12-30-2013, 08:32 AM
Hello,
There is a technique for building freight cars which has been brought to my attention over the last few months, and I've finally decided to give it a try.
Over here in the UK, there is a gentleman who is known for scratch building 7mm scale British outline freight stock from card, and they are truly outstanding. His layout is populated by stock built for a fraction of the cost of buying the models ready to run or even in kit form.
I thought the process could easily be applied to N scale, so I have begun to build some freight cars for my own budding US outline layout. Only the trucks, couplers and wheels will be ready made, the rest of the cars will be entirely scratch built from card.
The method is to print out scale drawings of the subject and glue them to thick card, the kind you find on the back of paper refill pads from stationary stores. You then cover the whole thing in a few coats of shellac, which turns the card into a very rigid building material.
Cut out the drawings and assemble them, building up in layers to get the detail. In N scale I found it easier to assemble the cars first, then coat them with shellac when built up - to give strength to the joints.
I will now show some photographs of my progress so far at various stages along the way. Hopefully this will prove useful to anyone who is thinking of making their own freight cars at some point - or maybe even inspire people to have a go themselves anyway!
My first effort to see if this would work was a high-sided gondola car - nothing simpler than a gondola, right?
Whilst the gondola was coated in shellac and left to dry, I started on a box car and a pair of pulpwood flat cars:
The box car has been the focus of my attention over the last couple of days, and is now at this stage - just needs one end and the roof detailing and it will be ready for the shellac:
This is as far as I have gotten so far, but I am picking up a quantity of trucks and wheels from a friend tomorrow, so should be able to get the underframes and the truck mounting points done later this week.
Let me know what you think.
There is a technique for building freight cars which has been brought to my attention over the last few months, and I've finally decided to give it a try.
Over here in the UK, there is a gentleman who is known for scratch building 7mm scale British outline freight stock from card, and they are truly outstanding. His layout is populated by stock built for a fraction of the cost of buying the models ready to run or even in kit form.
I thought the process could easily be applied to N scale, so I have begun to build some freight cars for my own budding US outline layout. Only the trucks, couplers and wheels will be ready made, the rest of the cars will be entirely scratch built from card.
The method is to print out scale drawings of the subject and glue them to thick card, the kind you find on the back of paper refill pads from stationary stores. You then cover the whole thing in a few coats of shellac, which turns the card into a very rigid building material.
Cut out the drawings and assemble them, building up in layers to get the detail. In N scale I found it easier to assemble the cars first, then coat them with shellac when built up - to give strength to the joints.
I will now show some photographs of my progress so far at various stages along the way. Hopefully this will prove useful to anyone who is thinking of making their own freight cars at some point - or maybe even inspire people to have a go themselves anyway!
My first effort to see if this would work was a high-sided gondola car - nothing simpler than a gondola, right?
Whilst the gondola was coated in shellac and left to dry, I started on a box car and a pair of pulpwood flat cars:
The box car has been the focus of my attention over the last couple of days, and is now at this stage - just needs one end and the roof detailing and it will be ready for the shellac:
This is as far as I have gotten so far, but I am picking up a quantity of trucks and wheels from a friend tomorrow, so should be able to get the underframes and the truck mounting points done later this week.
Let me know what you think.