With the contents of the box car secured for transport, can shift attention to the reefer door details. Once again, Precision Steel Car offers an excellent set of castings for a reefer door latching mechanism. The only part NOT supplied...is the latch bar. I cut a strip of .045" thick brass to make (2) .240" wide strips...that were sized to length to fit the doors on the reefer.
Years ago when construction of the reefer was started, I had reefer door parts available from the Mercer Loco Work reefer detail kit. Used the hinges way back then. Drilled out the mounting holes and used a couple brass round head screws that would somewhat look like hinge rivets.
If you're looking to build a reefer or in the process of building such a car, take a look at the Precision Steel Car website. There's a view in their website that shows all the individual pieces, their function, the parts numbers and of course, the price. Can also buy a complete set of castings including door hinges. Still...you're on your own for the door latch bar.
After a little file cleaning and drilling all the mounting holes in various pieces, the door latch bar was assembled. All the pieces went thru a glass bead blast cabinet for surface cleaning. Glass bead blasting is not as aggressive as something like silica sand or Black Beauty grit.
Once all the parts were "cleaned"...they were painted the right proper color...Rustoleum Marigold Yellow and hung to dry. For small parts, stuck them to a piece of masking tape and hung the lot of parts in one group.
Don't know how many times I took the door latch bar end cam off and reassembled. Seemed like I was always forgetting to install the parts in the correct sequence. Certainly, before the end cams were attached to the bar, there's a bar mid bearing that needs to be slid in place. That brass latching bar...needs to slide thru the mid bearing (and turn if you want the latch operational). 2-56 screws were used to assemble the latch bar and handle and end cams.
Should have included this photo in the box car section. Here's a view of the jewelry clasps I considered for the door "seal" or "lock". Decided the lobster claw clasp on the right was too large. Took the clasp on the left and removed the ring used for the jewelry chain end. CAUTION...these things are NOT made for people with large hands and fingers! Hard to handle even for someone with small hands and fingers!
So when the top and bottom latch receivers were attached to the car along with the mid bearing...set the door lock hasp in the handle against the car side to fasten. Some time later, went back to touch up the brass hex head lag screws that held the parts to the car body and add the door "seal". When it was all done, this was the result.
Well, that's the last of the details to be attached to the cars. Next time, will explain what was done for the graphics. Carl B.
