I want to try scratchbuilding. (again)

I am looking for ideas for some simple frieght cars that I could try building. I want to model early 1900's steam in a dockside/industrial setting with nothing longer than 40 feet (its a small area).

Any suggestions?

I've done a few Athearn and Quality Craft kits and really enjoyed them, but they are becoming harder to find.
The hardest part for me is finding pictures and/or plans to follow.

Mainline Modeler put out some books years ago on freight cars that included plans. As to kits have you tried Jays Trains www.jaystrains.com he has a lot of older kits at times. They change. Also have you tried the Chooch, Labelle and Mullet River sites. They have wooden car kits from the 1880's through WWII

My suggestion is to scour 1930's thru 50's Model Railroader magazines. MR always had good general interest articles. These are amazingly inexpensive to find if you beat the bushes.

If you were in HO you would have all of those gorgeous Westerfield resin kits; he makes lots of early 1900's versions of steam era freight cars. You might want to get his catalog and use these for your model building. The short Heinz reefers are especially neat.

BTW if you are up to a resin car kit, Ted Schnepf is making a Pennsy GRa gondola. These were built new in around 1903. You might also look for the old Labelle and Ambroid kits, these were pretty good wood kits.

Example of scratch built 34 foot box cars.





Have fun with your project.

You don't need kits for these oldtime cars. They are very simple, just wood, some metal bits and a few detail castings from Grandt line or similiar.
One of the best sources of information is Whites book " The American Railroad Freight car" it has enough detailed plans to keep you busy for years.
Look for a paperback version on ebay or amazon. Here's an oldtime flatcar I got on ebay and re-built a bit.....dave

Ye Olde Huff N Puff - "The next best thing to scratch building, maybe better."

Search the Model Train Magazine Index for published plans. Magazine back issues can be purchased from the publishers, RailPub, eBay. Article reprints are available from the A.C. Kalmbach Memorial Library.

Add the websites to your list of Favorites for future reference.

Matt

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Old Goat,

MWB, paging MWB, your assistance is needed in this thread!

Martin does a really nice flatcar for his clinic, it's right in the era that the OP is doing.

I'm currently building a B&O wood chip hopper, from styrene, based on an old Ambroid kit. Kudos for starting to scratchbuild!

It's funny you bring to up as I was looking through an old O Scale Trains magazine last night and found an article by Tom Houle on Scratch Build A Pickle Car. Step by step plans and good pictures makes a small and unusual car.

Best part, you can download this issue free from http://www.oscalemag.com/ It's issue No 9.

quote:

Originally posted by tsgtbob:
MWB, paging MWB, your assistance is needed in this thread!

Martin does a really nice flatcar for his clinic, it's right in the era that the OP is doing.

I'm currently building a B&O wood chip hopper, from styrene, based on an old Ambroid kit. Kudos for starting to scratchbuild!

You raaaaaaaaaaang? Ok, so I scratchbuild a few cars........

Huff & Puff kits are a lot of fun and great raw materials for making all kinds of other stuff (like trolleys, hint, hint, hint...get to work, BOB!)

One of the things that I find very useful to have is a decent library. The Model RR index (posted above) is useful, but it's a tad quirky and has some curious holes, but still very useful.

I went out and built up a library of magazine that tended to have plans and construction articles in them -- the older Railroad Model Craftsman 1955-1980 are great to have onthe shelf. Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette is even better but more specialized. Picking these up used is not a major investment and theinformation and reading value is still good when you want to get involved as a scratchbuilder.

Dan mentioned OST - there are good construction articles in there - Tom Houle has had a several in there and I know that there's a vinegar tank car article to match his pickle cars (hmmm...shameless self-promotion tonight).

Ok, since Bob served me up a slow underhander, here's the flat car kit....



Bascially ~100 pieces of wood and a bag of detail parts.... I use this or variation of this car for the base underneath lots of cars that I've built.

For example, add a box and a tank and you've got a tool & water car...



BTW, I still have ~20 of these flat car kits in stock if anyone is interested in getting one from me...

Bet I could post 20 more MoW cars built on top of this flat car

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mwb,

Thanks to someone (won't mention any names, see above) I'm actually doming a lot more scratchbuilding than I was even a year ago.

Thanks, Bob, for protecting my anonymity and the names of the innocent...

Wow, thanks for all the info. I really appreciate the pics. I am inspired.

mwb,
How much is your flatcar kit?

After many years, and despite inflation, cost of living, and escalating oil prices, still only a whopping $15 + shipping!

Shoot me an e-mail if interested and I'll be glad to send you more info on the kit as well as some additional "options".

quote:

Originally posted by Flash:
I want to try scratchbuilding.

Any suggestions?

I've done a few Athearn and Quality Craft kits and really enjoyed them, but they are becoming harder to find.
The hardest part for me is finding pictures and/or plans to follow.

The hardest part of developing a kit is the pictures and the plans, and it seems you already have them.

Replace the sticks, get new detail parts, and build it again; only this time, do it better. After you do this a couple of times you will be able to build anything you want from any picture you can find.

Good luck,

-rrick

rrick's suggestion is of course an excellent one for transition from kit building through to completely independent scratchbuilding, and is one that I am putting to use right now making variations of 3 ventilated (watermelon) cars at the same time.

Mainline Models was also the predecessor to Ye Old Huff n Puff, though even cruder. Likewise just strip wood, kits with silk screen sides(crude and often way inaccurate) and really rough & weak detail castings. After building a few I have to agree that it as a very small step to going straight to scratch building, good practice though, and again can be great starting points for your own projects. Somtimes still find them at shows for cheap too.

What I do like about them is the old trussrod equipped prototypes perfect for your purposed early 1900's; all wood box, stock, express, flat cars, coke gons, Hart Hanks ballast cars. They look great with those older AHM steamers like the "Casey Jones" ten-wheeler etc.

The Mainline Models line of kits is also available through Ye Old Huff n Puff and I believe updated somewhat along the ways

If you attend train shows you may find Tomalco kits for sale and they are equipped with the wood stringers cut exactly to scale size. I have built a number of these models and can vouch for them. They are all On3 kits and the firm is out of business.

Secondly, I find that smaller locos like C 16's a difficult to place on the rails and keep the tender on it's pin so I use a piece of shrink wrap on the pin at the base and tighten it up with a soldering iron. Now with this wrap being tight, I can get the loco and tender on the rails. if it becomes necessary to take the two units apart simply cut the wrap with a #11 exacto knife and remove it.

Remember, When the wrap is in place just bring the iron close to it and let the heat do it's job, Do not touch the shink wrap with the iron...