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Erie Railroad Boxcars, p1 - 11
STEP 4: Locating Grab Irons
14
I use a .05 mechanical pencil for marking my lines. Next 2
vertical lines were marked. The first being 2” in from the
edge of the car side. The second line was marked 1’-11”
from the edge of the car side. This gives the proper spacing
of 1’-9” for the mounting tabs on the casting.
I then used a #76 drill bit and made 1 to 1-1/2 turns to
make a small divot in the styrene. This way I will have the
locations marked on the castings and will not have to repeat
the location process on every car side. At least that is the
plan. I’ll find out how well it works once I make a casting.
14: I will be making castings of the sides, so I took
the time to layout where the grab irons will go. I
use Detail Associates freight car grab irons part
#229-6209. I began by marking the lower grab iron
location up 2’-2” from the bottom of the car side.
This will be where the top part of the bracket will
be mounted. The second bracket was located 4’-
2” up from the bottom of the car. I drew horizontal
lines on the sides of the car.
The layout marks for the grab irons 1-1/2
to 2 turns made with a #76 drill to make
a small dimple. The idea is to locate
these only once and not on each casting
STEP 5: Proper Car Side Thickness
Continued ...
15
15: Now it is time to bring car sides to the desired
thickness. You may wonder how I came up with
the necessary dimensions. I cheated. Actually I
copied the sizes from the Sunshine Models Erie kit.
I figured that if I followed their dimensions for size
and thickness, everything would come out correct.
Why go to the trouble to calculate everything and
reinvent the wheel?
The sides of the car on the Sunshine Models kit are 8” thick.
Since I was using that as a guide, I added 4” x 6” styrene
stock along the backside of the car side. I started at the bot-
tom and top cutting pieces a little long so that they could
be trimmed to fit. I next cut pieces to fit in between the top
and bottom strips. I placed the pieces on a relative uniform
spacing.
Bracing to prevent
any sagging of
side while making
rubber mold
Styrene strips used to build
up side thickness for casting
MRH-Apr 2013
