Building a (small) fleet of Mount Blue Boxcars

[elwoodblues]

Well it is time for another update.

But before any further construction is done now is the time to add the weights to the cars while there is ready access to the floor of the car.

*****WARNING****   Math is involved beyond this point.

In order to get the "before" weight of the car, I pulled out my postal scale and put the car frame/floor, constructed car sides and ends, roof, trucks, couplers and assorted detail parts in the scale.  The total weight for this mess was 1.4oz.  I added .2oz to this for miscellaneous parts and stuff for a total weight of 1.6 oz.

Now for the math stuff.  

I use the NMRA standards for weighting cars and I use the HO standards for my On30 cars.  The NMRA standard calls for an initial weight of 1 oz plus 1/2 oz for each inch of car.  The cars I am building are 7" long, so the required weight is 1 oz + (7 * 1/2 oz) = 4.5 oz.

The weight I need to add to the car to meet the NMRA requirements is 4.5 oz - 1.6 oz = 2.9 oz.

I'm going to stop the math stuff now before it gives me a headache.



I use 1/4 oz self-adhesive car weights to add weight to my cars so I need to add 12 weights (3 oz total).  To add them I affixed 6 weights per end over the truck bolsters.

I also decided now would be a good time to temporally add trucks to the cars.  This will (hopefully) protect the underside of the car with all the brake rigging.





So I went from this . . . . . . .





. . . . . . To this.

I used Tichy's archbar trucks with Intermountain 36" wheels.  The 36" wheels works out to be 19.74" which is close enough to the 20" wheels that were used on the Maine 2-footers.





One of the cars on the tracks.

[elwoodblues]

Now back to construction

The first order of business it to add the car sides.



Three of the cars with the first side attached.  The 4th car was build earlier to test out fit and alignment.  As you can see, one can never have to many clamps.  





The first side attached.  Lining up the car side is easy as the door fits between the floor at the door opening.  You can see the slight protrusion of the floor at the door opening at the front of the care.





A view of the attached side looking from the outside of the car.





The other car side attached.





The ends attached to the car.

[elwoodblues]

The car body completed.





It's starting to look like a fleet.  The car in red is also a Mount Blue Boxcar Kit.

According to the instructions the next step is to install the buffer blocks.

Thanks for looking in.

[Rick]

Ron, it is starting to look like a fleet.
Nice job adding the weights, trucks and sides.
You certainly have a good collection of clamps.

[deemery]

"You can't have too many clamps"

dave

[elwoodblues]

Ron, it is starting to look like a fleet.
Nice job adding the weights, trucks and sides.
You certainly have a good collection of clamps.

Thanks Rick.

Even with all the clamps I have some days they are not enough.

[elwoodblues]

"You can't have too many clamps"

dave

My favorate clamps are the brass bar clamps, I pick them up whenever I see them.

[Philip]

Looking Great!

Philip

[Jerry]

Ron they look great!!  You can be my builder any day!!

Jerry

[elwoodblues]

Ron they look great!!  You can be my builder any day!!

Jerry

Thanks Jerry, I'll have to check my schedule 

[elwoodblues]

Another update . . . . . . .

Next up is to make the buffer blocks





The kit come with a template to cut the angle on the end of the buffer block.





The first piece of the buffer block in the template.





The buffer block sanded to shape.  I say sanded to shape because i found sanding the ends is more accurate than cutting the angle with a razor saw.  I have a Ultimation Sander with the repeater attachment.  Once set up sanding multiple parts is a piece of cake.





The three pieces of the buffer block glued together.





The NBW castings added.

[elwoodblues]

The buffer block glued to the end of the car.

Next up is to install the end door on the one car I'm building that has an end door.





The end door consists of three parts.  The door with legs and the 2 slide rails.





The slide rails glued to the door legs.





There are 2 ways to glue the end door on the car.  With the door open, or . . . .





Closed.

[elwoodblues]

Now it's time to install the roof.




The first step in installing the roof is to glue the rafters on to the car sides.  There are notches at the top of the car sides that accept the rafters.





On the rafters are set I glued in the purlins.





Once the purlins were set the roof was glued on.





Oh, in case you were wondering, I installed the end door in the closed conditions.

Thanks for looking in.

[Rick]

Ron, nice to see all the very good progress you're making.

[deemery]

That's an unusual metal roof.  I didn't comment earlier, but doing assembly jigs is something I learned is worth the time when I did my -12- B&M scratchbuilt boxcars...

dave