Thank you for the construction pics and narration Brian. Excellent use of materials, and I like the build sequence. I’ve looked at archer rivets but hadn’t seen them put to use. Very nice
Very Nice Brian. Sorry to hear about your accident. I wish you speedy recovery. Apparently modeling is good therapy 
Thanks for sharing the build details and drawings.
Now that the basic box is complete it was time to start the detail work. First was to make the little ribs on the lower sill. Since I needed 48 of them plus 4 double wide ribs (made by doubling up 8 more) I decided I would take the time to make one nice one and cast it up. from that one I cast up 8 copies and made a pattern/mold of those 8. That way I only had to pour 7 sets to have the amount I needed. That may seem like a lot of casting but it beats trying to file 56 pieces to be the same size and shape. From there I just glued them onto the lower sill. Here’s a shot of it after that point
Also notice I’ve added white styrene behind the recessed ladder pockets in the sides at the ends, as well as the reinforcement plates below the doors. Also at this point I made body bolsters for the trucks to attach to on the floor. Nothing fancy there, just a build up of 1/8 " black ABS pieces 7/8" wide solvent welded to the floor plate. Now I turned my attention to the roof. I determined the flange ribs wouldn’t be worth the effort to cast so I made those out of styrene bits, a look at the drawings will show the sizes I used. But the reinforcing bump in the roofs I wasn’t about to file 23 of those since they have several angles to them. Again I got lucky since that formation is the same as the mini hycube I had built. So I cast up 23 of those (casting those at the same time I was casting the little sill ribs). Here’s a look at the roof ribs in place
Notice I used a little spot putty to smooth out a rough spot in each formation (that shows the importance of taking the time to make the masters as perfect as possible) So now that completes the roof. Now, about the floor, I wasn’t going to detail it much at first but since I had a good drawing of the floor arrangement, I decided it wasn’t that much work to detail the floor. Here’s a shot of the floor after I had installed all the ribs and bracings
Once all those pieces were glued in place the floor plate went from flimsy to relatively rigid, especially the center sill. I was still waiting to see the USA Trains 60 boxcar to see if I could use thier coupler box.
Not long after I got my first 60 footer from USA I decided I would use thier coupler box. I bought a set off of a fellow largescaler that had removed the body mount box and had installed truck mount couplers to his 60 footer. Being anal retentive, I had to get rid of the USA couplers and replace them with the Accucraft #1 ga. couplers (AP11-738) which are actually 1/29 scale. I know because I measured them to a drawing of a scale coupler. I have been converting my fleet over to these couplers. Here’s a shot showing the coupler box and the modified Accucraft coupler installed.
You can see in that shot that I was installing the side ladders (vertical pieces from Burl Rice - resin castings I had purcased from him when he was still doing casting) with brass rungs, drilled and glued in place. In this picture you can see I’ve used Tichy Train Group rivets (the brown ones) to represent the rivets for the bolsters and crossbearing beams as attached to the lower sill.
Also added are the car pulling loops on the lower sill. In this close-up of the end shows the many scratchbuilt bits and Grandtline rivets (the grey ones) that make up the end detail.
The brakewheel is a USA Trains part from the centerflow hopper car. The Ajax brake housing is a resin casting I made. The walkway is part of a USA trains boxcar roofwalk. The tackboard is a resin casting I did of a USA trains boxcar tackboard (I did those when I was making my mini hycube boxcar). At that point I turned to the doors
The vertical rods are 3/32 dia styrene tubes laid into the scallops and then capped with half cut 5/32 dia tubes cut at the cross ribs. All othe little details are scratchbuilt bits of plastic. So, that’s where I am now. I still want to do the brake and airline detail underneath as well as a few more little detail bits on the body before I take it out to start painting it. I’m a little afraid of painting while I’m in the restricted breathing phase of my recovery…we’ll see how I feel as time progresses. I hope some of you enjoyed and or learned from this review. Take care, Brian
Brian, how’d you do the wood grain on your tack boards? As good as the 60-grit sandpaper, razor saw, and steel wire brush works for simulating wood grain, it just doesn’t get the swirlley patterns you get on your boards.
And incredible job on the car, as usual. Good luck with the recovery. Painting can wait. It’s too cold for me to paint anything here until at least March or April, so I’m familiar with the “waiting period.”
Later,
K
Kevin,
The large tackboards are cast from USA trains boxcar tackboards…not my work, it’s thier work.
Brian that is just incredable work that you have done. I await the finished car.
Awesome Brian…
Is it done, yet?
After thinking about it, Brian would you be my Step Daddy… Nick
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/nicholas_savatgy/_forumfiles/good.gif)
Steve Featherkile said:Isn't this obvious?
Is it done, yet?
Did I miss the memo where this is supposed to be a really cool question?
Can we REALLY stop this s***?
But you started it Bruce?
I believe I’ve finished the construction phase…onto the painting and decaling phase. I did decide to brave wearing the mask (over a reconstructed upper jaw…interesting breathing exercize). Here’s the underframe completed and painted…I even did all the airline details (yeah, I know I’m crazy…)
I did get a coat of primer on the body too…no picture of that yet though.
Just catching up on this thread. Amazing work…
Thanks Bob,
Hey how’s your “Winter build” doing?
Super sharp work, Brian.
Brian Briggs said:
Thanks Bob,Hey how’s your “Winter build” doing?
Waiting for some more pvc board to show up so I can start. Christmas got in the way!
Since I can’t paint today (snowing all day) I did get a picture of the body in primer
Really Sharp Brian.
Rooster is face down in a pile of drool!
Amazing work!
Rooster…don’t forget to come up for some air Anyway, today was clear enough, I took her out and put a coat of color on it. I had been debating what road to paint it (I was leaning to DT&I - surprize, surprize) but, after much deliberation, I am making it Conrail! Considering they has the largest fleet of these cars it only makes sense my first car is Conrail. Here’s a few picts of it sitting in the basement drying.
I’m really happy with the finish. Now I have to get to work on drawing up the decals for it.