  A similar device could probably be made out of styrene or wood, but I just thought legos would be easiest for this project.  Instead I will share my photos and you can study them to see how it works so you can build your own out of whatever material you like.

A box car in the device.

The walls of the device are high enough to prevent the car from being bumped out.

The device only touches the car's top and bottom edges, making it safe to flip a car over with wet decals to work on the other side.

Detail of the device without a car in it.