Post a Picture of your Scratch Built Car

Sorry I couldn't resist.
The doors are the only thing left on the car that are original all the mechanicals down to the axle spindles are new including engine ,Transmission and Rear End
I did the rebuild myself with a lot of racing mods I also laid down the red paint with 7 coats of clear on top

Here's my Seaboard Whalebelly Hopper that Ed Reutling "twisted" my arm to build (thanks Ed for giving me the push):

and here's a Seaboard Low-side Gondola I scratch built around the same time:

It's HO, so I don't know if this counts, but here's a model of a Tankar Gas Station that was here in Portsmouth back in the 60s.  I want to build this in O-scale, but forgot to buy a tank car at the last Greenberg show:

Here's the real station:

A number of years ago I built my version of a Milwaukee Westinghouse Electric out of two old Lionel #520 box cabs and put them on a Williams GG1 drive frame. I know it's not a car but I can't find a picture of the open air Milwaukee Observation Car I made last year. Don

Found it! This was a new/old kit of a open platform passenger car produced by LeBelle a number of years ago. Milwaukee had summer open platform observation cars on their electrified line over the Cascades. No one has ever made one so I bought the LeBelle kit on E-bay and modified it. There are working marker lights and Atlas trucks. By the way LeBelle kits are fun to build and there are tons of them on E-bay. I'm going to modify a baggage car next into a powered overhead repair work engine. The first shot is what the kit should have looked like, the second is my observation. Don

Oh, yes I know a steam engine is pulling the car on the electrified line. They are just moving the car...........Picky, picky, picky....... 

 This is a B&M Laconia Built Woodside Buggy from the 104,000 series .An  Ambroid D&H caboose kit was extensively kit-bashed, with only the floor, step castings and roof retained from the original. Plans for this B&M car were taken from the April 1960 Model Railroader, which referenced the car on display at Hartford, Vermont near White River Junction.  The body, sides and ends were cut from Northeastern scribed wood as was the roof walk.  The car is lighted with four 12V grain-of-wheat bulbs connected in a series/parallel combination, which provided a realistic light level inside the car. The car is also fitted with lighted end markers (Tomar Industries #0-807). The power for these comes from a 1.5 V battery enclosed in a holder in the under frame, inside the tool box. A micro on-off switch in the tool box controls these lights. The cupola was scratch-built from 0.02” Evergreen styrene, plain and scribed.

OK - having trouble posting from IPhoto. Trying again.....
NH Osgood Bradley cafe car and coach i made from some K-Line cars using old American Flyer windows. I've made 3 coaches and the cafe car as well as one LV coach. A fun project.

jack

A PRR O1 electric that is completely scratch built. The frame is sheet brass using Lionel handrails; drive wheels are from a Lionel 0-4-0 switcher; pilot trucks are from a Scout freight car -- all side frames were fabricated from scratch; body sides are plastic coming mostly from four Lionel SP style cabooses; ends and roof are from scratch (sheet styrene ends and 1/4" plexiglass roof); drive is a vertical can motor and gears from Fred Timko; TMCC is via a ERR Mini Comander and RailSounds Commander.

Ooo - can I play?  Crane is scratch, gon is Rail Craft or Rail Chief or something.

Even the trucks on the crane are cast from my patterns.

K-Line "Club Spine Car":
Back in the days of K-Line, they used to hold an open house at their showroom at the New York Toy Fair building for members of their Collector's Club. Members were invited to come by to preview the new catalog offerings and take home a free  commemorative freight car. One year (perhaps due to budget cutbacks) the member freebie was a simple container. In order to make it go with the other Toy Fair cars I had collected up to that time (fairly easy since I live in NYC and the Toy Fair building was only a subway ride away), I scratchbuilt a copy of one of their spine cars and painted it in "company colors" to complement the container. I went so far as to re-create the brake system details and the swiveling container mounts (although I didn't model the mounting pegs on them since the car would only ever carry the 40' container). The only bugaboo is the friction-bearing trucks, which were all I could find at the time. They'll be replaced by something more modern someday.


CamTrak 2:
Built specifically to carry this camcorder in the subway tunnels of the NJ Hirailers' layout (the tunnels were designed to exclude most railroad-sized equipment), this camcorder carrier was completely scratchbuilt save for the MTH trucks. The headlights were taken from a pair of LED keychain flashlights, and the batteries/switches reside in a pair of 'toolboxes' mounted to the rear of the car. A pair of frames holds the camera's hand strap and lens cover out of the way behind the camera. It can be seen at work on the Hirailers' subway in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kkgBRDtg34


---PCJ

15" gauge, 3" scale backhoe car. Everything including trucks and wheels scratch built.

Here's the last 2 MoW cars that I built:

Completly scratch built except for the trucks.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59048208@N08/6641616645/" title="trains '10 005 by 01rk, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/...645_2218b01e51_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="trains '10 005"></a>

by far the scratch built I run most is my vacuum cleaner car: the guts are from a Dustbuster.  It is amazing - how much debris and dirt it picks up even from a track that looks clean.  This car sucks big time!!!

Scratch built logging car and caboose: also scratch built three log cars, not shown, and the loco that pulls it all - the most difficult thing I have scratch built: the SHEEP (SHay bEEP) - the cylinder and crank action really works, chassis is otherwise unmodified BEEP. 

This isn't a car, but an articulated 2-4-4-2, scratch except for the wheels and cab roof and a few sand domes cut from old plastic loco bodies.  A bit crude in detail, but then the steam pipes to the cylinders swivel and telescope, which was fun making work.  Drive is in the (also scratch built, can't see in this photo) tender.

mwb, beautiful job on the MoW cars. After seeing your cars I thought how strange it is that none of the large "O" gauge companies have ever made scale work cars. All seem to be very toy like. I know MTH and Lionel have made some nice cranes but I'm talking bunk, water and work cabooses. I could see Atlas making some fine cars like these. Don

Sometimes real loggging railroads made skeleton log cars out of timbers.  I made several simple log cars out of 1/4" x 1/2" wood strips.  The trucks are from old junked lionel cars.

Thank you!

I was once approached to share pictures, etc of my MoW cars by an importer and I was even going to let him borrow a few, if need be, to see if something might be done about the dearth of scale MoW cars.  Sadly, it never went anywhere....

I was hoping to see you share some of your craftwork on this thread, MWB, and am now hoping you will share more of your beautiful models, here, too.

Frank

Lee

Great job on all those cars.  I wondering is the dust buster vacuum cleaning car is powered from the track voltage?

Charlie

Originally I towed a rechargeable battery pack in a flat car, but now, Yes, I put in a six-amp full wave rectifier which seems to be sufficient -- at least nothing has burned out yet. Those are former diesel loco trucks without their motors feeding power to get the power.  

It runs best at about 14 volts and most locos run conventionally pretty fast at that voltage, so anymore I tow it with Williams' new Baldwin 10 wheeler, which is quite slow at 14 volts, giving it time to really suck up everything.  

Scale Rail:  Don, I have always admired your open obs car that have been in some of your videos and photos.  I never realized that you had made it from a wood car kit.  I always thought the "Road" had used steel sides on those cars, and considering a similar project, I was going to take an old K-Line or Williams 18" coach and start cutting.  I thought I'd leave the lower part of the windows intact in the center section of the car, and remove everything above the belt rail on each end.  Of course the vestibule would be eliminated, replaced by an open platform with railings.  The roof looks simple enough and would be held in place by a series of stanchions attached to the car sides.

Just wondering what you thought such a project might result in?  I realize that the project could also result in a junked sample of a perfectly good car, too!

Paul Fischer

I enjoy building my own cars. I find plastic trucks for cheap and use plastic I have on hand. I have less than $10 in this one. It's painted now but yet to be decaled.

Paul, your right the cars were steel sided. I bought the LeBelle kit because they were available and cheap. After cutting down the sides I made brass supports for the roof. That was easy but you need to round the roof like the original. You could still you the LeBelle kits and put metal sides on it. Then you wouldn't have to modify a K-line heavyweight. Also I used old Walthers sets of seats. That brings up another challenge with the K-line cars. You will have to cut the room dividers out. That might be a little tricky. These original observation cars were used as crane tenders after they stopped using them as passenger cars. I used Atlas Commonwealth high speed trucks though the Milwaukee used six wheel trucks. Hope this helps.

Here is my SP C-30 and flat car in 1 1/2'' scale

Frank

Ok, well, here's a stray boxcar that ended up on the layout as opposed to in the fireplace where a fair number of its kin did end up.  I made 2 of these, kept one, and sent it's brother to a deserving soul.

And, here's one of my MoW trolley flat cars:

My standard gauge log car for the log loader.

Very creative guys!  Excellent work.

Not created my me, but here is a "plate car" from the "Goody Train" diner.

A picture of the Goody Train.

Terry, a member of the Lehigh Valley HiRailers, scratch built this:

Chris

LVHR

 Here's some shots of the equipment I built several years ago for my On30 mining layout. The four wheel cars use HO passenger or freight trucks for running gear. The freelanced geared steam loco started life as an Athearn SW1200 HO switcher. I scratchbuilt the superstructure from styrene as well as most of the details.

Such a terrific thread, it deserves a bump back up to the top. So many really nice scratch built cars to provide inspiration.

All of these are scratchbuilt. They are reside with their new owners except the FC&G & Mississippi Central which are still mine.

There is nothing like the smell of Testors liquid cement.

Malcolm

Great looking cabooses.  I would have thought they all manufactured.  Very professional, not in my homemade looking abilities.  Thanks for posting and sharing.

Charlie

I'm not the caboose specialist that Malcolm is, but I did cobble together this one:

Here is one I built sometime ago for what was known as "high rail" (now scale 3rail, I guess) and has since been 2 railed. It was a 'low budget' job and a car not  often

modeled. I used photos as a guide. The model is about a scale 6' or so shorter than its prototype.

Roof is pine, the car floor Masonite. The sides were made from aluminum roofer's flashing with Walthers doors. The car ends are built up in wood and Strathmore board. All Nation trucks and a three piece underbody set (generator, brake valve and brake cylinder) were purchased items as wew the doors and roof ventilators. Scale Coat paint and Champ decals were used as well.

Here is my scratch built Galloping Goose made from plans featured in OGR magazine back in 1994.

I'm going to try my hand at scratch building a skeleton log car.

Do Easter Bunny Cars qualify ?

You did a really great job on that RGS Galloping Goose, Campy!

I'm the fellow who drew the plans and wrote that article.

It appeared in OGR Runs 127-129 of February, April and June of 1993.

It was built for my eldest son. While in the USAF, he sent me a post card of the prototype Goose from Germany, (of all places) and asked if I would build one like it for him that could run on Lionel track.

It's really neat to see someone else's Galloping Goose from it!