boxcar kit

Very nice. Good job. 

I have unfinished intermountain kit sitting on my workbench. Hopefully some day I can complete them. 

You did well......

I have a number of these kits. For 3 rail operation they need to be modified some to work well. I'd not call them difficult if you are a frequent kit builder....I am....the instructions are the major issue...but they are out of production so it doesn't matter now.

This was a junker someone had failed in building.....

Weathered because I like to and to hide the previous owners glue errors.

If you want to run them you must cut away some of the frame, add weight and leave off some brake lines.....they make nice cars....and I pick them up cheap because of their 'difficult' rep.....

Intermountain kits can be a "shock to the system."  I've assembled many Pacific Rail Shops kits, (the S Scale version of Intermountan, with the same construction and delicate details) and they can be somewhat tedious to assemble, but the results are well worth the effort. 

Definitely not "shake the box" kits.

Samples:

The trick is to work slow, keep your knives and or razor blades sharp and use Tenax to glue the details on.

Rusty

Those car look very nice but if they would be difficult in 3 rail operation I will stay clear. Thanks for sharing all the info and pictures.

it turned out beautifuly!

My layout will have O-72 curves.....but you are correct......not O-27 material!!

I've probably built about 100 HO Intermountain cars. The plastic Intermountain uses is a bit more tolerant than Red Caboose, Branchline or Walthers which are more brittle and easier to break. I cut the parts off the sprue with a pair of sharp flush cutting dikes.

You can run the O scale cars on three rail if you leave off some of the underbody detail and add weight to them.

Intermountain kits come with both 2 and 3 rail trucks.

K-Line had Intermountain make cars for them in the early '90s minus detail.

Here is a K-Line Scale car of that era:

Here is a similar car made from an Intermountain kit:

Pete

Yes they are....NICE! Love the War Bond scheme...I wsih companies did decals again for us to repaint cars...and the red one wasn't too shabby either though I currently prefer the green and yellow express colors for lack of them.

Too delicate for everyday 3- rail operation, but I think it came out nice.

If you want to run them you must cut away some of the frame, add weight and leave off some brake lines.....they make nice cars....and I pick them up cheap because of their 'difficult' rep.....

 

Those car look very nice but if they would be difficult in 3 rail operation I will stay clear.

Fortunately for most of us, Atlas picked up the Intermountain O scale freight car tooling and continued to make these cars with more durable details, added weight and diecast trucks. 

http://www.atlaso.com/news.htm

http://www.atlaso.com/o1937aarboxcar.htm

I know....and thats great for most of us.....I just come from a kit background.......

A few years ago a plastic model company tried to sell built up model cars.....ready to display as such.....

HUGE flop!!!!

Some folks just love kits.....I'm one!

But this hobby has something for all!!!

Sometimes a kit, and often, old decals, give you an obscure roadname for something different, or for a local or favorite fallen flag that can't be found in ready-to-run.

My roster is made up mostly of either my own custom decaled cars, or some of

these.  You can be different, for less money, than running double-headed Big Boys.

The O Scale Intermountain kit cars can be converted with 3 -rail trucks, the cars I built have Weaver Bettendorf trucks. Component parts can be removed from their respective sprue using Exacto knives or sprue nippers. I use Faller glue, the glue container has a long stem applicator, kit instructions also specify small drill bits and hand drill, most of the detail parts on the sprues are fragile and care must be taken when removing them from the sprue and applying on the car. I one is not familiar with freight car terminology or freight car components this may be a source of confusion when reading the assembly instructions. I have built the Intermountain boxcars, single and double door, the steel refrigerator cars, tank cars and open top hopper cars. Based on my experiences the open top hopper car is the most difficult to build. I also built the Red Caboose O scale tank cars and flat cars. I internally weighted the boxcars,reefers and tank cars with steel strip, this strip was RTV glued in place before closing the car body, lead wheel weights were applied to the open top hopper car and flatcar center sill assembly, I also bought the 2 bay coal loads for the hopper car. The major parts that I have broken from handling are the sill steps all four corners that project downward below the side sill and the door step on the reefer car. The sill steps are common parts on all of these car bodies.

Cars are weighed 14 to 16 oz. total on track weight,open top hopper weight is 16 to 18 oz with coal load.