New & improved flat with lumber

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MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
Oct 31, 2002
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Ottawa, Canada
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Warning: This is a NON-removable "e"oad... ;)

I received a book on quick flat car projects, and the first thing I tackled was a flat car loaded with lumber.

The flat is a Walthers 42' Great Northern work flat. This little kit comes with a whole bunch of accessories, including all the parts to make a tie and rails car, a MOW car, and so on. I decided to keep all that stuff for other projects, and just go for a flat. I may have to change the lettering I suppose...!

List of materials:

Walthers flat
Craft sticks - approx 6"x6" in HO scale
Scale 4"x4" for stakes
Scale 2"x4" for cross strapping
Deck is weathered first by scraping with an Atlas Snap Saw, then layered with washes of grimy black, dirt, and alcohol/india ink in that order.
Trucks dry brushed with burnt sienna/burnt umber craft paint. When I put the alcohol wash over this, there was a bit of a reaction - the result looks like really bad rust where it is flaking off - any advice (TomPM...!)?

I built the loads hollow in the bottom stack so I could add weight if needed, but the car seems ok as is.

Comments please!

Thanks.

Andrew
 

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Here's a shot from the end. You can see the weathering on the deck a bit better from this angle.

It was not really hard to do. Took about 2 hours total to build the load and then weather the car. I was most afraid of the weathering, but I am pleased with how it turned out...

Andrew
 

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Andrew:
for a slightly cheaper way to model lumber stacks (for modelling neater stacks) you can model the middle layers using a sheet of stripwood of the right width and thickness, and cut the ends where the boards would separate. Use separate boards for the top layer.
Belg:
Someone once did type the wrong letter; we liked the term and have been using it ever since. There are a few more that show up.
 
That looks great Andrew! I confess I have a soft spot for flatcars and their Eoads! Just wondering if maybe you might want to (carefully) paint the ends of the lumber? Just a thought - wouldn't want the paint to soak in though.

cheers
Val
 
Andrew:

Excellent work! This look sgreat; I just KNOW I've seen a picture of that load somewhere!

Speaking of pictures, there is a good book out there, one of a series, called "Classic Freight Cars, the Series", Volume 6: Loaded Flats and Gondolas... This book is chock full (loaded?) of load ideas. A great reference for those of us interested in open-load cars...

Thanks for the inspiration, Andrew...

Jim ;)
 
Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

Belg - eoad is a typo that just stuck - one of the first "Gaugespeak" words I guess.;)

Blake - That's good - I thought I was the only one who laughs when I see eoad...:D

Val - what colour would I paint the ends, and why? I know sometimes lumber is painted to indicate dimension or grade... Is this what you have in mind?

Andrew
 
I won't speak for Val but I believe that is what she was hinting at but I'm wondering if you shouldn't check if this was prototypical in the era that your modeling first because I think this is something that is more prevelant today then in years past.
 
Originally posted by 60103
Andrew:
for a slightly cheaper way to model lumber stacks (for modelling neater stacks) you can model the middle layers using a sheet of stripwood of the right width and thickness, and cut the ends where the boards would separate. Use separate boards for the top layer.
Click to expand...

Hi David,

I did see a load constructed like that once. Also seemed like an easy way to get the individual board look. How difficult would it be to cut the boards to different lengths though?

In this case I used el-cheapo craft sticks, not expen$ive stripwood, and cut the cost even further by only gluing in "ends" (about 1/4 inch long) in the middle of the stacks - they are hollow.

Good point though, since cutting and gluing all the individual bits was kind of a pain in the you-know-what.

Andrew
 
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