Modeling Atlantic Coast Line K-9, K-10 and K-17 gondolas Fig. 1: Forming wire lading anchor
glue and it filled a few of the “holes,” but I was able to wick it out with a tis- sue. After installing the lading anchor, I sandblasted the car to clean it up for painting.
The entire car was painted with Fig. 2: Wire lading anchor formed between board and batten sheets
Testors Gloss Black diluted about 30% with thinner. This is nice paint and goes on with a very smooth, glossy fin- ish; it dries completely in under 48 hours. I then decaled the model with the Westerfield No. 10251 ACL U-5, Modern decal set and also used some data from a leftover Sunshine Models ACL K-10 gondola decal set. Again, if I were to do this project over, I would go right to Jerry Glow for his custom- made ACL gondola sets. The weight data on the Westerfield decal set matched the weights needed for the K-17 almost exactly. The rest of the decals were painstakingly patched together from the Sunshine and West- erfield sets, plus I used a few numbers from the Microscale ACL HO scale freight car decal set. Once the decals were dry, I set them in place with Walthers Solvaset, then washed the model in warm soapy water and al- lowed it to dry for a day. Then I sprayed it with a finish coat of approximately 60% Testors Glosscote, 20% Testors
204 Miner brake wheel and a Morton brake step from a Plano No. 190 Mor- ton running board set. I also cut the bottom off a spare InterMountain box- car brakewheel rod and mounted it be- tween the brakewheel chain and the bell crank to provide the appropriate connection. The air hose mounting is a Precision Scale No. 39156 brass angle cock bracket, and the hose is a Preci- sion Scale No. 3150 brass air hose with angle cock. Finally, I installed Tahoe Model Works TMW-206 Buckeye trucks with semi-scale wheelsets to replace the kit’s AAR trucks. The last major feature I added was
the wire lading anchor attached to the top of the car’s sides. For this I used a method described by Ed Hawkins and Jack Spencer in Railroad Prototype Cy- clopedia, Volume 3, 52′-6″70-ton Drop- End Gondolas. I placed a strip of .012″ diameter wire (Detail Associates No. 2504) between two pieces of Evergreen plastic siding (board and batten, No. 4543) and lightly hammered it to repli- cate an even zigzag pattern. See Fig- ures 1 and 2 for details. I installed the lading anchor by lay- ing a very thin coat of cyanoacrylate along the top chord and fixing it in place by holding it with a set of tweez- ers. I took care to ensure the anchor was centered properly on each end. In a few places I had laid down too much
74
TWO PHOTOS: JACOB GOLDEN
Placing a .012″ diameter wire between two stagered pieces of board-and-batten siding and then hammering the siding (above) produced the lading anchors. The wire protruding from the siding can be seen at right. It is important to keep enough pressure on the wire to keep it centered and straight through this process. Here is the .012″ diameter wire after hammering (below). It can easily be straightened for application on the top chord.
MARCH 2012
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