Re: Building Leadville Designs Coal Car / Flat Car / Cinder Car Kits in C&Sn3

Posted by Jim Courtney on Aug 19, 2024; 6:18am
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Building-Leadville-Designs-Coal-Car-Flat-Car-Cinder-Car-Kits-in-C-Sn3-tp19966p20063.html

Work this past week brought all four kits up to the same level of completion:
Frame, bolsters, trucks, end beams, couplers and striker blocks.

Today I stained the decks of all four cars, the coal car decks turned out well:




I use black and brown leather dyes in very dilute washes thinned in 70% isopropyl alcohol. I give each deck first a wash of black and then a wash of brown, to warm up the decks, so it doesn't look like bleached driftwood, Then, using a small sound brush, I re-stain random boards with black, others with brown, some with both. Happy to report no warping of the wood.

But things didn't go well for the deck of the 1902 flatcar, proving the premise that "bad luck" always befalls any model building project:




I stained this floor in an identical fashion, only to find annoying "grain swirl" appear. Only I would pick the bare cut floor with all this swirl (I really couldn't see it as bare wood) for the flat car build. I had intended this floor to be left empty, or perhaps a small partial load. But now, there is no fixing this. My 1902 flat car is destined to have its deck covered with a full load, perhaps a load of large diameter pipe, as in Doug Heitkamp's photo.

Speaking of Doug's photo, I decided to go ahead with detailing the flat car end beams.




The square washers in Bill's kit are etched brass, measuring 6"x6", agreeing with Derrell Poole's plans. But Mr. Micrometer says the square truss rod washers are more like 8" square. So I used Grandt O scale castings instead. The 18" grab iron was laid out on the right of the end beam, the small 6" diagonal grab on the extreme left end of the end beam. The brake staff on the coal car did not go through the draft gear striker block, rather down through the end beam. The brake staff/wheel/ratchet and pawl are not yet glued into place. The retainer is from my parts box, the brake hanger bolt heads are Tichy 0.030" rivets. Still need to add the coupler lift rods.




I've spent an hour this evening looking at all my collected photos of 1898 and 1902 coal cars (all grainy and out of focus).  I can find no evidence that the coal cars had any grab irons on the end beams or on the side sills. I thought the mix of the little diagonal grab and the full length horizontal grab on the 1902 flat car end beam to be a curious anomaly, but then this may have been a common first decade convention for C&S flat cars:




Flat car 1061 was an 1884 Peninsular flat car that has been shopped in the late 1890s or earlier in the first decade, with new straight, notched side sills. It has the same curious little 6" diagonal grab iron as the 1902 flat cars above.

So, up next, finishing the end beams on the coal car bodies (square washers/nuts, braked hanger bolt heads). Then stirrups (only 2 per car). Maybe I will finally get to adding stakes to the sides and begin building up the open box bodies.