40' CB&Q wood boxcar


flyboy2610

Loveably weird
And when I say wood boxcar, I mean WOOD boxcar! This is another of my treasures from the box of castaways I bought at the Beatrice, Ne. train sow last year (this year's show is the 19th of this month). And it is made of wood. The steps and grab irons are made of metal and separately applied.
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It has all metal sprung trucks with horn hook couplers. The wheels are plastic with cylindrical axles and pizza cutter flanges. The trucks are secured by wood screws passing through a plastic cylinder and into the wooden under-frame. The trucks have a hole in the center where the plastic cylinder goes through, or should go through I should say. The holes are going to have to be enlarged a bit for the cylinder to pass through. This is how the truck remains centered.
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The decals were coming off, it was 2-1/2 ozs. too light, and was just in general disrepair. I got the decals re-stuck as best I could, weathered it, and sealed it with a couple coats of flat clear.
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The horn hook couplers are in a pocket which has the cover crimped in place.
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The coupler pocket will be removed with a rotary tool and a metal cutting blade. Kadee couplers will be body mounted.
I'm not sure what I'll do about the wheels. They will definitely be replaced. I'll have to do some hunting to see if I can find any metal wheels with that axle style. If nothing else, I'll just have to replace the entire truck, but I'd rather not do that if I can avoid it.
For mounting the trucks to the car, my plan is to drill out the current hole and install some styrene tube. I will the drill and tap the tube for a 2-56 screw. I'll have to check the mounting hole diameter on the trucks. Maybe I can make a mounting post out of tubing.
This should be a fun project. Another castaway coming back!
 
I was unable to find any wheelsets that would fit the spring trucks. I thought that some shouldered wheelsets I bought that were NWSL would work, but the axles were too short. I found some plastic wheelsets in my parts box I was planning to use with some Kadee 33" ribbed back wheelsets. I went to a train show in Beatrice, Ne. yesterday and found these:
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I paid the princely sum of $1.59 for the pair! On the Kadee website, it lists these at $7.95 per pair, so I think I did all right!
I know arch bar trucks were banned from use in interchange service in 1940, but for the age of the car I think they'll do nicely.
I was holding off doing anything as far as a truck mounting surface until I knew for sure what trucks I was going to use, and how big the hole in the mounting boss was going to be. Having settled on these trucks, I drilled a 3/32" hole where the original truck mounting screw had been. I used some CA glue and glued a 1/2" long piece of 3/32" styrene tubing into the hole. When the CA had set, I drilled an tapped the tubing for a 2-56 screw. In this pic, the tubing on the left has been drilled and tapped, the tubing on the right has not been.
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Next I used some 30 minute epoxy and glued some Kadee coupler pockets to the car body.
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Here are the trucks and Kadee 148 whisker couplers mounted. I used some grimy black paint to take the shine off the coupler pockets and trucks.
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Here is the car along with some of my other projects: the 0-6-0 UP #4439 conversion/DCC install, a gondola for which I made a removable scrap load, the current project car, and the 50' wood boxcar I recently did. This car and the 50' wood boxcar came from box of 'junk' cars I bought at last years Beatrice train show for $5.
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A close up of the car. The trucks still need a bit of detail work. I probably won't paint the wheel faces, as I find it hard (even with a micro brush) to get the paint only on the wheel faces and not the trucks and axles when dealing with sprung trucks. Trying to remove the wheels sets generally results in the little springs flying off, never to be seen again! :mad:
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I still need to put a brake wheel on this car, too. It's pretty well done, though.
 



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