1800s boxcar scratch build


V

Vince-RA

Well-Known Member
Well, scratch build overstates it slightly since I used some bits of caboose roof, end blocks, and freight car flooring from Northeastern Scale Lumber. The curved roof is not prototypically accurate but it is what I had on hand, so I went with it. The length is closer to 30' than the supposed 25' prototype (per https://3dptrain.com/shop/gbc-b016/ ) as well. But what fun is scratch building if you can't take some liberties? :D

My modeling target is 1890-1900 central Vermont, and these boxcars would have been build sometime between 1867-1880. Inspired by an old post from CNR Glen I thought I would try to apply some serious age to the car. Perhaps built around 1867 and ran hard with little love for the next 30 years? I started by staining all the exterior parts lightly with a mix of isopropyl alcohol and cheap black paint. Next, the basic floor/roof/end frame. With credit due to the excellent and free guide from Labelle: https://www.labellemodels.com/perfect-construction-p-1224.html

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Added some lead sinkers as weight, and finished off the truss rods before sealing up the sides (although I would later have to undo my work to shorten the truss rods a bit, oops):

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Next up, gluing some bits of scribed siding together. Again, this tip came from a Labelle guide: https://www.labellemodels.com/good-sides-forever-p-1223.html

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Siding and door added. This siding is 1/16" spacing or roughly 6 scale inches. Most boxcar kits from this era seem to be 0.040 spacing (which is what I used for the door) but I decided to see how it looked. I actually very much like the look of the 1/16 siding, it feels more rustic to me.

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End with window:

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Next up, some paint. I was going for a slightly less beat up look than CNR Glen's boxcar, and this turned out to be surprisingly hard. The difference between a dry brush and a not dry brush is a fine line indeed, which I rode with only modest success. A little work with a steel bristle brush after painting knocked back the areas where it got away from me.

The paint on the siding is Microlux Roof Red from Micromark (highly recommend these paints btw, you get a big bottle for the money and the coverage is quite nice. For finer detail work I like to thin slightly with water). The roof is painted with a very old bottle of Polly Scale grimy black.

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Added a roof walk and some details, mostly from Tichy Train Group:

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I applied light gray weathering chalk on the roof, and added some decals.

I did a crappy job of setting the decals, but I let it be as I figured it would add to the beat up look I was going for. The decals came from 3dptrain: https://3dptrain.com/shop/gbc-b016/

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I sprayed with dullcote at this point, which almost seemed to have eaten the decals a bit :oops: I've never seen that happen before, maybe something in these decals didn't play nice with the dullcote? In any case, it turned out to look GREAT if you're trying to model a beater car, so no harm no foul here!

To finish up, I dry brushed some red streaks over the decals, then applied more isopropyl wash to try and darken some of the scribe lines and other places I thought grime might built up. A little rust was added to the grab irons, door fittings, corner straps, and truss rod ends. Trucks are Tichy arch bar with Kadee metal wheels. They don't look quite as nice as the proper Kadee all metal arch bars but they are a LOT cheaper. These were painted black with some rust dry brushed and then more light gray weathering chalk. Overall - really like this technique for making old beat up cars, big thanks to CNR Glen (who, sadly, doesn't seem to have visited here since 2016).

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This is the only photo I have of the prototype:

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Definitely a few things I'll do differently next time in order to get a bit closer to the proto:

- Use regular non-curved boxcar roof (on order!)
- Coloring looks more like a tin roof, so probably use silver paint instead of grimy black
- Omit roof walk
- Move grab irons from the side to the end
- Change diagonal brace on the door for a horizontal one
- Place a runner under the door instead of brackets
- Move the number to the right of the door
- Maybe shorten to 25 scale feet? Although to my eye, the ~30' I produced looks pretty good
 
Some really nice details on your rendition! I thought the ladder rungs were big but looking at the prototype they are not out of line.

My old box cars no roof walk, as you mentioned above. I think the truss rods and brake turned especially nice

Dave LASM
 
Thanks Dave - they are standard 18" grab irons from Tichy. If they need to be smaller, they won't, because I refuse to bend them myself lol :D

Now that I look again, I can also omit the end windows from my next attempt!
 
I model the 1900 era. The model turned out very nice.

Those early cars had lots of issues with the wood getting water damaged so a wood car would only last 20 years or less before the sheathing and roof would have to be replaced, which would make a 21 year old car look brand new.

A couple other things that are typical of the era.
Probably not a tin roof, there doesn't appear to be any seams, if it was a metal roof there would most likely be seams between the metal panels. Most likely it's a canvas roof, covered with tar.
Use Tichy straight grab irons, drop grab irons are post WW1. They could also be 24" long.
The grab irons are on the ends and only on the "wrong" corner.
Many of the roof walks in that era were very low, almost flush with the roof.
While this car is definitely a right opening door, about a third of cars in this era were left opening doors (the PRR and B&O were mostly left opening doors).
I would also suggest Tahoe Model Works 5 ft wheelbase archbars, they are a shorter truck better for a lower capacity car. I use a lot of them.

Look forward to seeing your next car, they are looking great.
 
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Thanks Dave, great info! I noticed the straight grab irons, which is convenient since I have a bunch of those on hand. Unfortunately this is literally the only photo of the prototype I've been able to locate, so roof and roof walk are left to best guess. It seems like there could be a roof walk, flush as you suggest, but hard to tell one way or another.
 
dgrafix said:
Not familiar with it. I think that is what we call Lindenwood in UK (not 100% sure).
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Same family but different trees, I believe. Basswood is native to this side of the pond. It's technically a hardwood but is soft enough that it's very often used for carving and model making. Definitely sturdier and heavier than balsa.
 
Vince-RA said:
Same family but different trees, I believe. Basswood is native to this side of the pond. It's technically a hardwood but is soft enough that it's very often used for carving and model making. Definitely sturdier and heavier than balsa.
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Ah that explains it then :) Bit like Cranberry vs european Lingon... "same same"(ish) different name 😆 .
 
Here are a few of my shorter boxcars, all variations of Mantua cars, the WP&NY car based off and IHC kit:
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The Bachmann old time car and the AHM wood boxcar are both 34 ft boxcars from the 1870's-1890's. They do need new underframes and the roofwalk and roofs upgraded. They are very close the PRR class XA boxcar, and I have found them very close to the P&R Class XMa, XMb classes of boxcar:
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Wood is always fun to work with, a traditional material since pre historic modeling. As we develop out techniques often we will go completely freelance. Maybe as we settle in to a technique set that is satisfactory we can further follow specific prototypes. Some follow this to considerable extreme. The expression "whatever floats your boat" comes to mind, though a "rising tide sinks all boats" could apply.

Enjoy!
 
While wood has some appeal, I now do stuff mostly in plastic. In many cases the wood grooves are too wide compared to the prototype. Even the finer plastic grooves can be too wide. Same with grain, unless the car is very heavily weathered or unpainted, you can't see the grain on a real painted car.
 
There are various effects from the various construction methods, ideally all scale models of a prototype should look alike. No such luck of course! Currently I design and print my narrow gauge cars with a 3D. resin printer. Not always the pushbutton technology we might hope, considerable skill involved. As to real cars of wooden siding, there aren't really gaps between the boards. However they do warp, shrink and whatnot creating a subtile visible demarcation. For instance in my wooden passenger coaches I use a .015mm grove, which printed and painted is visible, but subtile, more or less appropriate. For flatcars I have both printed decking and hand laid boards. The texture of the wood with dents and differences does have a feel to it hard to duplicate in plastic. I do like the way wood takes paint, at least for wooden surfaces.
 
Starting round 2 of this build - why build one when you can build four at four times the price? :D

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Laying out the underbody elements, and beginning to string up the truss rods:

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Adding fishing sinkers for weight:

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I ended up with one body that was out of square, so I figured I would use this to practice some weathering techniques and figure out how I wanted to do the roof. I'll plan to have this be used without trucks/couplers as a shed on some eventual layout/diorama/etc. Added a floor from scale 2x6s, cut an "office door" (non-functional) into the left side, and created an opened side door so far:

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Well you are having fun creating your own rolling stock. Little can be said against that! For weights I found lead bullets to be cheaper, mainly because I have a lot fro re loading and also used spent ones dug out of my firing bank. Maybe fishing weights are cheaper where you are but I found them to run about $1/oz. I also have a couple of pounds of the tiny lead shot known as liquid lead. Great for hopper cars and whatnot. I trickled them into the tank cars I printed.

Perhaps your next move will be to abandon the commercial shapes, not difficult! Keep plugging away! Tom
 
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