How to make: Greenville 7,000 Cubic Foot Wood Chip Hoppers

[Atlanticflier]

How to make these sides in N Scale ?


above is Walthers HO scale car.

Any suggestions on materials to get this look ?

Steve

[ljudice]

This car gets mentioned so many times as a "must have", you would think it would be on someone's short list to produce...

[JoeD]

I actually did the research for this car about 5 years ago but it never made the cut.  Cars that long have a bad habit of bowing when they cool and without some roof structure or internal supports to shore everything up, manufacturing can be difficult.

If I were going to scratch build this in N scale, I would start with the embossed details by making a pattern of each of the two types of details.  The only way to do this well is with a block of resin or aluminum and sanded to the width and height in a long stick on a disc sander.  I have one of the slow speed units from Micro-mark, probably my best tool all around and that gives you the control to make those small details.  Once you have your stock sanded to the correct size, then position the fence so you can sand the angles into the end of the pattern stick.  That in turn can be cut off with a razor saw in a fixture to keep it square.  What you get is a single or a bunch of roof looking patterns  Normally I work one just right and then mold and cast them in resin.  Next you need to glue all these down as they sit on the side of the car... on a sheet of acrylic and then vacuum-form the whole thing with .005 styrene.  This is pretty delicate work, but the thinner you go the better the effect.  Hopefully what you get are sheets that you can in turn glue to .020 styrene, clean up the edges and then useing Evergreen strips add the ribs.  You could try emossing using thick aluminum foil, but I think you run the risk of getting a lot of folds in the stock.

If you have a milling machine and can cut your own bits, then you can mill this detail by just cutting across and up the surface.  With the correct feeds and speeds you might get a plate with all the emossures nice and clean and ready to cast or vacuum form.  The rest of the car would be a collection of bashed parts from other hoppers or styrene bits and pieces.

Joe
MTL

[ljudice]

Interesting - the MTL and Atlas 60' boxcars (roof, walls in one piece, with metal underframe) are always as straight as an arrow and stay that way - but the Athearn 60' boxcars (with the roof that comes out) have a serious bowing problem.

[Atlanticflier]

I actually did the research for this car about 5 years ago but it never made the cut.  Cars that long have a bad habit of bowing when they cool and without some roof structure or internal supports to shore everything up, manufacturing can be difficult.
Joe
MTL

C'mon Joe, Re-submit it to the 'deciding' committee again. This car would be a Great addition to the MT line-up. I know that M-t can or has a solution for the potential 'bowing' issue.
Here's what schemes Walthers did in HO :http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/press/2003/hoppers
There are MORE schemes ...... And it has not been done in N Scale before.
AND you already have the research done !!   I even need a Special Run on this car.

Resubmit, Resubmit..............

Steve

[JoeD]

It's still on the list.  I think with the experience we are gaining with the Autoracks and the Heavyweight passenger cars, this one might see the light of day.  This thing needs to come out of the machine and stay dead straight.  If there is any bow, then you have issues with paint masks and with pad printing.  It only takes a very little to throw off the look of the decorations.

Joe

[sirenwerks]

I know drawings of this car appeared in one of the mags and I don't have them readily available to review, but doesn't the prototype have some sort of internal structure to keep its sides from bowing? Seems to me, being true to the prototype would do the same for the model. If MT's not afraid to cast a static and 'oversized' mail catcher in place, why not cast internal structural bracing or add a separate casting to keep the flex away?

Regarding that Athearn car... I'm very glad they made that body style, but think they could have thickened the walls since no one's gonna see how thick they are anyway. IMO, with box cars, better the roof is separate than the floor, as roof's are visible and vary from prototype to prototype. Their being separate is convenient for those who wish to go the extra mile to make the car more prototypical (or use the part to correct another car) if need be.

I like the idea that MT has about modularity, that Joe's let on in regards to the new bay window caboose. But from the way I understand it, it's modularity in the molds not modularity of parts that can be taken away. Personally, I think MT, Atlas, all the rolling stock manufacturers, should look to the way IM creates its boxcars, with separate doors, ends, and roofs; as well as separate tackboards, ladders and grabs, roofwalks, and brakewheels. Atlas did some of that on its 60' auto parts box and MT's gone historically gone further with covered hopper hatches, non-plug boxcar doors, gondola ends. The new ExactRail boxcars, while a welcome new body style, where somewhat disappointing after they tooted their horn for their initial highly detailed HO salvo. Breakage aside, why is N scale so immune to detail?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Joe, just curious, has there ever been tooling that never made the light of day? Has MTL ever produced a body style that didn't fit the QC standards and the project was sceapped?

[wcfn100]

Joe, just curious, has there ever been tooling that never made the light of day? Has MTL ever produced a body style that didn't fit the QC standards and the project was sceapped?

[cheapshot]That's a great question.  Maybe there was correct box car for all those paint schemes MT keep putting on the current tooling.[/cheapshot]

Jason

[JoeD]

Only the body styles that would be prototypical for your layout Jason...  ;D

Joe

Joe, just curious, has there ever been tooling that never made the light of day? Has MTL ever produced a body style that didn't fit the QC standards and the project was sceapped?

[cheapshot]That's a great question.  Maybe there was correct box car for all those paint schemes MT keep putting on the current tooling.[/cheapshot]

Jason

[JoeD]

Dan, not that I'm aware of.  There are a number of molds here from a Z track program that was shut down in favor of the Road Bed system we released. I even have some N Steam Boiler molds that are pretty old. We don't have the right equipment to roll the rail for short diameters so they sit flat.  Shame really, we could have produced some nice pieces.  Every tooling project has it's miss-fires, but we fix the part so they work.  Too much invested to stop all together.

Good question

Joe

Joe, just curious, has there ever been tooling that never made the light of day? Has MTL ever produced a body style that didn't fit the QC standards and the project was sceapped?

[ljudice]

The thing that breaks on n-scale cars - 95% of the time are the foot-grabs on the four corners.

The MTL system of making this an easy to replace part seems like the solution, doesn't it?

[Robbman]

For a closed end car...

[wcfn100]

Only the body styles that would be prototypical for your layout Jason...  ;D

Joe

Hey, nothing that a couple more generations of RP won't solve for good.   

Jason

[CVSNE]

If the goal was to make a few of these cars for a home layout as opposed to an injection molded model, I'd look into have an outfit like Archer make three-dimensional decals for the raised segments between the ribs.

The relief needed for those raised sections is not that much, but having them made the same way Archer makes their decal rivets and other components would seem a lot easier (and more consistent) than sanding a bunch of flat pieces.

Marty