Let me start with a little background for this project. Many years ago, I built a Private Car which some of you may remember. It one Best of Show at the 2011 Narrow Gauge Convention.
After a while, I thought it looked lonely running all by itself. So I decided to add a car. The one thing that came to mind was a sort of support car that would be available for special trips. After some thought, I concluded that it had to be a car that provided the capability of housing extra people and equipment whenever the owner decided to go on a hunting trip across the great western expanses.
Of course, the car that would best suit this purpose was some form of a combine configuration. However, back at that time there were no inexpensive plastic 1:20.3 combine models available. Accucraft only sold a coach. Luckily, a company (no longer in existence) called Rio Grande Models out of England did produce a combine kit that was fully compatible with Accucraft models. All one had to do is remove the sides of the Accucraft car and replace them with the combine kit sides. They fit perfectly. But that wasn’t good enough for me. I had to make it unique and as highly detailed as possible. So here’s the story.
I’ll start off by stating a recurring regret. I didn’t take enough pictures at the beginning of the construction. What I first did was completely take apart the Accucraft car. I discarded the sides and all the flooring except for the plastic framing including the end platforms. I saved the roof and car ends. Since I threw away the original plastic floor and the metal plate, I had to make new bolsters. I made these out of brass stock and threaded nuts.
I then replaced the plastic and metal floor with a 1/8” plywood floor.
Next, I applied basswood flooring. I get the flooring from Micro Mark. They sell pre-glued decking sheets for their ship building supplies. I have used these sheets for several projects.
The Rio Grande Models kits were highly detailed. Everything was laser cut. This photo shows some of the wooden pieces included in the kit. All the wood pieces for the windows were also included. The only things I had to add were the quarter rounds for the door openings.
The interior is where I began my own detailing. I started with the car ends. I cut off all the original mounting points and gave them a thorough sanding.
I then added a plywood inner layer.
I did the same thing with the doors.
These are now the interiors of the car ends with the additional paneling stained in two different colors.
I did the same treatment for the car partition. This is the passenger side.
And this is the baggage side.
Here are the interiors of the two sides. The coach/passenger sides are paneled and stained and the baggage sides are veneered with horizontal scribed basswood and painted.
I added basswood strips to the interior of the baggage doors to simulate paneling and a pieces of brass channel to allow the doors to be opened and closed.
After painting and glazing the doors, I added some hardware details.
That’s it for now. Be back later with roof and other interior details.
