Ralph had a good idea upgrading and showcasing his cabooses. Seeing that my caboose roster was lacking, I decided to fix a few up myself and showcase them here. I also had one of these old Life-Like cabooses. Seems they were made by a variety of manufacturers and are a dime a dozen at train shows. Well, I had one that I bought when I was about 12. It came in one of those life like locomotive and caboose combo sets.
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I could really use another standard gauge caboose, but a steel sided caboose is a few years too modern for my era. Then I learned these Northeast cabooses were based on a USRA design that had wood sides and a steel frame. I figured that may be plausible, so I set about converting this caboose to wood siding.
The first step was to disassemble and strip the paint. I then sanded all the rivet detail from the sides and ends of the car. Next, I laminated the sides and ends with thin evergreen styrene siding, and patched up the roof. Here is where I am now.
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I have been using Dr. Wayne's lacquer thinner glue method with much success. I simply hold the parts that need to be glued together, and then apply lacquer thinner to the joint with a small brush. It flows into the joint and leaves a very clean, strong joint. This was especially important for applying the thin trim around the windows without marring the evergreen siding.
Wow, Kevin, I am impressed with your efforts here. Turning this into a wood-side caboose is a great project. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Whoo hoo! I've been waiting to see what you were going to do Kevin! Nice start! Looking forward to more on this transformation!
Ralph
Neat Kevin i did the oppsite on a bobber went from wood sides to welded steel .
jim
Kevin - this is just freaky! Honestly, I was just wondering about this very thing - could I plausibly convert these old 'Northeastern' style hacks into wood side cabeese? And now here you've gone and blazed the trail! YES!! Thanks for taking the plunge and trying this one out. I'll be following closely to learn more from your experience.
Can you say more about exactly how you got rid of the rivet detail?
Galen
Thanks for the interest, Galen. To remove the rivets, I first used a chisel blade in an hobby knife to slice off as much detail as I could. Then I simply glued a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to a black of wood and used it as a sanding block to sand the rivets and side details off until the car sides were flat. It really didn't take long. Then I laminated the sides with the thinnest evergreen styrene siding that they sell, and then trimmed out the windows with a hobby knife. It was really fairly easy.
Here is the caboose after a coat of Floquil "Caboose Red". As you can see, i added grab irons and handrails to the sides. Funny thing about paint, it helps you see the little areas that you screwed up
. There are a few areas on the roof that will need additional body filler, and some areas on the ends of the cupola that need to be sanded better.
Kevin, I'm impressed. That's some terrific work. I've really enjoyed all the rollingstock projects lately, those in the contest and otherwise. Modifying those cheap cars is my favorite part of the hobby and I'm glad to see all the good work and ideas.
You mentioned some bad spots brought out by the paint. I certainly don't see any!
Gary's right - I don't see any rough spots either. Very nice.
Wayne
Looks great to me but we are always our own worst critics.
Ralph
Lookin' good Kevin!
Were I to tackle this project someday, I think I'd reduce the number of windows on a side to two. Not sure which two, either inner or outer, but I think it would perhaps look less like the original without the double pairs.
Even so, just making the change from rivets to wood is very effective in significantly altering the overall look.
Are you going to backdate or seriously change the end railings?
Galen
Galen, the idea is to come close to the prototype. Apparently the NE style cabooses were based upon a wood-sided USRA design:
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I will be reconstructing the end rails anyway because the end rails that came on the car are plastic and disintegrated. I think I will use a vertical brake staff, though, to backdate the car a bit.