1:48 D&RGW Box Car

[lucas gargoloff]

This is what I call really scratch!! Keep showing your progress!

[Tom Neeson]

Hey thanks Lucas, your boxcar is looking sharp too! Mine will also be On30.

Tom

[Tom Neeson]

An update, adding the needle beams and truss rods.

I built up the needle beams from strips of styrene, to avoid having to cut square holes and make notches.

[Tom Neeson]

Locating a needle beam, with queenposts added:

[Tom Neeson]

I made a jig to solder the turnbuckles to the truss rods, worked really well.

[Tom Neeson]

Here are the truss rods set in place...and another pic with them bent to shape. Man, was I surprised at how much trouble it was to get the truss bent to proper shape, they are close, but not perfect.

I'm also getting concerned that the inner truss rods will have to be modified to allow for the trucks to swivel, I'd like to run this at less than 60" radius.

Thanks for looking, Tom

[finescalerr]

You left out the really hard part: How you bent the truss rods. In all other respects, substantially more than satisfactory. -- Russ

[JohnP]

Forget running this beauty, put the right trucks on it and display on the mantle sitting on a mirror. Very nice work.

Where did you get the nice turnbuckles?

John

[Tom Neeson]

Thanks Russ,
I bent the truss with some pliers and a template I drew. Problem is I drew the template based on the Tomalco dwgs, not the model, so they didn't fit too well. Then I spent a lot time straightening, bending, rebending, etc...lesson learned there.

Thank you John,
Yes, the thought crossed my mind to display it so the underframe could be seen, but I would like to run it. Especially since this is the first piece of rolling stock I've built in this scale.

The turnbuckles are old Grandt Line parts I got off ebay.

Tom

[Tom Neeson]

I started working on the car body before finishing the underframe, I was close to losing interest in this thing altogether. The body is built up of 0.040" thk styrene.

[Tom Neeson]

Then the siding was added with 'HO' scale 2x6's, which work out pretty close to 'O' scale 1x3's. I couldn't figure out the exact correct size to use, but this looks right to me. Each board received a four step process:
1. Swipe with coarse sanding stick.
2. Bevel edges with an X-Acto blade.
3. Add texture with wire brush "Eurotool" from MicroMark. (Thanks Marc, I bought one seconds after you suggested it, works amazing)
4. Rubbed the piece with heavy brown paper, to remove the fuzzies. A great tip from Dallas M., works terrific on styrene too!!

[Tom Neeson]

And a close up of the texture on the boards. Next stop...Nail Holes!!!

[Malachi Constant]

Looking good there Tom .... and kudos for not running the wire straight thru the turnbuckles ... I hate it when that happens!

Since you mentioned the scratch brush and ebay ... do a search for "scratch brush" and you'll find a set that includes the steel brush, a brass brush and a fiberglass brush ... and a refill for each ... and with shipping from the UK, the set was less than the single brush from Micro-Mark.

Reason I mention it is that having the softer brushes is also good for (a) clean-up after using the steel brush and (b) adding textures in softer material.

And, I'm a long-time fan of building in styrene, so glad to see a "real" boxcar being built in fake wood! 

Cheers,
Dallas

[Tom Neeson]

Thank you Dallas!

I am really liking working with styrene, I had planned to build this and a few other cars out of wood, even bought the wood. But I'm finding the plastic easier to work with and actually looks better too.

Tom

[Malachi Constant]

Tom --

I started scratchbuilding in styrene many years ago, cuz I was in N scale and (a) it was real hard to get decent stripwood in suitable sizes and (b) the fuzz was often bigger than the item being modeled! 

Recently built a fake gallows turntable using styrene ... "fake" cuz it just covers an Atlas TT mech ... and, of course, fake plastic wood.

One of the really cool features of working in styrene is that you can create all sorts of fancy joinery by laminating strips before distressing ... so dados, lap joints, etc, etc.

Here's the fake turntable finished:
http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=27937&whichpage=11

And this page shows how the gallows assembly was mortised into the deck assembly without any actual millwork ... just planning ahead and laminating pieces the right way:
http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=27937&whichpage=4

Just mentioned that, cuz sometimes you want something much stronger than a butt joint (yeah, I know, jokes to follow) ... and with styrene you can fake the millwork and get really strong joints, plus the advantages of the solvent assembly.

Looking forward to more fake boxcar assembly!