AT&SF Bx-3 and Bx-6 boxcars
tacked the roof casting in place at one end, then the other, and then at points along the tops of the sides, all from the inside of the body. Lastly, I carefully flowed a small amount of thin cyano- acrylate cement along the roof to firm- ly secure it to the body.
When adding the floor/underframe
casting, it was apparent that the cast- ing was too narrow by approximately .035″. To compensate, I added one .020″×.125″ strip to each side of the floor casting, ensuring that the edges of the strips were aligned with what would be the bottom of the floor. They were secured with cyanoacrylate ce- ment. Once the glue cured, I carefully rubbed each of the sides of the casting on sandpaper placed on a flat surface until it fit snugly within the carbody. I removed the floor casting and drilled the bolsters with a No. 50 bit to accept 2-56 self-tapping machine screws for the trucks. In addition, weight was added in the form of two half-inch di- ameter hex nuts glued to the top of the floor with silicone. The floor was then glued in place. With the basic structure done, I be- gan the process of adding the details, starting with No. 79 holes immediately under the nut-bolt-washer castings on the carbody for the wire grab irons. One thing to note on this kit is that on the car ends the locations of the n.b.w.’s on the ladder stiles are too low, mean- ing that if the original hole locations had been used, the lower two grabs on the ends would have been too low com- pared to the grabs on the sides.
I
drilled holes aligned with the grab lo- cations on the sides and also added new n.b.w. castings. The sill steps on the prototype were
angled out from the side sills to pro- vide greater clearance for the trucks. Instead of the cast resin steps in the
kit, I used A-Line metal steps and bent them to simulate those of the proto- type.
I built the model to simulate a car circa 1938 that still had its original KC brake system (but did have a second grab added to the left edge of the car side as shown on the model). I drilled the center sills and the appropriate crossbearers and crossties to accept the train line pipe. The cast resin brackets from the kit were used to at- tach the KC brake cylinder/reservoir to the floor. The dirt collector at the back of the KC brake part was drilled to ac- cept a piece of .015″ wire bent to go be- tween the dirt collector and the train line; this simulates the pipe connecting the two. The cast resin brake levers from the kit were enhanced by clevises simulated with turnbuckles cut in half and .012″ wire simulating the brake rods. With the running boards and latitu-
dinal running boards, one has a deci- sion to make. For most of the service lives of these cars, the running boards were the color of the carbody while the roof was anti-slip black reflecting paint with the addition of slate granules for a non-slip surface. The question is if one prefers to paint the roof black first and then add the running boards al- ready pre-painted in the body color or add all the parts and paint and mask to achieve the desired result. I chose the latter.
I turned the carbody upside down and carefully slid the running board supports back and forth on a sheet of sandpaper on a flat surface to ensure that the supports were all the same height. I tacked the running board in place in a few locations using Barge® contact cement, then added cyanoacry- late cement to
all board/support joints. of the running
Before adding the latitudinal run- ning boards, I added the corner grabs to them per the kit’s instructions. Once the glue cured, I trimmed the portions of the grab legs that protruded through the bottom of the latitudinals, then filed those areas smooth using a mill file. I added 1″×3″ strip styrene to the underside of each latitudinal walkway for their supports. Three pieces were added: one piece that ran along the left edge and extended at both ends to pro- vide a piece to glue to the underside of the main running board and another over the roof eave; a second piece to wrap over the end roof eave; and a third to extend under the main run- ning board.
I added the latitudinals by first glu- ing the protruding 1″×3″ strips under the main running board. While the glue on them was curing, I added the small cast-resin angle sections to the underside of the ends of the running board, followed by pieces of 1″×2″ strip to simulate the diagonal supports on the underside of the running board ends. Returning to the latitudinal walkways, I carefully bent the 1″×3″ strip extensions over the roof eaves and trimmed them to the appropriate length. One by one, I added a drop of cyanoacrylate cement to the underside of each of these strips, pushed each in place against the roof eaves, and held it in place until the glue had set. I did add little bits of square pieces to these strips to simulate the attachment bolts against the roof eaves.
Completing the detailing of the sides
was effected by adding the door cast- ings, door track segments and the plac- ard boards to the doors and route card boards to the sides, just to the left of the doors. I did add one bit of detail that was slightly “obsessive-compul- sive”
from a
detailing perspective.
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
This Bx-6 was in exceedingly good condition when pho- tographed, having just been repainted at the Topeka shops in
52
February, 1937. Note that it still has a single grab on the side, but does have the corrugated door.
FEBRUARY 2013
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