Getting a grip...

[doctorwayne]

...on grabirons.
I'm in the process of re-equipping my railroad with rolling stock suited to a late-'30s time frame, so the '50s stuff is being sold-off or repainted in earlier paint schemes. To replace the cars sold, I'm buying new kits of cars appropriate to the era, and even some (gasp!) ready-to-run. Of course, it's not really "ready-to-run". In addition to changing car numbers, and adding weathering, I like to add a few details, such as free-standing metal grabirons, sill steps, and basic brake rigging. Well, I don't really like doing it, at least for so many cars, but it needs to be done.
There are commercially available grabs and sill steps offered, and I generally use them. Occasionally, though, grabirons of a non-standard size are required, or I run out of the ones I need and can't be bothered going to the hobby shop. With some suitably-sized wire and some basic modelling tools, you can make your own. I also made a couple of very simple jigs that can save time and aid in keeping these details uniform.
For HO scale grabirons, I use .012" brass wire, from Detail Associates, and, occasionally, .012" stainless steel wire, also from D.A. or music wire. The brass is easiest to work with, especially if using the simple jigs shown.
To make a grabiron, bend a 90 degree angle near the end of the piece of wire - this short length will be one of the "legs" which will mount in holes drilled into the carbody. Make this a suitable length for the thickness of the carside, (I bend mine over on the inside of the car, then secure them with ca) and make these "legs" even longer if you're going to be
creating drop-style grabs.

   

In addition to the long wire with the bent end, you can see the simple styrene bending jig (with the numbers 18", 24", and 30" written on it) that I use to maintain accurate lengths. It's basically a tapered piece of .060" sheet styrene, with "stops" (the bits with the numbers written on) cemented at the appropriate points. On the far side of the jig are slots which accept the short bent leg of the wire, then the wire is butted against the side of the stop (indicated by the arrows) and grasped with pliers, holding the short leg in its slot and the main wire against the "stop", as shown below. The free end of the wire is bent down, using the fingers, along the edge of the jig.

   

The formed grab, attached to the wire, is placed on a sheet of glass (my usual work surface), and cut free with a knife.

   

I use an old blade (I always seem to have way more old ones than new ones) which gives a much cleaner cut than do side-cutters. The stainless steel wire, at least in small diameters, can also be cut this way, but in all cases, secure the grabiron with your finger before "snicking" it free, as they do take-off.
(You can also cut larger diameter soft brass wire with a knife - working on a hard surface, simply place the blade at the appropriate spot, and while applying downward pressure, roll the wire back and forth with the blade.)

Another useful jig is one for bending drop-style grabirons. Because the jig is made from styrene, grabs made from brass wire are best suited for making into drop grabs - stainless and music wire are too hard to bend easily, and will quickly ruin the jig. A more substantial jig could be made of brass or aluminum if you prefer the harder wire.

   

The jig consists of a sheet of .060" styrene, to which have been cemented pieces of .020" and .030" sheet (giving a total thickness of .050"). The .050" material was placed using short lengths of .012" wire as spacers, creating a slot between the sheets .012" wide x .050" deep. I also used .010" sheet styrene to make "hold-downs" for the grabs, one each for 18", 24", and 30" sizes. These are kept with the main jig, as shown.

With the straight grabiron inserted into the slot, with the "legs" sticking up, the "hold-down" is pressed into place, as shown below, then a small screwdriver or knife blade (the blade in the picture should have the back (non-sharp) edge of the blade against the wire) is used to bend the legs down flat. In the jig below, from left to right, is a bent grab, one being bent, and a straight one.

   

Here are the drop-style grabs, on the left, with some straight ones to the right:

   

And here they are installed on an Accurail gondola. The ones on the ladder stile, to the left, are narrower than 18", and were bent to fit (not using the jig), while the single grab at right and the drop grabs on the end sill were made on the jigs. All of the grabirons on the side of the car, and those for a few other gondolas, too, are 18" ones made with the jigs.

   

And for any sharp-witted viewers, I am aware that the Accurail car is of a 1941 prototype. With a little re-lettering and some weathering, its generic style is "close enough" for me

For most car kits which come with free-standing plastic grabirons to be added by the modeller, I throw them directly into the garbage. However, if you wish to use them instead of wire ones, use a suitably-sized drill bit, in a pin vise, to ream-out the moulded-in holes - usually, the car has been painted by the manufacturer, and the accumulated paint makes the opening too tight to accept the plastic grabiron. My other suggestion is to not use tweezers to handle the grabirons - all too often, it's simply a method of launching them to a place where you'll only find them when you step on them, if you find them at all. The small, smooth-jawed pliers, shown in the second photo, were only a buck-or-so, and are much superior to tweezers in this type of operation.

Wayne  

[Mileswestern]

Excellent tutorial. Does indeed make a huge difference in appearance to the cars once the handrails have been applied, excellent job.

By the way, how does the new Accurail gondola measure up to, say, the Proto 1000 gon detail-wise?

[Steamtrains]

So that's how you do it.....I've always looked at your grab irons and thought they were really great...but what a pain to be bending them....I might give it a try one of these days....

[doctorwayne]

Miles, both the Accurail car and the Proto1000 gondola have good detail.
The Accurail car has full interior detail, with rivets on both the floor and the interior of the sides, and corrugations on the ends, too. The sill steps are separate castings, and are very fine. The underframe has representations of rivets, but the underfloor is plain, and all three major components of the brake gear, along with the associated rods, are represented. Both the trucks and the coupler covers are attached with screws. The brakewheel is a nicely-done separate casting. Car weight is 3oz.
The Proto1000 gondola comes r-t-r, and the interior is detailed only on the floor, which is very nicely done. Included is board detail, representations of the attachments to the underframe and bolsters, and details of the eight drop doors used on these cars. The corrugated ends are plain on the interior, as are the sides, although it was easy to scribe board detail into them with an X-Acto. The brake valve, cylinder and reservoir are included on the underside, although the modeller will have to supply the rods and levers if they want that detail. The underframe and underfloor are very well-detailed, with rivets, board detail, drop-door hardware and a representation of the door-closing mechanism all included. The handbrake is the Miner lever-activated type, and is cast-on. The trucks are attached with screws, while the coupler covers appear to somehow clip in place - magnetic-type knuckle couplers (with coil springs for the knuckles) are installed. Car weight is 4oz.

The Accurail cars are supposedly lettered for roads that actually owned them, with BLT. dates of 1941 or later (I changed mine to early-to-mid '30s, to keep them more in line with my chosen late-'30s era.) , and are also available as painted cars lettered with only dimensional data. I passed on some roadnames that I would have liked to have had, as I knew the lettering schemes to be too modern. (That may also be the case for the ones which I did buy, but ignorance, in this case, is bliss)
The Proto cars are representations of USRA-designed cars, with BLT dates mostly of 1919 - that, plus the price, convinced me that I "needed" these cars - the lettering schemes on the ones available at my LHS were all older-style, and very much in keeping with my era. (Possibly why the price was so good.) I believe that these cars may have also been done with more modern (still steam-era, though) lettering, too.

Wayne

[Mileswestern]

Excellent review wayne! You have throughly convinced me that I "need" these Accurail gondolas now. I already have a Proto 1000 gondola, and they are nice, but the lack of interior-side detail bothers me too.

I really appreciate the time you took to write up a little review for me!

[cnw1961]

Wayne, very interesting and informative tutorial . One question though. I tried to upgrade some Accurail cars with grab irons some years ago, but was not content with the results. One big problem was to match the color of the paint when painting the new grabs and the areas where the molded on parts had been cut off. I mean, it is easy to match the black of the gondola in your picture, but how do you match e.g. boxcar red, which I have seen innumerable different shades of? To paint the entire car does not make sense. If I had to paint the entire car, I’d rather build a kit like those well detailed Tichy Train Group cars than to upgrade an Accurail car. I am sure you know some secrets, because your cars always look perfect .

[LynnB]

Nice tutorial, I too will someday sell off my cars and get 30's to late 40's cars.

[doctorwayne]

Kurt, I never worry about trying to match the factory paint exactly, and in most cases, don't care if it matches at all. One of the major drawbacks of wire grab irons is that it's easy to chip or scrape the paint on them, and shiny brass looks way worse than an off-shade of the basic car colour. For freight cars which I paint, (which is probably at least 90% of my roster) I use several variations of boxcar red, altering the colours even as I'm painting. The prototype paint formulae changed over the years, too, so the same road might have several different shades of "boxcar red" in service. Even if the colours appeared the same when newly applied, they also may have weathered differently. Every so often, I gather up all the cars that I notice with chipped paint on the sill steps or grab irons, and using either Engine Black or Boxcar Red straight from the bottle, touch them up as required. That's probably the only time that I use paint without altering its colour somewhat.
If you add these metal details to a factory-painted car, pick (or mix) a colour reasonably close to the basic car colour and apply it as necessary, using a brush. Next, take a small amount of the same colour, thin it severely (at least 90% thinner) and airbrush it lightly over the entire car - this could probably work if done as a wash, too. This will have two effects: first, it kills that "new car" look of the lettering. The other benefit is that it will almost imperceptibly shift the original car colour towards that of the brush-painted modifications. Obviously, one could carry on with weathering to whatever degree desired, further disguising the new parts. Then, when the paint on a grabiron eventually gets scraped off or chipped, a little quick brushwork, using a suitable colour straight from the bottle will make it look like a recent repair.
The overspray technique works well on cars that have already been weathered, too, if you're going back and adding these details to cars which you once considered "finished".

Wayne

[cnw1961]

Wayne, thank you for your detailed reply. I never thought of blending the color in by spraying lightly over the entire car. Oh well, sometimes the simple ideas are the best. But why is it that even though it sounds so simple when someone else is giving you the hint, you did not think of it yourself ???? :mrgreen: Always good to know a professional like you .

[doctorwayne]

Pictures restored to this thread.

Wayne

[ezdays]

Pictures restored to this thread.

Wayne

Good, I wish we could do this to everything we lost in the big crash.

[doctorwayne]

Me too! Somebody over on the MR Forum was asking about grabirons and when I came here to create a link, I realised that the pictures had gone. Fortunately, their I.D. still showed, so all I had to do was find the originals, which should have been on a disc. However, I had difficulty opening the particular file on the disc which I found, so I couldn't gain access to the pictures. None of the many programmes I tried would open the file, and in desperation, I tried Microsoft's "Word". To my surprise, the file opened, revealing..... only text, with no photos whatsoever (at least the text was about grabirons ).
Further searching eventually found the right disc, and restoring the photos was easy, although if this site is upgraded, it may need to be done again.

While I was occupied with that, another respondent on the MR site answered with a good explanation and some nice photos, too, and, since it took me so long to get back there, my original written-out response, needing only the link to complete it, had disappeared. I don't know if the OP there bothered to visit here, but I try to promote Big Blue as often a I can, either with a mention or, more often, with a link that lets them see what a great forum this is.

Wayne

[modelsof1900]

Doc,
really great ideas and very simple solution for a daily need! Thanks for sharing!