doctorwayne's Get off yer duff Challenge (Part II)

[doctorwayne]

Lest anyone think that I'm back on my duff, here's another addition to the work load.  A friend acquired this Proto-2000 automobile car kit, partially-built, at a train show.  He was impressed by the fact that it had an end door, but didn't realise that it also had a 1942 BLT date...not so good if you're modelling the late '20s/early '30s.  I keep telling him to get some better glasses and to wear, or at least take them, to train shows so he can see what he's buying.
Anyway, I received it as a gift (my favourite price), but was reminded, when I got it home and took a look, why I had not bought these cars back when they were first released....more on that in a minute.
However, the original owner was apparently even more blind than my friend.  He had installed the car's doors, along with the tack boards on them and on the car's ends.  However, he totally missed all of the mounting holes when installing the ladders.  To make up for that, glue (apparently the tube-type stuff used back in the day before most of us became aware of liquid styrene cements) was applied liberally to the ladders and they were then place in the wrong location (not too far off, though   ).
The same glue was used for the doors and tackboards, too, and for the roofwalk and to attach the car's weight to the floor.  
It's good to know that liberal use of such cement will hold most stuff together fairly well, and we know why it's held because the glue is so highly visible.
Besides that, the excess cement warped the roofwalk beyond salvage, and while it didn't do a great job of holding the car's weight to the floor, it, and the same cement holding the frame to the floor, did manage to warp both the frame and the floor.
I didn't take a photo of the car as received, as my intention was to give it back or simply toss it (after removing the trucks).  However, seeing it sit there, I saw a true "Challenge" candidate, so set about trying to salvage it.  If worse came to worst, I could still trash it and say nothing.
I used a #17 chisel blade to scrape away as much of the excess cement as possible, then started to attempt removal of the parts.  The roofwalk came off easily, but is too warped to re-use.  The ladders came off fairly easily, too, but in pieces - that fragility is one of the reasons why I hadn't bought these cars originally.  This was borne out further when I later started adding the detail parts (grabs, steps, etc.) and found that every time I handled the car, something would break.
The doors were the most difficult to remove, and I broke two of them when portions remained stuck to the door tracks (one was improperly placed and the remnant was simply scraped off and replace with strip styrene.  The other was part of another door's lower edge, and since it was in its proper place, was left and the door re-cemented in place with much less glue.
I attempted to straighten the frame/floor assembly, but broke the frame.  After chiselling away most of the excess glue holding it to the floor, I applied MEK to the joint between floor and frame, and as the original glue softened, was able to force the chisel-type blade into the joint and separate the frame from the floor.
Anyway,  after getting everything apart, I began to re-build it.  This involved some interior changes simply to accommodate the revised method of holding the weight in place, which also allows the weight to keep the warped floor and frame straight.  That also necessitated fastening the floor assembly to the body with screws.  At the same time, I modified the coupler box covers from glued-on (yes, too much glue) to screwed-on.  Here are some photos....

This is the modified floor, showing the strip and sheet styrene used to hold the weight to the floor - the weight itself is not glued in place, as the warped floor, cupped somewhat, does not provide enough contact area.  In most cars nowadays, I prefer the method shown.  Also visible are clearance holes for the screws which hold the body and floor/frame assemblies together.  Note, too, the cut-outs at the floor's corners to accommodate strip styrene added to the bodyshell so that A-Line sill steps could be installed...



Here's the body, with threaded holes in .125"x.125" cemented in place for the body/floor attachment.  Also visible are the styrene strips cemented to the body for sill step installation...



Because of the excess cement used by the original owner, the doors were all bowed-in somewhat  (the doors and sides of these cars are fairly thin (another why-I-didn't-buy-em reason), so, after I had re-installed them, I backed them with a sheet of .040" sheet styrene, then backed that with a sheet of .060" styrene to make the entire car more durable.  It can now be grasped at the door area and picked-up, without the sides caving in.  The .125"x125" block (there's one on both sides) is to force the upwardly-warped  centre of the floor into its proper position, and that forcing action, in-turn, forces the ends of the floor downward, requiring the screws to hold them in place...



This is a close-up of one of the damaged doors...mid-way between the door rollers and not too visible...



...and the other one, which lost its original top.  It was replaced with an appropriately-sized strip of styrene (one reason why I keep a good range of strip styrene on hand)...



Here's the A-end, with the doors which so enthralled my friend.  Because the Tichy ladders which I used aren't made specifically for this car, I had to improvise on the attachment method.  The ladders were originally intended for my Seaboard 1932 ARA car (Part III of my Challenge), but attaching them to that car would likely have been even more difficult.  The tackboard is from Intermountain, and the grabirons are from Tichy...



Speaking of grabirons, the Proto car came with plastic bracket-type grabs, but they are so flimsy that several broke when I attempted to remove them from their sprue.  They're too clunky-looking for my tastes anyway, so I fashioned plain-style grabs using Tichy phosophor bronze wire (they're wider that what Tichy offers ready-made).  Because they looked so plain and since the attachment details for the original grabs were part of those grabs rather than cast onto the body shell, I decided to add bolt attachment details.  In this case, the "bolts" are simply short pieces of the same wire used to form the grab irons, inserted into separate holes drilled above those for the grabirions...



This is the revised B-end.  I had originally used the Proto detail parts, but most of them broke during installation or later handling...



This is the scratchbuilt roofwalk, with the warped original alongside the car.  I used Evergreen HO scale 2"x6", distressed somewhat by dragging a razor saw along the length of each strip before cutting them into the various lengths which make up the walkway.  The corner grabs are scratchbuilt, too, using more Tichy phosphor bronze wire...



Here are the 1-72 screws holding things together...



...and, finally, the car itself.  I scraped off the original 1942 BLT and NEW dates, and replaced them with decals showing it built and weighed originally in June, 1937, which better-suits my layout's era.  Don't tell the Lehigh Valley, though.  I'll brush-paint the revisions, then add some weathering before it goes on the layout...



The other cars in this Challenge are mostly painted and lettering has begun, but I'll update them when they're a little more presentable.