All Nations, aluminum sand cast Flat car

Depends on what you want to do with it?  The fishbelly flat needs, in my opinion, an extended center sill.  The drop-center flat is great as-is, although I have converted one to more wheels:

Please do not copy these photographs in this thread.  You may copy them elsewhere if you attribute them.

Here are the stock castings:

Please do not copy these photos in this thread.  You may copy them elsewhere if you attribute them.

@bob2 posted:

Here are the stock castings:

Yours look great, I see what you mean about the fish belly , that the one I have.  I have worked casings of all types and a lot of metals , and have found this one to be a bit rough/ crude ?    I  Like the weight ( have built plenty of wood  Flat. Cars , always needed a chunky  load to track right) .  How did you deal with the deck?  had thought of taking it down and relacing it with wood!

Cast aluminum was a big thing in the late 1930's-early 1940's.  It began replacing cast iron in some household appliances, toys, automotive parts, garden planters like the life-sized swan I have on the back patio, and of course model railroad kits as well. In addition to various freight cars (box, hopper, stock, tank, flat) there were cast aluminum passenger car kits as well.

Scale Craft as well as other outfits initially made these cast flat cars. All Nation and Walthers also produced them using the previously owned masters.   At one time, there were the 8 and 12- wheel depressed center flat cars, fish-belly center sill and fish-belly side sill flat cars.  That last one appears in a Walthers Pre-War catalog, but not after that.   There were rib-side and offset side two-bay hoppers, a box car, stockcar, and refrigerator and caboose kits in cast aluminum as well.

Below are some cast aluminum cars from what I've found and rebuilt over the decades:   

Scale Model Engineering box car of 1937, built from five unfinished castings sent by a friend to see what I could do with them in 2004:

Scale Craft stock car, 1939, re-built from a use E-bay find in 2008:

Scale Craft USRA hopper, 1938, rebuilt from a train show 'junker' in 2016':

All Nation (ex-Scale Craft) depressed center 8-wheel flat car of 1940, built from kit in 2016:

Unknown maker of this cast aluminum three bay hopper in 17/64" scale, built from an unfinished body in 2022. The model kit likely dates from about 1940-41 as this was a new hopper design at the time. While it may look like a die cast car, its five parts were cast in a very fine jeweler's sand.  It took 20 number 2-56 x 1/8" flat head machine screws and 6 similar number 3-48 x 1/8" screws to assemble:

QIl

Walthers (ex- Scale Craft or Mi-Loco) 12-wheel depressed center flat car kit built, in 2018. It rides on Precision Scale brass trucks.

S. Islander

As usual, those are beautiful models! 

I must like these depressed-center flats I have close to two dozen between the AN and Walthers ones; not to mention four of the Lionel four-truck versions that have been two-railed, one each with:

1. two four-axle Buckeyes (my favorite)

2. two four-axle Commonwealths

3. two three-axle Buckeyes

4. four two-axle Andrews (probably going to be changed to Bettendorfs)

I just remembered the four or five MTH versions also, a few of them have been two-railed.

EDIT: Oh, and one two-railed MTH Westinghouse Schnabel car and a matching K-Line Westinghouse extended vision cabin car as a rider car.

Please note that a few of the AN/Walthers cars do not have trucks/couplers yet.

@bob2 posted:

...snip... The drop-center flat is great as-is, although I have converted one to more wheels: ...snip...

If you took any photos of your conversion, could you post them? I would like to see how that was done.

I got distracted and forgot to answer Dave's question.  For me, sand-cast cars are now historical artifacts, and unless truly driven, all I do is sand the imperfections and press on - the aluminum planking is good enough for me.  But on that fishbelly flat, I merely shaped aluminum bar, and attached it with 2-56 screws and JB Weld.  I really could not handle the incorrect shape.

Also apologies to all for the "signature" that not only accompanies all my future posts, but also appears on every single past post I have ever made. (surprise!)  If we ever cure this strange "reply with quote" feature, I will remove my signature - I am sure it is obnoxious to read the same signature over, and over, and over . . .

Edit:

Well, I decided that a "signature" is almost as obnoxious as endlessly repeating photos.  No more signature; I will post my caveat when I post a photo.

@bob2 posted:

I got distracted and forgot to answer Dave's question.  For me, sand-cast cars are now historical artifacts, and unless truly driven, all I do is sand the imperfections and press on - the aluminum planking is good enough for me.  But on that fishbelly flat, I merely shaped aluminum bar, and attached it with 2-56 screws and JB Weld.  I really could not handle the incorrect shape.

Also apologies to all for the "signature" that not only accompanies all my future posts, but also appears on every single past post I have ever made. (surprise!)  If we ever cure this strange "reply with quote" feature, I will remove my signature - I am sure it is obnoxious to read the same signature over, and over, and over . . .

Edit:

Well, I decided that a "signature" is almost as obnoxious as endlessly repeating photos.  No more signature; I will post my caveat when I post a photo.

I also dont want to lose , what the kit was and the time period it represents . But as the rest of  the Kits I have made , the restoration's, and rebuilds , they needs to run well and look good!     Now that  I see what can be done, I have a better idea , how to move forward

I wanted to thank  you all , for the information  and Photo's , I have a second flatcar kit coming, and hope to finish both at the same time.    As this one and the one coming it had been started by some one else  , there are  corrections that will need to be made, before the finish work can begin.  Now the hunt for proper trucks!