Building a (small) fleet of Mount Blue Boxcars

[deemery]

The roof on Ron's model is obviously metal sheet.  The roof material on my car is not obvious.  It's not scribed, like a double sheaved wood roof.  There's no metal engraving, or metal battens.  So I've decided it must have been painted canvas.  I've primed and painted with some relatively heavy craft paint.  I'll sand and do another coat of heavy craft paint, with the intent of removing any wood grain from the (thin plywood) roof.  We'll see how this plan works out.

dave

[ACL1504]

Ron,

The boxcars are looking great and I've enjoyed the documentation. That is going to be a fine fleet of revenue cars. I also very much appreciate a member that goes the extra mile in posts, photos and narrative that goes with a build thread.

I understand your frustrations on not getting comments about a build. I've gone through the same feelings on some of my threads. 

I try to post to all threads on this forum and only ask a response to mine in return.

There are two members on this forum that have received my praise and I've received no comment from them on my compliment. They are the same two that had this behavior on RR Lines. I no longer comment on their threads.

My policy has always been to comment on each and every comment I receive on my builds. I feel if you thought enough to post to my build, the least I could do is acknowledge the comment.

My two cents worth.

Tom

[deemery]

Progress on my HOn30 car.  The woodwork & roof are done, what's left is the ironwork:

The kit had closely spaced roofwalk supports, and I thought they looked too close together.  So I filled in every other hole and painted to match the roof.  Any imperfections will be hidden under the roofwalk.  I think this looks better. 

The goal for the roof was to make it look like 'not wood' (canvas?)  The plywood roof piece had definite wood grain, but after some coats of painting and sanding, that's pretty much gone. 

The ironwork (brake, grabs, door hardware, etc) has been primed the car color.  I need to decide if I'll leave it that color, or paint it dark grey.  But that's tomorrow's decision. 

dave

[elwoodblues]

The roof on Ron's model is obviously metal sheet.  The roof material on my car is not obvious.  It's not scribed, like a double sheaved wood roof.  There's no metal engraving, or metal battens.  So I've decided it must have been painted canvas.  I've primed and painted with some relatively heavy craft paint.  I'll sand and do another coat of heavy craft paint, with the intent of removing any wood grain from the (thin plywood) roof.  We'll see how this plan works out.

dave

Dave is correct, the roofs on my boxcars are metal.

[elwoodblues]

Ron,

The boxcars are looking great and I've enjoyed the documentation. That is going to be a fine fleet of revenue cars. I also very much appreciate a member that goes the extra mile in posts, photos and narrative that goes with a build thread.

I understand your frustrations on not getting comments about a build. I've gone through the same feelings on some of my threads.

I try to post to all threads on this forum and only ask a response to mine in return.

There are two members on this forum that have received my praise and I've received no comment from them on my compliment. They are the same two that had this behavior on RR Lines. I no longer comment on their threads.

My policy has always been to comment on each and every comment I receive on my builds. I feel if you thought enough to post to my build, the least I could do is acknowledge the comment.

My two cents worth.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks for your very kind words.  While I do not comment on every comment, I do acknowledge every comment for the same reason you comment on every comment.

and thank you for your 2 cents, it's worth a lot more than that. 

[deemery]

A comment on roofwalks in the steam era...  They get a lot of abuse from brakemen walking over them.  Some railroads mixed sand in with the paint on the roofwalk to add traction.  A few railroads left them unpainted, figuring that it would be better to replace them than to replace brakemen that slipped on the painted roofwalk. 

Look at the roofwalks in this color photo from the 1930s (From Shorpy.com....)


So it's a good modeling detail, particularly for earlier railroading, to have roofwalks be more heavily weathered than the roof itself.  I might go back and scrape/sand the roofwalk on my car, then put A&I wash to help pick up the increased wood grain. 

dave

[elwoodblues]

Dave,

Your boxcar looks great.  As for trying to achieve a canvas look on the roof, I would call it a success.  I also think you made the right call concerning the spacing of the roof walk supports.

[elwoodblues]

A comment on roofwalks in the steam era...  They get a lot of abuse from brakemen walking over them.  Some railroads mixed sand in with the paint on the roofwalk to add traction.  A few railroads left them unpainted, figuring that it would be better to replace them than to replace brakemen that slipped on the painted roofwalk. 

So it's a good modeling detail, particularly for earlier railroading, to have roofwalks be more heavily weathered than the roof itself.  I might go back and scrape/sand the roofwalk on my car, then put A&I wash to help pick up the increased wood grain. 

dave

Dave interesting post regarding the roof walks.  The SR&RL did not paint their roof walks for the reason you stated above.  

[elwoodblues]

Time for another update.

If I would be naming these updates, I would call this one "trim Day"



The first up is to add the door stop on the left sides of the doors.

Before we go any further SR&RL boxcars #104 - #108 had differences than the other SR&RL boxcars I'm building.  From this point forward I will refer to them as the 100 series.





next step is to add the trim along the top of the car. this goes all around the car except for the door opening.  This is easily located as there is a small bump out on the roof panel that indicates the door opening.





The 100 series cars had a different end trim.





One the trim at the roof is installed it was time to install the door slide cover.  This is installed on the slight bump out on the roof panel.




The last step for the trim is to install a "block" at the end of the door slide.

[elwoodblues]

The series 100 cars has curved hangers at the bottom corners of the cars.  What is interesting is that the part diagrams in the instructions shows 4 of them the same size while the actual part fret have 2 of them a different lengths on the end side than the other 2.  I decided to put the short one on the "B" end of the car.





The hangers were "attached" to the cars using NBW castings.

[elwoodblues]

Now we get to fabricate the doors.




The door is made up of two parts, the external sheathing and the internal framing.





The instructions call for .015 brass wire to be formed and add the NBW's.  Having built a previous car I found it easier to add the NBW casting first.





To install the door handle i used a .020 styrene spacer to make sure that the handle was even when installed.  These were glued to the back side of the door using ACC.





The installed door handles.





The door hangers installed.  The series 100 cars shown on the right had different door hangers than the other cars. 

[deemery]

Nice detail work on the end buffers! 

dave

[elwoodblues]

The doors installed on the car in the closed position.





The door in the fully opening position.

[elwoodblues]

Nice detail work on the end buffers! 

dave

Thanks Dave.

[PRR Modeler]

Outstanding modeling on the cars Ron.