i second, what Ron said…
really cool these roof structures!
Eric, I notice that you’re really good at making things out of wood!!!
Your woodworking skills in 7/8ths scale is just amazing. I feel like im watching a 1:1 build of the coaches. Love the saw horse in the one photo.
I did manage to bend a pine strip which I had soaked in a pail of water for a couple of days around the roof end. it can be done…but I think Ill cheat and stick with the plywood strips.
I am still working on the design of the overall car. one tricky part will be the seats. If I really want them accurate and too scale, they will be a project!!!
the real seats have cast iron frames and are very decorative! to get all that detail onto my model will be tricky! the first step would be to draw them out to scale:
as you can see they are fancy. I probably could laser cut some steel and bend them to represent the seat sides. they would probably look pretty good. to make them really accurate is another matter which is worthy of some thought. I thought I could make one using sculpy, probably over a scale drawing and wooden form. then they could be cast or molded in? urethane? White metal, brass? really depends what I’m willing to spend I guess.
Eric, we did something similar for EBT #20s end railing with laser cut styrene.
http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/petert/_forumfiles/IMG_1654-end-railing-painted.jpg
I have done some work in the past week or so. Sorry I havent kept up with posts on this project.
I finished sheathing the roof. I used 1/16 birch ply for the main section, pine strips for the sides. I gave the cars two coats of latex/acrylic exterior grade green. this week I installed the end platforms. they have an oak frame and are glued and pin-nailed to the car floor which is plywood, so they should be pretty strong. I pin-nailed and glued 1/8" pine decking.
I used steel wire for the truss rods…they are just hooked into the floor plywood…small pre-drilled holes and a hammer make em stay put.
I used Steve King and The train Department 7/8th scale passenger trucks which are perfect for these cars. I drove a brass rod into a tight hole for the truck retaining pins. they are threaded for a retaining nut. I made bars to hold Kadee Couplers. they pivot on the truck pins. they can pivot independently of the truck ( for better or worse ) this makes the large cars able to handle fairly tight radius curves. I think my Minimum radius is about 8 1/2 feet. the black iron wire under the buffer beam keeps the coupler up at the right height.
with trucks and couplers you know what time it is!!!
the boys best hold on tight, there are no railings or hand grabs yet! this photo shows the cars coupled up at my minimum radius (Winnegance Station)
these coaches are BIG!!!
I have one more coach and one more truck kit. I have to build the truck kit before that coach rides the rails! still have to make window sashes, apply metal roofing, make doors, seats and other interior detail!
No shortage of projects!
Very Nice Eric…
I cant wait to see all the details added. Some of the best looking coaches I have seen and making it all out of wood is what really makes it.
Ya what Shawn said!
Shut up Rooster!
While I have been making progress on this project, I havent been keeping up with postings…
at the WW&F Railway museum, we did some more research and found that the coach was not green but brown when built. Pullman coaches were brown until around 1900 and brown was quite common. we sanded down a patch on coach 3. There were better than 20 different layers of paint. the first two were thick light colored primers which would have been sanded to give later coats a nice smooth surface. Next were two coats of dark brown followed by a reddish layer we think is varnish.
I made a “full size” sample of the color with a sample letter “E” to show what I think the car might have looked like when new. I got some latex paint matched to a color swatch which we held up to the sanded section on the car. We think it is pretty close. this paint was “flat” I painted the letter and drop shadow using acrylic craft paints then varnished over the works with marine spar varnish.
I painted my models with the same brown. two coats over the green i had added earlier. I also got some decals from Stan Cedarleaf. they are not quite what I think the actual lettering would have been but pretty close.
Blowing up a photo of the new car shows Stan’s work to be a good match. Also see the striping. there seems to be gold striping plus a darker “shadow”
Stan gave me those too but I felt my decal application abilities were not up to the task of doing a 30+ inch long car nice and straight and true. I ended up using a light peice of aluminum as a straight edge and drew the lines on with a paint pen.
I used steel wire to make the platform railings. on the real car the brake wheel shaft passes through on the left side and a bracket for an obsolete un-coupling lever is on the right.
I machined down the ends of bits of wire to make the vertical posts
then I put these through holes in the railing and peened them over with a little ball peen hammer.
I coated the entire roof with aluminum tape “tin” I used peices cut to more or less match the prototype tin size and over lapped them a bit to make the seam show.
I made both the main windows and the clerestory windows using individual bits of wood for the sashes and plastic for the glass. the main windows actually open…well most do. the clerestory windows used tinted plastic “gel” from a stage lighting supplier. they are pretty thin and wouldnt work for a large window but do the little clerestory window just fine.
I sanded the ends square to trim them to fit in place
on the baggage combine, I mounted some windows open or partially open, some closed and 4 blanked off as on the prototype.
Great detail work Eric. 'm really enjoying the build. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Definitely a labor of love. Beautiful work, Eric!
Eric Schade said:
While I have been making progress on this project, I havent been keeping up with postings…
at the WW&F Railway museum, we did some more research and found that the coach was not green but brown when built. Pullman coaches were brown until around 1900 and brown was quite common. we sanded down a patch on coach 3. There were better than 20 different layers of paint. the first two were thick light colored primers which would have been sanded to give later coats a nice smooth surface. Next were two coats of dark brown followed by a reddish layer we think is varnish.
I made a “full size” sample of the color with a sample letter “E” to show what I think the car might have looked like when new. I got some latex paint matched to a color swatch which we held up to the sanded section on the car. We think it is pretty close. this paint was “flat” I painted the letter and drop shadow using acrylic craft paints then varnished over the works with marine spar varnish.
OUTSTANDING !
From my short studies I did on the old school lettering I think you might be “spot on” Eric! They were masters of shadows and trickery of the eye with depth and volume back in the day.
Stan’s work is a close match and excellent as always but hard to do without a paint brush.
Do you think the original clerestory windows could have been mica?
Th original clerestory windows were dark amber colored pressed glass. I have one in my office, i havnt compared the model and prototype…should do! I purchased 50 new glass panes to replace broken ones in coach 3 and to make our replica car
this is the actual clerestory window…it is hard to get the color right in photos
I took one pane out, off the coach so we could get some replacements that match as well as possible.
the textured glass is the original glass from coach #3 the smooth plastic on the right is my “theater Gel” that i used on my models. it is pretty close, a bit darker and oranger.
Excellent. Your use of 1:1 methods like the peened over railing posts just blow me away. Just awesome!!!
So wow and wow, Eric nice job on these.