Scratchbuilding a 40 PS-1 MiniHycube Boxcar

Transcription

1 Scratchbuilding a 40 PS-1 MiniHycube Boxcar Here s how I built my 1/29 scale Pullman-Standard PS-1 40 Mini Hycube boxcar. I chose this car because I wanted a Hycube boxcar but couldn t operate Burl s beautiful 60 Hycubes (I have 3 of those) on my current indoor layout. First thing I did was some research. A Yahoo group called MFCL (Modern Freight Cars List) was searched for some information. This is the information I got from searching their message archives: 40ft MiniHycube appliance cars: Pullman-Standard built cars: CB&Q PS XML-15, DF2, assigned to Admiral, Galesburg, IL & SLSF Ft. Smith, AR; to BN CB&Q PS XML-15A, LD, assigned to Whirlpool, EL Marion, OH & Philco, Connersville, IN; to BN D&RGW PS DFB, assigned to Whirlpool, EL Marion, OH D&RGW PS DF2, assigned to Whirlpool, NYC Findlay, OH IC PS DF2; assigned to Kankakee, IL; to become ICG IC PS DF2; to become ICG MILW PS 1-68 DFB MILW PS 1-68 DF2, assigned to Whirlpool, NYC Evansville, IN NP PS DF2, assigned to IC Kankakee, IL; to become BN? Magazine article references: Railway Age, Nov. 27, 1967 (background info)

2 Mainline Modeler, 9-96 (by Staffan Ehnbom, HO model of BN car Mainline Modeler, 1-95 (by James Kinkaid, background info and photos of all roads) Mainline Modeler, 5-94 (by Dennis Aust, HO modeling the NP version) Model Railroader, 7-89 (drawings, photo of IC version) That information sent me to RailPub (railpub.com) to order the magazines I didn t have. I also found a couple of good pictures and a basic drawing of these cars in the 1970 Car and Loco Cyclopedia from Simmons- Boardman. Additional sources of pictures of these cars were the rr-fallenflags.org website, the Railcarphotos.com site, as well as the rrpicturesarchives.net site. These are three great resources for railcar photos. So, now armed with all the above information I got to work making my own drawing of these cars. Although the drawing in the Model Railroader is good, I find I learn more about how I ll build something by drawing it myself.that plus the fact that some drawings are a little out of scale or proportioned slightly different height to width compared with the dimensions given when printed in magazines. Doing my own drawing also allows me to do some decal layout to scale for my projects. Here s the side view of the car, drawn using MS Visio.

3 As with any scratchbuilding project, I look for easy ways to build things; like kitbash something rather that scratch building everything. In this case I looked at the ends and determined I could chop up a USA Trains 40 (or 50 ) boxcar and in combining the 2 ends come up with one excess height end appropriate for this car. My idea when starting this particular project was to dive into casting my parts so I only needed to kitbash one end to use as a pattern for moldmaking and resin casting. I had saved Burl Rice s GRM articles on resin casting for future reference and the future was now. Here s the kitbashed end pattern glued down to a 1/8 thick styrene piece. Back in the late 80 s I worked in a model shop and we made RTV rubber molds and did some casting with urethane resins. The number of available materials back then was sparse compared with today s offerings and our efforts were primitive at best. So I was familiar with the casting process but decided to try a few smaller pieces first to get back into the feel for it. It has been very rewarding in that so far I ve enjoyed good success. The sides, doors and roof I had to scratchbuild out of styrene. Surprisingly the sides were the easiest of these projects. The roof panel required I make one of the stamped bump formations and I cast it in RTV and poured 12 of them. The roof ribs were made from strip styrene. The rivet strips on the sides of the roof panel were made by running a pounce wheel over.010 styrene, cutting them into strips and gluing them to the side of the.125 (1/8 ) thick roof base.

4 Here s the roof pattern glued down to a 1/8 piece of styrene. Notice the individually cast raised panel pieces. The doors presented my biggest challenge. I wanted the raised panels to look like stampings, but wasn t ready to go as far as Burl did by making positive and negative dies to actually stamp them out of super thin aluminum (although I did do a little experimenting with this concept). My solution was to try a little vacuum forming. I did some of this many years ago when I was in art college. For the finished piece I used.010 styrene sheet stretched over a form made from styrene with lots and lots of tiny holes drilled in it. I built a wood box and bored a hole in the side to fit my small shopvac nozzle. I used a heat gun to soften the styrene sheet as well as touch up the piece once it was sucked down on the form. It took a few tries, but I am very happy with the result. The bottom of each of the three panels has a row of rivets that I once again used a pounce wheel to create, then trimmed the panels to their appropriate size. The rest of the door is just sheet and strip styrene pieces.

5 Here s one of the 3 panels used on the door. The formations are created by the vacuum forming process. Here s the pattern screwed to the vac form box (the large hole in the box is for the shop vac nozzle). If you look closely you can see the hundreds of tiny holes drilled in the plastic pattern sheet.

6 Here s the finished door panel pattern. Now that I had my 4 basic pieces ready, all I had to do was glue them down to a thick flat piece of styrene and build walls around them to pour in the RTV to create the molds. Burl s articles describe the process very well, so I won t elaborate. Unlike Burl, I do not have a vacuum pump or pressure pot, so I chose different casting materials than he uses. The RTV and Resins I used are of a lower viscosity so they don t require the pump. One negative of using a thinner material is it has a lower thermal deformation number so it wouldn t be appropriate to leave the cars outdoors in the summer sun for prolonged periods of time. I won t need to worry about that

7 since I ve given up the great outdoors and am keeping my trains inside the cozy basement. Here s the resin cast pieces ready to begin assembly. Now that I have enough resin castings to build the first boxcar I am ready to begin assembling it. Here s where having a table saw is a great tool. I used it to cut some 1/8 thick ABS stock for the roof, floor and bulkheads. A table saw assures parallel and identical width pieces. In these pieces I bored some large holes. You may think the holes are for lightening the panels, but actually they are for access to apply lots of glue from the inside to the resin ends and roof. I used CA glue for the body assembly. You could use epoxy or construction adhesives as well. At this point I wanted to make the bottom a removable piece so I glued some ABS pieces into the corners at 8 places. This was done with ABS solvents to the ABS bulkheads and end pieces. These will be tapped and used as an anchor point to screw thru the floor and into the body. Take the floor plate (1/8 ABS) and mark where these anchor blocks are and drill clearance holes in the floor. Then put the floor in place and mark where the holes need to be. Then drill and tap the anchor blocks. That finishes up the basic understructure of the body.

8 Here s the side panels after being glued to the 1/8 ABS (black pieces) roof, ends, and bulkheads.

9 The bonus of making the body removable is two fold. Firstly, you don t have to mask the floor or body, they can be painted separately, and secondly the center bulkheads inside the body make a nice handle to use when painting the body. This shows the ABS blocks with tapped holes for attaching the floor to the body. Once the basic box was assembled I turned to the floor plate. I cut the car bolsters from 1/8 ABS and stacked them 2 high. I ll add another spacer block, for correcting body height, when I get closer to final assembly. At this point I marked the centers for the trucks and drilled and tapped for a #4-40 screw into the body bolsters. I solvent glued center sill pieces, cross bearers, and I beams. I used an LGB Air reservoir and brake cylinder taken from some ore cars. I bought these cars to use the trucks for other projects, but have since found these cars have a lot of great detail pieces that come in handy for projects such as this one. The brake regulator/valves can be scratch built pretty easily, or in this case, Burl happened to give me an extra one in one of his kits I bought so I m using his on this car.

10 The near finished floor (I hadn t installed the brake valve/regulator yet). The Kadee coupler mounting has presented a challenge in previous projects and this was no different. I wanted the extended pockets like on the prototype car but Kadee box mounting holes always meant you d see the screw or nut that holds it in place. While scrounging around in my cabinets I think I found a great answer to the problem. I found an ABS rectangle tube I bought many years ago (it s a Plastruct piece). It s 7/8 x 3/8 and I found that the Kadee box fits inside it snugly. By snugly I mean you have to cut off the outside mounting ears and file off the rivet detail on the Kadee box. Then you have to notch out the rectangle piece for the protruding box on the underside of the Kadee box. This now holds the Kadee box registered sideways and I only use the rear mounting screw to hold it in place. I dressed up the rectangle with some styrene bits to make it look like a draft box and drilled 2 holes in it to mount to the floor plate (with appropriate spacer under it to get the correct coupler height). The air hose, valve fitting and gladhand are Ozark Mountain pieces.

11 Here s the Kadee coupler box inside the rectangular tube. The underside of the coupler box assembly showing the notch for clearance.

12 This shows the coupler box installed on the floor and the lower flange plate installed to close off the notch seen in the previous picture. Here s a close-up of the coupler box after installation of a few detail pieces to make it look more like a real coupler box.(the air hose piping sits on the flange plate)

13 The trucks I use are the LGB modern freight car trucks found under their 50 boxcars, centerflow hoppers, ore cars, and bulkhead flatcar. I bought a blow-out 4 pack of ore cars which made the trucks affordable, in my opinion. I do modify them though. I prefer metal wheels, so I buy the USA Trains steel wheels and pulled off the LGB plastic wheels. If you do this, you ll notice the USA axles don t fit quite right but I found the answer. I use a 45 counter sink to chamfer the openings for the axles in the side frames. Then the USA axles fit perfectly and function as needle bearing surfaces. They roll very freely. Now onto the detailing of the body. The door tracks are made from 1/8 C channel (Plastruct). The ladders are cut-down from USA Trains boxcar parts ordered separately from USA Trains. A couple of my small test casting samples were the wooden tack boards on the sides and ends for this car. The big one I cast from a USA Trains piece taken from my cutup boxcar and the smaller ones on the side were made from styrene and cast up. The stirrup steps are fashioned the way Burl describes making them for his 60 Hycube boxcars (if you haven t figured it out by now Burl is definitely one of my inspirational modeling heroes). He uses copper, but I use brass as I have easy access to it from a LHS. Take 1/16 brass tube and hammer it flat, bend accordingly. In the body side, drill a 1/16 hole in the underside where the stirrups will be located. With pliers, squeeze the end tips of the stirrups to make them take on a square shape where they will go into the holes. Then put the square peg into the round hole and dab a bit of CA glue on them. I used USA Trains roof walk material to make the walkway platforms at the bottom of the car ends. These are supported by styrene angles and bits glued in place first. The brake wheel is also a USA Trains part (from the 55 foot hopper car) and the brake wheel housing is a plastic Precision Scale Co. part. The handrail that spans between the top of the 2 end ladders is attached to a couple of styrene angles and is made of Detail Associates brass rod (.033 dia.). For the center support of this rod I turned to yet another clever Burl idea. Cut the eye from a small fishing hook, bend it gently to shape and install in a hole drilled in the end rib. The coupler cut levers are also fashioned from Detail Associates brass rod (.033 dia.) and supported with brackets made from styrene angles and bits. That wraps up the construction details. Now to paint and decal it.

14 Here s a close-up of the body details as described in the text. Notice the unfinished coupler box. Here s the car after a couple coats of primer.

15 Here s the finished car. As I ve worked on this project I have learned many things and a few I would have done differently if I had only known what was to happen. These lessons will serve me well in my future projects, as all past experiences should. I tried to make this model as accurate as I could, within reason. I am happy with the way it has turned out. Regards, Brian Briggs Modeling the DT&I in 1/29 scale circa 1980ish