Ribs for Milwaukee Cars

You can't buy it???  Oh the horrors!

Plastruct half round styrene mounted on strip styrene?

September 1989 MR describes an interesting technique plus prototype info and drawings.

An alternative method is described in the September 2002 Model Railroader.

Search the Model Train Magazine Index for more...

Then why not purchase a complete and finished Milwaukee rib side car from Weaver? Or maybe one of the excellent kits from Rails Unlimited, if those are still available?

If you don't have it you should try and pick up a copy of Railway Prototype Cyclopedia # 13.

It has an excellent article detailing Karl Nystrom's patented overlapping and interlocking horizontal side sheathing that made up the "rib side" of the cars.   

I'm a horrible scratchbuilder but I can say that any attempt to duplicate them would need to replicate the stamped look of the prototype. 

Good stuff.