Scratchbuilding a PS 5344 boxcar

[cnw1961]

Bernahrd, I used a T-shaped 2 mm brass profile for the door tracks. I soldered three little pieces of 0.8 mm brass wire to the long leg of the T to hold the tracks. Two of these pins were soldered to the top of the T so that they are hidden by the door now and the third was soldered to the bottom as you can see in the next two pics.





Michael, you are right, O-scale is perfect for scratchbuilding and I enjoy working on models this size tremendously. I should have made the move from HO a few years earlier.

Pete, I was thinking about the hot water trick or using a hairdryer when I bent the sides of the roof, but I feared that the heat would not only help me to bend the sides but would cause the whole roof to warp. So I took the safe route and bent it without heating. It did not stay in shape as it might have with heating and caused a little more work gluing down, but it worked. I think if you are not making a sharp 90° bend the strips for your roof won’t break.

Stirrups. I used a .050" x .010" brass strip and fixed the stirrups on the car with .020" brass pins and CA.