Well, it's high time I got busy on the next Challenge, which is to create new, non-sagging floors for these three Tyco reefers (2386 shows the sag best, but all three cars suffer from it). They'll also need some added brake detail:








With the delay in Part 1 of my Challenge (to refurbish the extra car from the parts box), these cars sat on the workbench for sometime, and the longer they sat, the more I was bothered by both the steel ends (rather unusual on a wood reefer supposedly built in the late teens or early '20s):



...and the steel roof, with fairly small hatches on the ice bunkers, not to mention the cast-on roofwalks:



I felt that these cars needed a more severe makeover, so I decided to replace the ends and roofs, at the same time shortening the cars to about 36', still quite common in my late '30s modelling era:



While I was busy sawing, I remembered that I had another of these cars on the layout, and decided to upgrade it, too. It already had a new floor, but the ends and roof had to go. Since this car will also be shortened, the floor will be used on something else:



The carnage:



I used a utility knife to remove the roofs, and after a little touch-up with some sandpaper, I was left with this:



Because the car sides are not the same thickness at the top as they are at the bottom (this is due to the draught angle, which facilitates removing the casting from the mould - you can see this if you look closely at the photo showing the cars with their ends removed), I cut new ends from a sheet of Evergreen car siding and cemented them onto the cars' ends. This material is only .030" thick, so I wanted to strengthen the ends by adding a sheet of .060" sheet styrene to the interior at each end. Rather than attempt to match the draught angle (wide at the bottom and narrower at the top), I cut a long strip of material the same width as the top dimension, then traced the roof peaks from the already-installed ends. After cutting out all of the sub-ends, they were cemented to the inside of the ends. Here's one before installation:



And a look at one in place. Note that it doesn't touch the car's sides except right at the top - not much of a reinforcement at this point:



To complete the strengthening, I added lengths of .125"x.125" strip, bonding them to both the sub-ends and the sides of the car. ( The short lengths of .080" strip material seen near the bottom of the interior sides is blocking to position the floors.):



To finish the ends, Evergreen .080" channel was added to represent end sills:





Coming next: new floors.

Wayne

Good, very good! Radical cuts for starting a new live in a earlier decade.
I'm surprised each time about your courage to reduce old models to the mainly things - and giving new life and most very different appearance by a few new parts only.
I have sold all my cheap models years ago - but now I think that I it should have made different.

One of these days I am hoping your challenge will be to finish the scenery on the more mountainous portion of your layout But, your freight car projects serve as tutorials for the rest of us. I've never thought about cutting the sides off a car and building new ends, but now I am looking at two life-like cars that could be cut down into something fun.

Kevin, once I figure out a way to make thousands of trees in 15 minutes or less, those hills will get finished.

Part of the problem is that I can't seem to leave freight cars alone, and I've still got a couple more to do, although not likely within the Challenge. I've at least stopped purchasing more locomotives, but I still have at least eight of them to detail, and all are fairly major jobs. I would like to complete that area of the layout, though, as it's the longest stretch of track that I have and should provide some scenic (and fresh) views, instead of the usual stuff.

Wayne

Very cool chop job Doc. F&C car shops is now offering 36 foot box cars. I was thinking of purchasing 1 or 2 of them ( they are kind of pricey ) but, I am watching this build to see just how well it comes out.. This could be a more economical method. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.fandckits.com/HOFreight/6580.html">http://www.fandckits.com/HOFreight/6580.html</a><!-- m -->

Wayne, we have quite a few cars here that you can experiment with. Be sure you bring Ed so we can go railfanning while you do.

Seriously, these cars are going to be great. Your patience is something to be proud of.
Charlie

"Railfanning" Doc's "car shop" is one of the best thing the new year brings.

Finally, you just saved the car's sides! BTW, I see your new roof are quite steep. Was is common for this era?

Matt

sailormatlac Wrote:..... I see your new roof are quite steep. Was is common for this era?

You're right, Matt: they do look rather steep. The measurements were base on another car - wonder if I misread the ruler? It's not a big job to alter those ends, but right now I'm battling with Kadee #15 couplers, basically a #4 with a longer and narrower draught gear box. It seems that somewhere along the line, they decided to make the draught gear boxes from engineering plastic, and there's no way provided to hold them together. I did figure out a solution last night, and will, fortunately, use-up my remaining stock of them on these cars.

Wayne

Wayne, I thought it was just some kind of earlier prototype and was curious.

Matt

Well, I'm glad that you mentioned it, as I probably would have made roofs and finished the cars, then wondered why they looked so silly.

Wayne

Time to update this, as I've finally made some progress. I built new floors from .060" sheet styrene, with a very basic centresill consisting of two lengths of Evergreen 1/8" channel, and a pair of longitudinal stringers of .040"x.060" strip styrene. The bolsters are from Tichy, as is the "K"-style brake gear. The queenposts are modified Roundhouse parts.
I used monofilament fishing line for the truss rods, stringing it as a single piece over all 8 queenposts, looping it across the car's floor to get it to each adjacent row. The Tichy/Grandt Line turnbuckles were added at the same time, and all the lines were fairly tight and laying on the underside of the floor when first strung. I then added the styrene stiffeners to the top side of the floors, two strips about .570" high, cut from .060" material, as shown. These were cemented in place with solvent cement (lacquer thinner) and allowed to dry for a day or two. The monofilament lines were then lifted from the floor and placed over the ends of the queenposts. After allowing a day or two for them to stretch a bit, the turnbuckles were centred and ca'd in place.
These photos should explain the arrangement:




After Matt drew my attention to the alpine-style roof line at the car ends, I decided to re-shape them to allow for a radial roof, and did so by simply aligning a part of the circumference of a can of contact cement on the cars' ends, tracing the arc with a scriber. After sanding the ends to the new shape, I cut pieces of .060" sheet styrene, matching that curve, to act as intermediate supports for the roof, then connected them with one another and the ends of the car with strips of the same material, which acts as a ridge support for the roof. Rather than attempt precise placement of these components, I reinforced all joints with short lengths of .060"x.060" strip, and then set these assemblies aside to dry while I worked on the roofs.
This photo pretty-much shows the set-up:




All four roofs were laid out on a sheet of .020" styrene, then .020"x.040" strips added to represent battens. Once the cement had dried, I wrapped the sheet around another container of the same diameter as the contact cement's can (it was too short) and added elastic bands to hold it tight against the container. The two files help the elastics to hold the sheet ends tight, too.



Next, I used a blow dryer to heat the assembly, then let it sit overnight, hopefully to lock itself in a suitable curve. While it was curved, it wasn't enough to ensure that the edges would make contact with the cars' eaves:



My next attempt was to wrap it around an object with a smaller diameter, and a length of 1.375" dowel seemed to do the trick:



Here are the four cars, roofs held in place with elastics while the joints hardened:



Here's the underside of the roof:



...and a view of the yet-to-be-finished-end:



...and a side view of one of the cars. I've removed all of the lettering and started some of the detailing:




The next task will be to add ice hatches and roofwalks, then the ends and sides can be detailed.

Wayne

Wayne, great!
Simple and great model building technology!
Your pictures and descriptions are a big help for my own model projects in styrene. Thanks!

once again your talent and patience overwhelms me. These are beautiful, I will look forward to the finished product.


Charlie

Got to admit, this isn't something I'd try as a project. I'm sure if I did it wouldn't turn out nowhere's as good as this. And a great step-by-step for anyone that would want to try. Good stuff Wayne...