Building a (small) fleet of Mount Blue Boxcars

[jbvb]

Following along, good progress  I noticed the floor beams are notched in areas around the bolsters.  Do you know if this is for wheel clearance?

[Dave Buchholz]

Since the topic was mentioning wieghts.

When your car tires and rims get balanced, Aluminum rims get stick on leaf wieghts.
I'd hit up your favorite tire shop for 1/4 and 1/2 oz pieces.

They are particularly useful for inside box and reefer applications. Adhesive sheet lead us also used by slot car racers.


Dave #5

[Rick]

Ron, outstanding detail.
That's contest worthy.

[elwoodblues]

Following along, good progress  I noticed the floor beams are notched in areas around the bolsters.  Do you know if this is for wheel clearance?

James,

You are right, the notch areas around the bolsters are for wheel clearance.

[elwoodblues]

Since the topic was mentioning wieghts.

When your car tires and rims get balanced, Aluminum rims get stick on leaf wieghts.
I'd hit up your favorite tire shop for 1/4 and 1/2 oz pieces.

They are particularly useful for inside box and reefer applications. Adhesive sheet lead us also used by slot car racers.


Dave #5

Dave,

I also use 1/2oz self-stick wheel weights.  It is quite easy to cut the weights in half to get 1/4 oz.  I bought a box of them years ago.

[elwoodblues]

Ron, outstanding detail.
That's contest worthy.

Thanks Rick, it definitely was a figidity part of the build.

[ACL1504]

Ron,

These are looking great. Fantastic job on the brake and air lines.

Tom

[Jerry]

Exceptional work Ron!!

Jerry

[elwoodblues]

Ron,

These are looking great. Fantastic job on the brake and air lines.

Tom

Thanks Tom, Now I can work on other parts of the cars. 

[elwoodblues]

Exceptional work Ron!!

Jerry

Thanks Gerry, it was time consuming but worth it, even though it will never be seen once on the layout.

[Michael Hohn]

Nice looking kits, Ron.

Building fleets of cars can get a little repetitive but it avoids every car on the layout being a one-off.  I'm sure that's your goal.

I like your choice of a grayed black for the hardware.

Mike

[elwoodblues]

Nice looking kits, Ron.

Building fleets of cars can get a little repetitive but it avoids every car on the layout being a one-off.  I'm sure that's your goal.

I like your choice of a grayed black for the hardware.

Mike

Thanks Mike,

Building a fleet also gives the cars a family look.  I use the greyed black as it looks more realistic to me as I find black to be too stark.

[elwoodblues]

Time for another update.

Even though I had a rough week I did manage to find time to work on the boxcars.

This update covers the boxcar sides.




First step is to glue the top plate to the inside of the car side.





While gluing the top plate onto the car sides I noticed that one set of top plates was different than the others.

The boxcars I'm building are from three different series of SR&RL boxcars, boxcars#51-54, boxcars #67-76 and boxcars #104-108. All these boxcars have minor differences and have the same instructions to build them.  Boxcars 104-108 have the biggest difference with having a door at one end of the car (the "A" end) and is 6" higher than the other cars.  I have marked the frets for this car differently from the others to keep it separate.  The photo above is the taller car.





Next is to glue the door post on the left side of the car side.





The instructions call for the end post to be blued to the sub-wall.





Once the glue is dried it was time to glue the sub-wall assembly to the car side.

[elwoodblues]

Once the sub-wall is set the straight and angled studs was applied.





After doing the above steps 7 more times it was time to do it 8 more times to complete the other side of the car sides.




The last step is to add the wainscoting to the sub walls.

According to the instruction next step is to assemble the car ends.
 
Thanks for looking in.

[Jerry]

Great update Ron your work is very neat for sure.

Jerry