First Time Attempt At Scratch Building Rolling Stock

Jonny,  Rather than winging it you may consider finding a picture of a box car which is representative of the car you want on your railroad.  Draw it to scale and go from there.  Look for decals or dry transfer lettering and logos, collect your basic materials and have at it.  Don't rush it, do your best and if you make a mistake please do not be afraid to toss it and start over.  Members of this group have scratch built some museum quality models, others like me are happy if we get the ladders in the right place.   John in Lansing, ILL

Thanks John. I do have a basic idea of what I want to build, but as far as finding the right reference photographs I seem to be out of luck. The era I'm shooting for is between 1910 and 1918.

Johnny, with a service life of decades for these cars, I'm sure you can google the info John suggested.

Ron

Take a look at Car Builder's Cyclopedia or the Train Shed Cyclopedia series.  Both contain lots of plans and frequently for cars from earlier era's like the one you are interested in.  Both can be found on ebay, but also possibly your local library.

My material of choice is usually styrene, but then I'm modeling a much later era.  Wood is probably a logical choice for your project.  For detail parts, consider Grandt Line, Tichy, San Juan, and PSC.  I'm sure there are other vendors as well.

John's advice to take it slow is worthwhile.  Engineering how your "kit" goes together is half the battle (and fun, in my opinion), but don't get paralyzed seeking perfection (one of my stumbling blocks).

Good luck!

Jim

Might be easier to find a kit, such as All Nation, old Athearn O, etc., to bash or even a near model to build. What you describe sounds like something that can be found.

We can help with many freight car parts as we offer doors, ends, ladders, tack board, brake details, bolsters trucks and more. We have items that are not on the website so if you are looking for particular items ask and we will help you.

Wow, the responses have been most helpful. Thanks, guys. For much of the metal chassis parts I was intending to use my experience as a machinist to "manufacture" the stuff. I have a strip of 1/8" brass flat stock that I was going to saw up and either mill to shape or use my jeweler's coping saw to cut to shape for the fishbelly frame rails. However I have no clue how to make the I-beam profile of the frame rails.

JonnyAce posted:

..........a pre-USRA-era boxcar, double sheathed, with a fishbelly underframe and preferably stamped steel end panels. 

My intention is to use a combination of aluminum plate and brass plate and rectangle tubing for the chassis, balsa or basswood for the sides, and either resin, brass or pewter ends and miscellaneous detail parts. Problem is, this will be my first attempt at scratch building rolling stock. 

Any tips, suggestions or advice from you scratch builders out there would be most appreciated.

Suggest: Scribed basswood for the sides (readily available from at least 3 sources), steel ends (look for old stamped brass ends from either All-Nation or Athearn (Reynolds or LWS)), underframe  can be built up from either brass (Special Shapes) or styrene.

Here's one of my cars:

Started with these 6 wood parts:

Underbody:

Finished car:

So, from a faceless plain "box" to a finished car - details parts are readily available with a little effort - Scale City does has a lot of them.  Depending on the car, you will probably have to gather other parts from several other sources, but once you acquire the skills of building rolling stock you'll be able to build just about anything you'd every want.

MWB, thanks for the tips. What manufacturers sell the pre-scribed basswood panels? I was just planning on picking up some plain panels at Hobby Lobby and scribing them myself. It'll take a while, but I'm in no hurry.

By the way MWB, that's a fantastic boxcar you built. That's the level of detail I want on mine. Assuming my skills are up to the challenge. 

Jonnyace you can buy northeastern scribed basswood siding or if you want styrene evergreen makes scribed siding as well.

Also your skills will improve the more you build, just remember take your time,and if something you make doesn't look great do it over till it looks the way you want it.

JonnyAce posted:

MWB, thanks for the tips. What manufacturers sell the pre-scribed basswood panels? I was just planning on picking up some plain panels at Hobby Lobby and scribing them myself. It'll take a while, but I'm in no hurry.

Scribed siding and scale lumber

Kappler Scale Lumber

Mt. Albert Scale Lumber

Northeaster Scale Lumber

Midwest Scale Lumber

Hobby Lobby might even carry that last brand.....  Scribing them yourself will be mind numbing,

JonnyAce posted:

By the way MWB, that's a fantastic boxcar you built. That's the level of detail I want on mine. Assuming my skills are up to the challenge. 

Thanks!  I've been building cars and structures for a long time now.  Skills are acquired through practice and more practice - just get into it and forge forward!  It's not that hard once you've done a few basic boxcars; you get into other types of cars, it can be more of a challenge, but then that's where the fun is in this sort of thing.

I did not know that Pickard was in Westerly.  I lived there, right on a dock, while flying Nord 262s out of New London.  I loved it!

Scale City Designs, I recently perused your online catalog and I did find a few items I need, but for some reason I can't figure out how to order the stuff online. Maybe I'm just too computer illiterate.

A good reference for techniques and materials is the old Kalmbach book on the subject, which is still findable here and there. BTW, they ain't "dollar cars" any more.  You will find cars from the period you're interested in. I always liked the Wabash 4-truck heavy flatcar.

mwb posted:

 

MWB, that one's a beauty - wonderful work!

Jonnyace:  Because you are machinist, I suspect you already have acquired lots of skill sets to do a great job.  For my one and only scratch/kitbash project, I used an MTH early american wood reefer with archbar trucks as a donor car for the frame, trucks and couplers.  I shortened the frame, relocated the bolsters, scratched the body and roof with styrene, and bought roof hatches and grab irons from atlas.  It was a fun project, quite expensive for a probable apocraphal reefer, but it is unique. Looking forward to your progress updates.

Firewood, I'll be on the lookout for that book. Looks quite helpful.

On the subject of progress, I'm still in the material gathering stages.  I was going to use a pair of Atlas 3-rail Bettendorf trucks, (since my layout will most likely be a combination of Hi-Rail and 3Rail Scale design elements, 3-rail trucks and couplers seem appropriate), but I also was considering using the old style Andrews barframe trucks, also common in the era I'm shooting for with this car.

Also, it seems I've gone and misplaced my jeweler's coping saw, so I've been spending a lot of time looking for that. I may have to go and buy a replacement...

Jonnyace if you want to place an order and the computer is not your thing you can call(phone listed in contact us at the top of home page), or mail your order into us . If you want to try the internet just find the items you want and add them to your cart. At the end it will show you prompts on how to complete the sale. or if ebay is your thing we are on that as well.

I appreciate folks' high quality efforts in this area.  I was thinking differently, PVC tubing from HD for some tanker cars -- maybe some spray paint.  An idea whose time perhaps has not come... or ever will.

Severn posted:

I appreciate folks' high quality efforts in this area.  I was thinking differently, PVC tubing from HD for some tanker cars -- maybe some spray paint.  An idea whose time perhaps has not come... or ever will.

That's actually been done - there were kits from "someone" years ago that used plumbing tubing combined with the end platforms and domes from Walthers to produce a basic tank car kit.

Here's one:

on it's way to be part of this:

Someone did a great job!   I've been thinking:  aluminum baseball bats -- the fat end of it but ones that at not too fat.  You know the kind you find the neighbors trash, now that the kids are off to wherever.   Cut it to size... figure out a way to cover the open end, a bit of spray paint, trucks ... graphics to your desire.  Some hardware up top...  

Well guys, sorry for the long break. Unfortunately no real progress on the boxcar. I did get myself a new jeweler's coping saw, though. Hooray for small victories!
Does anybody have any suggestions about custom decals? I want to decorate this car for my fictitious Silverleaf Valley Railroad, including my pike's herald, but I don't really have any easy (or cheap) way of doing it short of using the Woodland Scenics dry transfer lettering decals, which I have used before, but it gets pricy at $15 a sheet and I only use a handful of letters.

Bare with me on this one...

Take the colour you are going to paint your boxcar, replicate it in an image editing software program on a computer.

Take a plain background rectangle of that colour. Type the text you want onto it, using whichever font best suits your era. Print it out to scale.

Place it face down on your workbench, and very lightly sand the back of the paper to thin it right out.

Once your boxcar is ready for decals, soak the paper in a mix of water and white glue, let most of the excess drip off, then place it on the side of your car and brush it into place.

If you sand it thin enough, you can gentle push it into the cracks of your boxcar planked siding to retain the look, and the edge of paper wont be raised too high off of your car side.

The same method is used for creating the look of an advertisement painted onto the bricks of a structure.

I always suggest that anybody wanting to build RR car models build an O scale kit first. You will see how it is done, that it is not rocket science, and with your skills you will be off and running.

colorado hirailer posted:

I always suggest that anybody wanting to build RR car models build an O scale kit first.

Good advise.  Building a few basic kits can be very educational as well as introduce one to the joys of tracking down detail parts, the assembly of dissimilar materials, and the deciphering of convoluted and inscrutable instructions, and a whole lot more......

Paper printing idea is fabulous.  I've printed a 25(w) x 36(h) building front I made on a software program... applied to a box of the same size.  And I though it looked "promising"...   I had the idea of applying these photo quality prints to well almost anything but never thought about thinning it first...  (I printed it on a "blueprint" printer at office depot for 15$ with a coupon... as a test run).

Not to hijack the thread, but if you check my Piedmont Blues layout thread in the 2 Rail Scale section of the forum, you can see that I've been scratchbuilding a Southern Railway 50' boxcar using card and paper print outs. It is also a first attempt, so I'm making it up as I... well... make it up!

Hopefully I'll have some more progress done on it tonight.

Paper is a wonderful medium if you think outside of the box.

I think trying to sand paper for a freight car side would be very difficult. Even on signs for buildings I can't sand the paper very consistent, meaning it's thinner in some places, thicker than others. Not impossible, but difficult.

A kit or two would be a great place to start, and are readily available. 

That's a fantastic idea about sanding the paper! Thanks, Danielb.

Firewood, I got that book you mentioned. That thing is AWESOME! Best eight bucks I ever spent.