C-30 wood caboose

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Rwilliams
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Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:45 pm
Location: Central California

C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

The last two days have allowed some shop time and the cupola bench seat grab irons have been bent, formed, and drilled for the #2 hex head lag screws. The bench seat sides have been painted on one side to facilitate cupola interior later. I will be using a slightly different bottom attachment for the grab irons than shown on the Keith Jackman C-30 caboose prints. The change will become apparent in the next few weeks. There will be floor to cupola cabinets to help strengthen the sides and give some interior detail.

Brad reports that the end sill cap castings have arrived back from the foundry and will be shipped this week. Then we can see the major pieces of the steel underframe fall together.

Robert
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Cupola bench seat side and grab iron..jpg
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JBodenmann
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by JBodenmann »

Hi Robert
The cupola seat end looks good. What sort of lockers went beneath the seats. Does the C30 have a water tank and sink and if so what was the sink made of. The tank and sink still remain to be made for the little bobber.
Jack
Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Hello Jack,

The tall cabinets were most likely used for clothing storage as they are the only tall storage spaces in the interior of the caboose. There was also a shorter cabinet in the same floor to cupola seat framed area that was insulated for storage of ice blocks and lunches. There were two water tanks in a corner of the caboose on a triangular support structure. The larger tank appears to have been for the washing of hands. The smaller tank appears to have been for drinking water with a paper cup dispenser on the wall above the galvanized steel sink I believe they called the water table. Somewhere I may have a photo in my archives and perhaps a floor plan drawing that shows the location of the water table and water tanks. I will dig around and see what I am able to find. I believe there are some detail drawings in the railroad museum library which I just found listed on line. I will be looking at them on my next research visit.

Robert
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makinsmoke
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by makinsmoke »

Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Yes, that is the real deal showing the wash water, drinking water and the wash basin/pan. Not much change from the C-30 to the C-40 in that area of the caboose.

Notice how they drew the side elevation drawing that only shows the back of the tool box or tool cellar as it was called by the SP. I had to work from a few basic measurements and photos to design and build my tool box. No drawings of the C-30 tool box survived. I have recently found caboose #604 on display in Arizona with the only remaining tool box in existence.
Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Time for some serious bench seat covering material. I did not want the paint look and have lined many jewelry boxes with velvet at school with my students. After researching various types of animal skins, I elected to use a nice black premium lamb skin. With nothing to be found here in town, I resorted to eBay and soon had a 2 square foot piece shipped from Italy.

Never having worked with a thin skin material before, I quickly learned that in testing, sharp tools would be required for the tough material. Contact cement worked great and one had to allow for excess material to have something to hang on to once the contact cement was applied. I allowed about a half inch of excess material to insure plenty of room for error. After the required 20 minute flash time of the glue had passed, application of the skin piece to the prepared maple seat bottom or back was a one chance deal. Once in place I used a piece of polished round stock to insure the surface of the leather was nice and smooth working from the center out almost like wall paper. Then it is time to wait a few hours for the glue to cure so trimming to final size is not a problem.

I discovered that final trimming works best on a piece of glass with a new utility knife blade or a single edge razor blade. After several cuts I noticed the blade becoming dull. After trimming 4 of the seat parts, I finished up the other 4 parts with a fresh blade giving a nice smooth edge.

The attached photo shows one of the numbered seat bottom pieces. With all 4 of the seats cut to fit, using numbers is important to insure the correct part always ends up where it belongs. One can see the excess material allowing for glue spreading and still have a small perimeter free of adhesive to work with. This seat bottom is soon to be ready for the trimming knife. I trimmed the less important areas first to gain experience and then tackled the more visible areas like the top of the seat backs.

Soon the new Italian leather covered seats will be installed and a crew member will be selected to evaluate the efforts of the shop crew.
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Lamb skin bench seat bottom.jpg
Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Today had the end sill cap castings arriving and a test fit to the end sill was in order. Not an easy part to make so a casting was the best way to approach the part.

At the same time I shot an image of the bench seat cushions for the cupola after all the excess lamb skin had been trimmed away. The vertical black line on the side of the bottom cushion served to locate the edge of the lamb skin. I attached the skin to the line first and then pulled it around the front edge and to the back. The excess was then trimmed off at the back edge of the maple.
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Cupola bench seats.jpg
Cupola bench seats.jpg (58.9 KiB) Viewed 14062 times
Caboose end sill cap castings.jpg
Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Perhaps we should take a peek into the future and see what all the parts will look like when the caboose is completed. Here is the Keith Jackman C-30 making a run with one of my new tool boxes at the SVLS Fall Meet earlier this year. Keith fell in love with my pilot model tool box and made me an offer I could not refuse. It did not take him long to fit it to the frame of his caboose since I had used his plans to insure it would fit any caboose built to his frame design. I used the same paint and semi-gloss clear coat so it was a perfect match. My caboose with feature some minor changes from his design but share most of the same genetics. They should look real nice together in a twin caboose hop behind his beautiful Black Widow GP-9.
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KP Jackman C-30 at 2010 Fall Meet.jpg
Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

I never have liked plumbing and scale plumbing is even less desirable because my fingers are not to the proper scale. When it came to the delicate job of fitting up several 1/8 inch MTP fittings and some homemade pieces to achieve the needed whistle and air brake valve assembly, I looked at the time involved and immediately started thinking casting. I used some cross fittings to make reasonable looking plug valves since even those were not to be found in our hobby. Almost a dozen small drilled holes later I had the master pattern completed. With a casting of all the parts combined, I would only have to drill one hole after removing the sprue from the bottom of the tee fitting and I was in business.

Locating the single hole in the tee fitting of the resulting casting was not easy, therefore, a simple drilling fixture was manufactured and allowed me to drill six castings in very little time. It is easy to see why there are very few super detailed 1.5 scale cabooses out there as the time involved is great and the dearth of custom detail castings is enough to scare many away. With two castings needed, one on each end of the caboose, this casting is a real time saver.

The photos show the fixture in the mill vise and open with a casting in correct position before closing. The last image shows the master pattern before it was sent away for mold making.

Next will be the clamp bracket to hold the casting to the railing on the caboose platform. I will be using slightly different dimensions from the Jackman drawings as I used slightly different lengths of brass when making the pattern. This part is almost universal to most any SP, T&N0, or NWP caboose. It may also be very close to what other roads used except for the mounting location. I have already had one builder tell me that he intends to upgrade his caboose model now that this detail casting is now a part of the hobby.
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Caboose piping manifold.jpg
Caboose drill fixture.jpg
Caboose drill fixture in mill.jpg
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makinsmoke
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by makinsmoke »

Hey Robert,
Might give these folks a call......

http://modelrailcastings.com/item.php?id=39

Brian
Rwilliams
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Brian,

Very observant on your part. The images on the model rail castings website are the ones that just got the sprues cut off and drilled yesterday.

Today I made a bending fixture to form up the clamp to hold the casting to the railing of the caboose platform. No way to purchase the required stock material required for the clamp until tomorrow at the soonest. Model building supplies are hard to find here in town and many times small brass stock has to be mail ordered.

Robert
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JBodenmann
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Re: C-30 wood caboose

Post by JBodenmann »

Hi Robert
Looking good, keep the photos and descriptions coming.
Jack
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