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| 10-Ton
Sugar Cane Car |
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| Introduction |
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| The images,
from the Gregg Company Ltd. catalog and Magor Car Co. Catalog,
below were the basis and inspiration for the model.
Though even as early as 1918 the majority
of cane cars appear to have been built with steel frames, they
were still available, and being built, in wood.
Of note in the catalog cuts below, is
that braking for these cars was only applied to one truck. |
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| This catalog
cut shows and describes Gregg Co.'s wooden car frames.
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| A similar cane
car design from Magor Car Co. Note that this car is shown
outfitted with "link & pin" couplers.
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| Pre-Design
& Study Model |
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| Based on scale
drawings of the FMW flat, and dimensions and information from the
Gregg catalog, a 3D study model was built using Google
"Sketch-Up.
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| The
FMW. Kit |
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It comes
packaged in the ubiquitous white flip top cardboard box we've come
to associate with FMW kits.
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Inside the box
one finds all the parts/sprues nicely packaged in individual
plastic bags and accompanied by a set of instructions (3 sheets
8-1/2x11 sheets, printed double sided), containing a color photo
of a built-up car, A diagram for the truck assembly, 6 B&W
photos of various views of the car explaining/showing where pieces
are/should be located, and a set of scale line drawings of the
car, along with a line drawn bending template for the truss rods.
The step-by-step instruction text is broken down into general
sections (Introduction, Recommended Tools & Supplies, Bill of
Materials, Pre-Assembly, Truck Assembly, Main Assembly, Frame
Details, Brake Rigging, Optional Details, Painting, Final Details)
with clear and concise explanation of the assembly steps/process.
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The individual
bags contain/broken down into:
1. The car frame and deck
2. An assortment of bolsters, needle beams, draft timbers, and
buffer blocks
3. Nuts, bolts, straps and other assorted car hardware, brake
wheel and ratchet.
4. Stake pockets, brake hoses, steps, and underbody detail parts.
5. Brake beams and levers
6. MacLeod and Western trucks
7. NWSL wheel-sets
8. Kadee couplers and boxes.
9. Brass wire
There is a total of 122 parts (not counting wheel-sets, couplers,
and brass wire)
As noted in the review of the "test-shots", all the FMW
parts are beautifully and crisply cast with no flash, no draft,
and minimal mold lines.
This is a wonderfully produced model kit, truly what a kit should
be, and clearly sets the standard for what model kits in the Model
Railroading hobby should aspire to.
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Model
Construction
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| Since the car
has an slatted deck, through which the frame and underbody details
will be able to be seen from above, some modifications to
the frame were necessary.
First the large styrene block casting
(intended for mounting the Kadee coupler boxes) at the ends of the
car needed to be removed. Since I will be having exposed L&P
draft gear, I did not need this block.
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| The second
modification that was needed was to lower the blocking areas where
the truss rods pass over the bolsters. This was milled .015 lower
than the cast in slot, as later, I will be adding flat truss rod
pads here.
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| This shows the
quick jig that was made to ensure that the frame sat square and
rigid to the cutting head. A scrap piece of 3/4" Poplar was
clamped to the X/Y table of the drill press. .125 wide slots were
cut into the Poplar, into which were then inserted pieces of .125
Styrene, to act as a fence/stop. It's not pretty, but it does it's
job well.
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| The last step
was to cut of the truss rod NBW locator nubs on the end sills, and
drill .020 holes through the sill in their location, in order to
eventually accept/seat the truss rods from the inside.
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| New sill pieces
for the ends were fabricated using .100 x .156 styrene, and
laminating a piece of .100 x .010 on top to create the step
at the bolster . A sized laminated block of styrene was used as a
spacer to keep the new sill pieces parallel during gluing.
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Since
I am not using the Kadee coupler boxes, the recess cast into in
the draft sills to accommodate them needed to be filled with
pieces of .100 x .030 styrene. This image shows the replaced
center sills, and the filled draft sills. At left, in the center
sills you can also see where the brake hanger hardware mounting
holes have been filled. These are not necessary on this car as it
had braking applied to only one truck.
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Light
wood graining was added to the frame using a Micro-Mark wire
pencil. When doing grain care should be taken to draw the pencil
in only one direction, and try to do the entire graining in one
pass, so as not to accidentally create crossed grain during a
reverse or second pass.
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| Now came some
of the tedious work; making all the individual wood boards and
stakes.
Similar parts were all cut to a rough
length using the NWSL "Chopper". These parts were then
carefully and tightly stacked on the sanding table, and held in
place and square, with some steel blocks; then sanded to the
required fished length. Sanding the pieces in this manner also
provides slight radiused sanding marks in the end of the boards,
which help represent "end grain" in the final pieces.
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| Using a sharp
Xacto knife, any sanding flash was carefully cleaned from all
sides of each board end. Care needs to be taken so as to cut
parallel to the piece surface, and not slope the cut inward, or at
an angle.
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| Smaller pieces
were then "wood grained" by carefully, and with even
pressure, drawing them once, in one direction, over a piece of 180
grit sandpaper. In order to keep the sandpaper surface perfectly
flat during use, the paper was attached to a glass plate using
double sided tape.
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| Wider boards
are grained with the wire pencil; again, as with the frame,
keeping in mind to move in one direction, and scribe with a single
sweep whenever possible.
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| Lastly the
pieces were all "de-fuzzed"/de-burred, using the
Micro-Mark fiberglass pencil. Small parts, as in the photo, were
done in multiples, so as to reduce the chance of eased or rounded
edges and corners.
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| For the
bulkhead construction, a jig was built from styrene.
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| needs to be
taken when applying adhesive to only apply a small amount at the
inside edge (where the planks are raised above the surface, so as
to not have the glue wick onto the jig, and bond your parts to the
jig.
Note that the boards are assembled with a
slight space between them (approx. .002), this is to allow for
visual relief, paint thickness, and the idea that the boards
slightly shrunk while in service...as they would in real life.
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| For accurate
spacing on the center posts in the middle bulkhead, the flat car
frame was used as a quick alignment jig. The vertical post was
held in place on while small dabs of adhesive were applied on each
board. (Making sure not to apply so much as to cause it to
wick under the frame beyond.)
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| The assembled
flat with the bulkheads test fitted. the slats on the frame
against the bulkheads are part of the the new deck.
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| The next major
step was installing the slats for the decks. Having already
located and attached the final slats that rest against the
bulkheads on each half, the remaining slats were evenly spaced
using pieces of basswood strips; in this case "re-sized"
'Mt. Albert' S-scale 4x8's.
A note re. using strip-wood as a
jig material: Before using all 4 sides of the pieces were
carefully and "squarely" run across 320 sandpaper to
remove any burrs, surface texture, and to make sure there
was no "compression splaying/deforming" at the ends of
the strips where they had been cut; as these can all cause the
strips to not sit parallel, square or evenly.
The styrene slats were then
"snugly" and alternately inserted between the existing
end/bulkhead slats. The entire assembly was then pushed flush and
tight against a square "milling block". (Note that the
wood spacers fall just short of the inside edge of the side-sill;
this was done to prevent any possible wicking of the glue). Onto
the fitted slats and spacers was then placed another "milling
block" (not shown in the photo for clearer view) as a weight
to hold the entire assembly flush and tight onto the car frame.
Liquid cement was then applied to/between the slats at the
side-sill.
Once dry, the entire assembly was turned
180-degrees, the spacer strips pushed towards the now
affixed/glued side of the slats/frame, and the process repeated on
the other side-sill. Once this side had also completely dried, the
spacer slats were removed, and additional solvent was applied at
the slats and all the intermediate sills.
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| Once all the
slats were glued in place, and the bulkheads were completed, I
sprayed all the assemblies with a light coat of Mr. Surfacer 1200.
I did this to check for any problems, as well as unify the colors
and tone down the white styrene, for the next step; Drilling the
rivet and bolt holes.
The prototypes of these cars were
completely rivet and nut/bolt assembled. This presented a
bit of a challenge on the model, since only part of the car (all
the sills, and the exterior of the bulk-heeds and stakes) is
painted, the other part remains bare wood. In order to be able to
weather the wood surfaces, and properly paint all the nuts and
bolts their weathered metal finish, the NBW's were going to have
to be added separately.......thus requiring a hole to be drilled
for each one.
In the end there were over 300 holes, not
including the side stakes and holes for other hardware. Each
hole was drilled on with a .016 drill on a drill press with an X/Y
table, and then reamed/re-drilled by hand to .018.
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The end-sills, needle-beams, and bolsters
then received "end graining" to represent the radial
wood grain. This was done by carefully and very lightly touching
the parts to the disk sander. Care needs to be taken so as to only
make enough contact to "grain" the entire surface,
without actually shortening/sanding it.
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Due to time constraints I am taking some
shortcuts with this project and no longer drilling all the holes
for all the remaining needed NBWS (I plan to try just gluing them
on in the end, and hoping a light weathering will hide any glue
that might happen to show).
At this point the center and then the outer bulkheads were glued
in place, then the end boards were added, which was followed by
the .060 styrene angle "steel" frame. What became very
apparent here was that the frame had developed a slight bow of
about .5mm to .7mm (being lower at the center)....as there was no
good way to rectify this without having the deck slats start to
pop off, I decided to leave it, and use it to show a car with a
slight amount of "sag". This though also necessitates
that the "steel" angles be shaped and installed with a
sim bow/sag.
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Next came the side stakes.
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Once the stakes were in place, what showed
up was that the deck slats have a bit of "variation" in
their parallel-ness.....not enough to see when looking at the deck
alone....but definitely apparent when the side stakes went on (due
to their alignment with the stakes on opposite sides). Also, I was
off in the overall dimension of the two bays One being 2.225"
the other being 2.250".....thus causing the stake spacing to
be slightly different by .005".
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Below is where
I am currently at with this; still lacking some detail parts and
the trucks, and some 75-100 rivet heads, before I can shoot
primer. [The holes that you see are for some additional 350+ rivet
heads and nut/bolt details that need to be added after the car
receives its final paint]
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Finally got over one of the last
construction hurdles with this car....the construction of the
trucks.
The prototype car only had braking on one of the trucks, and they
were inside hung.
I wanted to replicate the feel of the archbar trucks, as well as
the ride height proportion of the images in the catalog cut.
Unfortunately the McLeod Russel trucks were intended to be used
with car hung brakes, and their wheelbase is too short to install
inside hung. The appearance of the McLeods was also not right for
the desired look.
I decided to use the side frames from Grandts 2'ga Gilpin trucks.
Because these are made of delrin, and will not hold glue well
enough to stand up to the use, some creative engineering was
needed. The Grandt bolster that came with them was too narrow, so
the 36"-ga bolster that came with the Russell trucks was
modified, by cutting a section out of the middle, and re-bonding
them to eventually space the Grandt side-frames for 30"-ga.
The Russel trucks also needed some shimming at each end, to create
the proper plastic thickness, a solid styrene brace was inserted
into the bolster for stiffness/bond. Once the GL frames were
cleaned and "roughed" with the fiberglass brush, the
mounting tabs were trimmed to fit the Russel bolster slots. After
inserting into the slots, a piece of strip styrene was glued
across the entire bolster bottom to lock the frames in place.
New bearing pivot plates were made from styrene, and part of a GL
D&RG steel bolster. The brake rigging was made from a
combination of styrene, the FMW coupler lever brackets, Grandt
brake shoes, code 55 rail, and some .022 brass rod.
Though not prototypical, the visual appearance from the side when
installed under the car provides the visual effect and detail I
was after.
Here is a quick snappie of the trucks prior to primer (sorry for
the poor quality pic)
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Here is a pic of the trucks with the inside
hung brakes after primer.
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| Painting
& Finishing |
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