I finally got a chance to finish up the EBT flat cars by adding the steel strips that hold down the deck boards. Tedious work, here is # 73… Geoff
Looks great! What’d you use for the stake pockets?
Later,
K
I made a die so that I could stamp the stiffening ribs into the pocket. One press and I get near net shape. After stamping I trim the width and drill the holes for rivets. Geoff
Beautiful workmanship…
Beautiful!
Neat idea. Great work.
Like I said over in the testing forum - Nice! Care to share the wood weathering technique ?
Or perhaps some die-building techniques?
Wood weathering -
Very basic, the basswood is treated with India ink / denatured alcohol mixture. Variations in color come from additional coats on some boards. The darkest might get 3-5 treatments. In F scale, I think that the grain of the basswood is just about right, so I don’t do any additional distressing of the planks. Most of the 2 x 6 planks came from Kappler Mill & Lumber Co.
The 2 x 7 boards on the ends show nice to scale rough cut saw kurfs. I can get that affect with a certain feed speed when I mill my own boards.
Stamping die –
Die material is steel, not hardened. Male and female sides are machined to allow for the thickness of the material to be used. Basically, the die design is like any 2 part mold for injection molding or casting. When it is fully pressed together, there is just enough room between all the details for the .020 material. Both sides of the stamped part are shown, so you can visualize the shape of the details that make the part. For the corners, it is not necessary to radius the female side as the brass simply bends around the 90 degree corner. As the part is asymmetrical, the die unit is off centered so that it only goes together one way onto guide pins.
Jon & Bruce, I will be at York running some EBT stuff on Clem’s Warrior Run layout… I’ll bring the die with me. It would be nice to finally meet up with Y’all. Geoff
Geoff,
Very nice…especially like the die and have thought about making dies or stamps for certain things in the past. Assuming you have a machine shop or access too one? Either way great work!
Nice work. The effort really shows.
Geoff Ringle said:Thanks - Well be a few feet away in the Alcove :) I'm sure well meet up. I'll look for your stuff on the layout.
Jon & Bruce, I will be at York running some EBT stuff on Clem’s Warrior Run layout… I’ll bring the die with me. It would be nice to finally meet up with Y’all. Geoff
Cool. The steel flat’s on my “to do” list, so I know who I’ll call for pockets. 
Later,
K
Congratulations on great model making.
That looks greaqt. The weathering really brings iit to life