Cimarron 27' Tiffany Reefer

[Keith Hayes]

Looking for something to keep myself out of the bars, I remembered this kit which I picked up at a convention years ago. Brother d's model in C&S burnt orange inspired me. And the advert in the corner was an eye catcher too.

I cleaned up the very nice castings with my sanding blocks, drilled holes for grab irons and figured I would deviate from the directions and build the car body first,  rather then assemble the jewelry on the underside.

There you go. We now have a model thread for this car and can post pics and what not.

[Lee Gustafson]

Keith,

Interesting project and approach to the build. Looking forward to progress and more pictures. How does that one S scale guy get that car on the horses? ;-)

Lee Gustafson

[Keith Hayes]

The old fashioned way, Lee.

This kit has flat walls, roof and floor. I was cleaning the parts and drilling out the grab iron holes and consulted the instructions which encourage the modeler to work on the under frame first. It seemed like building the car body up would allow me to better square it up and beef up the joints wit CA. It took a couple tries for a couple joints.

Now that the floor is on, I wish I would have thought to add some weight.

Not sure if grab irons are next, or the underside jewelry. Probably the grabs. You TOC folks sure have it easy with far fewer grab irons!

[Keith Hayes]

Underbody details are now installed. Cimarron tells me that these cars did not have turnbuckles.

[Jim Courtney]

They may not have had traditional truss rods either -- see: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Case-of-the-Missing-Truss-Rods-Revisited-td6387.html#a6454.


The 26 foot reefers certainly had truss rods when built, sans turnbuckles.

The 27 foot St Charles reefers, like the 27 foot UP built boxcars, don't appear to have had truss rods, but tension rods that ran the length of the car, hidden up next to the outer sides of the two center sills.

Derrell Poole has suggested that the 27 foot reefers were reinforced with truss rods when rebuilt in 1902-03, though I've never seen a photo of one.

This old thread shows my interpretation of the Cimarron 27 foot boxcar underframe, likely the same on the original 27 foot reefer:
http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/C-amp-Sn3-Kitbash-of-the-UP-built-27-foot-boxcar-Outfit-Car-Info-td8100.html#a8105  (I really need to finish this model!!).

Not too late to take the truss rods off . . .

[Keith Hayes]

My first ever set of brass trucks:

I don't mind sharing that I was nervous about assembling these: that is a lot of brass to heat up. Would I melt something? Like all things,  working slowly and carefully provided a decent end result!

[Keith Hayes]

I am continuing to clean up a bunch of projects started over the past few years.

Thanks to this group, there is lots of good information on these Tiffany refers. I spotted the model at a train show long ago, and Derrell Poole's built models caught my eye--both due to the older, short car, the really groovy lettering and the orange color. Consulting other pages, it seems the proper color is a yellow with a drop of orange, so maybe not as orange as Derrell originally thought. I loaded up the airbrush and painted the trucks and bottom black, the sides yellow (with a drop of orange) and the ends a redish brown with a drop of blue. (Do a search on refers and you will find a ton of information).

The trucks are done: the outside brake levers conflict with the coupler pocket so they are not there. I drilled through the brake beams so the carrier wires from the bolsters run through, and soldered them on and cut the wire ends flush, so the connection is sturdy. As per ususal, I forgot to add some weight to the car, so I drilled a 3/8" hole just inboard of each bolster and added a some tungsten weights. The brass trucks are heavy and the car rolled pretty good with them alone, but now moves very smoothly with the added body weight. FYI, the tungsten weights come in fractional weights, so if you have a car that likes to lean this way or that, using one might solve the wobble.

Dr. Courtney raised some concern with his comments on dry transfers. I used these years ago in my student and early professional days: we would use Letraset and Chartpak lettering for drawing title blocks: nothing beat a fresh sheet of lettering, with the velvety-softness of the plastic carrier sheet. I have not used them for years on a model, though, and the CDS set that came with the kit was old, so I was not sure if they might dry out. Also...noone seems to say much about best practices regarding the sheen of the paint. Consulting YouTube, the best clinics are from Archer and some Pokemon folks. Go figure.

I added a couple drops of gloss to the yellow, let the paint dry for a week and cut open the dry transfers today. They went on great.

The carrier film is nice and velvety as I recalled and the lettering went on smoothly. It was reasonably easy to locate and align the lettering, and even provide some custom dates--though that is fiddley. Here the Leadville Shop Super admires the work.

I still have to do the other side, but another project is close to complete.

I do l-o-v-e that Colorado And Southern font!

[Jim Courtney]

Well done, Keith, well done!

You seem to be a master of dry transfer lettering -- must be all that experience in Archi school.

BTW, for those of you who (like me) are challenged by dry transfers, Derrell's original artwork for the CDS sets was also used for a set of beautiful decals by the Cimarron Works, unfortunately no longer offered.

And I agree with the 1899 Colorado and Southern upper/lower case font, I plan to have at least one of these cars for my 1901 roster.

[John Greenly]

What a beautiful reefer that is, Keith, bravo!  and I too absolutely love the lettering.  

thanks for the photos,
John

[Lee Gustafson]

Truss Rod question,

Did the 27’ reefers have truss rods or “tension rods”?

If truss rods, did they have turn buckles?

If “tension rods” were there needle beams or did the rods parallel to the body sills?

If I have missed the information in preceding threads my apologies.

Now the color question based on speculation and information from Randy Hees I’m thinking of the very, very light green. What’s everyone think?

Thanks for all thoughts.

Lee Gustafson

[Lee Gustafson]

Apologies for my truss rod / tension rod question I found the answer in previous post. Safari and Nabble do not play well together and that made the search more difficult. I’m still unclear if as built the 27’ reefers had needle beams. Thanks and again my apologies this group is an excellent source of information.

Lee Gustafson

[Jim Courtney]

Yep, the 27 foot Tiffanies left St Charles with needle beams, but no truss rods:

[Lee Gustafson]

Jim,

Thank you ever so much for the photos and confirmation. I appreciate your research and the wealth of information you share with us. Best wishes to you and your wife I hope you can get away for a day to the NNGC. take care & best wishes.

Lee Gustafson

[Jim Courtney]

You're very welcome, Lee.

Hope that I can make it for lunch on Friday. Pizza and beer??

[Jim Courtney]

Hey Lee,

FWIW, here is my interpretation of the underside of the Tiffany reefers, based on the hi-res photos that Todd Hackett posted of the Washington Spur wreck. http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Caboose-numbers-quickly-diverged-to-Tiffany-Reefers-td6376.html





I'm building two Tiffanies from Leadville Shops Sn3 kits. The floor has been mounted to the bottom of the frame, to represent insulated cars with floors above and below the frame sills, so the tension rods aren't visible.

By the late 1890s, angled grab irons had been installed on the ends:




The two large NBW on the buffer block represent the ends of the tension rods that ran just next to the center sills.

[Lee Gustafson]

Jim,

Thank you ever so much with the additional information. That explains the under body detail on the insulated Tiffany Reefers as my next build will be that version. As I read through the instructions for the two versions I was not clear on which frame selection for the respective versions and the photos of your build are very helpful. Your knowledge and contributions are of tremendous value to the group. I can’t attend the Tacoma NNGC, due to health issues, but hope to attend the 2023 NNGC I’ll buy the beer and pizza and you can share your knowledge with me. Take care to you and your wife.

Lee Gustafson