MODEL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR Kitbashing an EJ&E 40-foot steel boxcar T
his is one of those modeling proj- ects that I just sort of happened upon. While perusing eBay one
An HO project starting from a Branchline kit/Michael Evans could
be
afternoon, I spotted a Sunshine Models “Mini-Kit” for the EJ&E 1941 AAR 10′- 6″ steel boxcar. While I have built Sun- shine resin kits before, I wasn’t familiar with their Mini-Kits line. I learned that most of the Mini-Kits consist of resin parts and decals used to modify an ex- isting kit to make it more prototypically accurate. These kits are no longer avail- able from Sunshine, but occasionally appear on eBay and at train shows. This kit contained resin ends, doors, side sills, decals and various under- frame parts to be used to modify a Branchline (now Atlas) Blueprint se- ries AAR 40-foot boxcar. As fate would have it, lady luck was not on my side that day and I was out-bid. I had al- ready pictured this car running on my layout, so I thought of alternatives. Perhaps I could kitbash this series, 60400-60899, using available parts. The 5/5 Dreadnaught ends were avail- able on the InterMountain 10′-6″ height, 40-foot boxcar (kit No. 40899) and Branchline had seven-panel Superior 8′- 0″ doors (but not with the correct panel spacing). The side sill modifications
60 accomplished with styrene
strips, and decals with the “banded box” post-war herald that I wanted were available from Gerald Glow Decals. With that, my game was on.
I couldn’t locate an undecorated Branchline kit with an eight-foot door,
RMC/Dremel Kitbashing Award........
so I elected to strip one decorated in the yellow MEC scheme (kit No. 1517). A soaking in 91 percent isopropyl alco- hol and some light scrubbing with a toothbrush removed the paint. The car was cast in red plastic, so it was easy to tell when the last traces of the yellow paint were gone. The Branchline kit came with seven- panel Superior doors but they did not exactly match the prototype, which had larger panels on the top and bottom. The Branchline door had a large panel on the bottom and the upper large panel was one down from the top. With a little digging in my scrap box, I found an addi- tional pair of Branchline doors, so I de- cided to cut them up and splice them to- gether in the correct orientation. A sharp blade in a hobby knife made
A minimum of $100 and a Dremel Rotary Tool Kit with a variable-speed Dremel 3000 rotary tool and acces- sories are awarded to the monthly winners of the RMC/DREMEL KITBASHING AWARD. Entries must consist of at least two photos (high-resolution digital pic- tures should be at least 3,000 pixels wide; color slides or 5″×7″ or 8″×10″ prints are also acceptable) and a short text. Models must use at least 50% commercial compo- nents; unused entries may be held future editorial use.
the cut in a few passes. I oriented the cuts with a little more material than the mark so that I could finish the edge with a sanding stick. After gluing the pieces together with liquid solvent, I reinforced the back of the doors with a piece of .030″ styrene cut slightly smaller than the doors.
Before I started the modifications to
the side sills, for additional strength a piece of .030″ square styrene was glued
AUGUST 2013
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