CGW Shake and Take Kit

Its been quite a while since I posted about my modelling efforts.  I've been busy working on new kits for National Scale Car. In between casting, packing, and writing instructions I've managed to build a few freight cars for my layout.

Attendees of the Chicagoland RPM in 2017 received parts to create a 1937 AAR Boxcar for Chicago Great Western.  These cars used a Pullman car builder end.  The kit included resins parts, decals, and a Red Caboose Square corner undecorated kit. In 2018 George Toman presented a clinic on building his kit using the supplied parts.  Georges Clinic Can be found here.

I followed Georges Clinic to create an accurate car as I could muster.  I decided to not cut up a perfectly good Red Caboose Square corner car and instead started with an Intermountian 10' IH car instead.  The ends are separate parts so it saves cutting them off. I will let the pictures and captions tell the rest of the story.  I will be attending this years Chicagoland RPM and I'm already looking forward to George's Clinic on building the 2018 car.

Scratch built under frame, the kit under frame has diagonal corner braces where as the prototype did not. Also, the Z bar stringers are larger between the cross bearers at 4" x 4" versus the rest of the stringers at 3" x 3".

The floor from the body was milled off.  I custom made mounting brackets for the brake appliances from brass sheet and archer rivets.  The dead lever actually can rotate in the mounting bracket.

I also bent up a plate steel brake step from brass sheet.  Ladder attachment brackets were made from styrene strip and harvested rivets.  I filed the Equipco Brake Mechanism by hand, starting with and Ajax one, with some added styrene to the bottom.  The single hand grab on the end was fashioned from a partial bracket, styrene rod and harvested rivets.

Yarmouth Model Works Sill steps installed, along with one of their Wood Running Boards and brackets.

A view of the finished end with air hose bracket and cut lever installed. I cut the ladder rungs off and replaced them with 0.010" styrene rod.

Primed and ready for inspection before final paint.  The door track was also modified to match the prototype with the visible opening between it and the lower sill.

The roofs on these were painted black, while the running boards were stained and the painted, followed up by sanding off most of the paint to give a weathered look.

I weathered to match a Prototype photo using Pan Pastels and an AK wash.  Chalk marks were also added in addition to the  kit decals.