Page 69 - 38. MRH13-04-Apr2013
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Erie Railroad Boxcars, p1 - 13
STEP 6: Car Sides 76500 – 76999 Series
Continued ...
decided to try building the tabs separately and then cement
them to the body.
The tabs are 6” in deep. They are tapered at a 450 angle
for the bottom 4”. It seemed like a daunting challenge to
make these but with a little set-up it wasn’t all that hard.
I began by cutting the tabs out of .020 x .040 strip styrene.
I set up my chopper so that I could cut the .040 strips to
length with the 450 angle, making 8 small ones, and 4 tabs
for the bolster locations. I then cut .020 x .020 styrene to
add to the tops of the tabs. These were cut long so I could
trim off the excess that extended beyond the 45
0
angle.
Once I was satisfied with all of the pieces I cemented them
to the car side.
I built up the thickness for the sides the same as before. The
only difference was that I added small pieces of the 4” x 6”
styrene under the tabs. I did not try to make these pieces
match the tabs; instead I cut them long so that I could file
them down to match the tabs. While this was a bit tedious
it worked very well. In the end it probably was the best
method for achieving the results that I wanted.
18
18: The tabs for the 76500 –76599 cars.
2" x 2" added
to the top of
the 1" x 4"
tabs
Finished tabs
STEP 6: Car Sides 76500 – 76999 Series
Continued ...
19
19: The tabs have been placed on the cars sides.
The top master is complete with the lower master
needing some additional work. The X marks the
location of the door. The doors and the top guide
rails are yet to be installed.
I had run out of Youngstown doors from my scrap box.
What to do? I began looking at one of those awful Athearn
doors with the huge claws at the bottom. Hum, if I remove
the claws would it work? There would be nothing to lose.
So I removed the claws and sanded down the excess plastic
to the height of the door rollers. The door ended up being
the perfect height that I needed for the car. I was off to the
races. One more and I was done.
Because the bottom track hangs slightly below the side of the
car and is supported by tabs I did not add that detail to the
master, but will add it on after the castings have been made.
The rivets were decaled on as on the previous cars but a
single rivet was added to each tab with two rivets being
added to the bolster tabs. This completes the car sides.
Now it’s on to the floors and underframes.
MRH-Apr 2013
