Salvaging a wreck: a Civil War boxcar gets rebuilt
uncovered treasures packed away and forgotten.
Removing stuff The trucks, metal door tracks and ladder were removed. The cast on grab irons were shaved off along with the door stops. The extended sills were sawn flush with both car ends, elimi- nating that broken corner. The heavy frames around both small end doors were scraped to a scale thickness, and so was the brake platform. The queen posts and thick wire truss rods were disposed of. Finally, after the holes for mounting the original ladders and door guides were filled with styrene rod, the smooth finish of the scribed siding was removed with coarse and medium sandpaper to impart some weathered grain and age.
Adding stuff
The grab irons, old-style end sills and the heavy-looking details were removed and all holes plugged before adding the new grabs, steps, door tracks and end sills (above). The styrene strips for the sills, the queen posts and truss rods were positioned to accommo- date the truck swing. The truss rods were made from monofilament fishing line with turn- buckles threaded into place. The finished underframe is shown at the bottomof the page.
The upgrade began with new holes, lots of holes. Holes were drilled on the sides and ends for Tichy straight grabs and nut-bolt-washer castings.
More
dragged out, but since this would be a unique car, more ammunition was called for. Decisions holding mainline projects in check faded into a pleasant
haze as rummaging through stashes of culch (an old New England term for items too valuable to discard though presently without a useful purpose)
holes were drilled for handles on doors from an old Model Die Casting 36-foot boxcar kit. Styrene strips replaced the original sill ends and holes were drilled for poling pockets and truss rod nut and washer castings. More holes were added, filled and redrilled in the underframe as the location of brake components and truss rods shifted to balance the clear- ance and appearance of those parts. Simple upper door tracks were fash- ioned from styrene U-channel with one side cut off. A small piece of that L shape was sanded thinner and glued just be- low the right end of the track as a stop. Styrene 1″×2″ was added to the right of the doors as a wear protector. Two of the original door stops were moved to the right end of the 1″×2″’s. Tichy door guides secure the door bottoms. A rachet and pawl were sanded free
from a Tichy brake set and glued to the original platform so that the brake
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FEBRUARY 2014
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