Depressed center flat car

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Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

This is a kit i just picked up from Pacific design shops.
Great kit so far.
The start
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Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

Bottom done
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The trucks
This is an old kit from Charlie faircraft or fair I belive.
They went on to become the same ones available from mountain car co.
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Finished with tom bee steel wheels and different center caps.
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ccvstmr
Posts: 2230
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2003 10:37 am
Location: New Lenox, IL

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by ccvstmr »

Terr1bleone...have to say, that's a helluva work bench you have there. You must do a considerable amount of welding!

Depressed center flat cars are an interesting addition to any fleet of rolling stock. Are you following any particular prototype? And with this type of car...you're going to need an equally interesting load to transport. Have any ideas yet? Keep up the great work. Carl B.
Life is like a sewer...what you get out of it depends on what you put into it!
I don't walk on water...I just learned where some of the stepping stones are!
I love mankind...it's some of the people I can't stand!
Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

Yes Carl I do, not sure how I got by before it.

Its modeled after a car made by General Steel Castings during the early 1950’s.
Probably going to do union pacific red. I built the buckeye trucks a few years ago and never had a prototypical car to use them on so thats the main excuse for the car.
Not sure on the load, maybe something easily removable. I don't want too many fragile things on this on as I'd be a nice riding car. I've seen yours at ILS before with a pretty nice transformer I believe on it, do you have any pictures of it?
-Mike
Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

Not much to post today except about this wonderful little tool I came across, its called a mini pneumatic beveling tool.
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It might be hard to see in the picture but it's basically a metal router. Laser cut kits are nice but very sharp.
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Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

Finished welding the frame and welded the top middle deck on. Trying to decide between metal or wood end decks. Leaning towards metal but really like the added pop the wood gives it.
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User avatar
SPSteam2491
Posts: 271
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:30 pm
Location: Mukwonago, WI

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by SPSteam2491 »

Fantastic work on that car! And I saw FireBall tool use a similar beveling tool for taking the corners off and I think I am going to look at getting one for taking off those laser cut corners as well. Or how I can adapter a M12 Angle Die Grinder to fit that bit and adjustment screw.

The steel deck is neat as the keyhole cutouts are designed to hold onto 5/16" chain from Precision Steel Car. I wouldn't use that chain to actually hold items down, but you could bolt your load through the bottom deck and use that chain to mock up the hold downs on the ends. But the wood deck is really sweet and offer a great contrast. Thankfully all the holes are there so you can change your mind down the road.
Attachments
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Thanks
John LaFavor
Pacific Design Shops
ccvstmr
Posts: 2230
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2003 10:37 am
Location: New Lenox, IL

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by ccvstmr »

Terr1bleone wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 11:50 pm Yes Carl I do, not sure how I got by before it.

Its modeled after a car made by General Steel Castings during the early 1950’s.
Probably going to do union pacific red. I built the buckeye trucks a few years ago and never had a prototypical car to use them on so thats the main excuse for the car.
Not sure on the load, maybe something easily removable. I don't want too many fragile things on this on as I'd be a nice riding car. I've seen yours at ILS before with a pretty nice transformer I believe on it, do you have any pictures of it?
-Mike
Mike...never heard of Pacific Design Shops. That's a good looking car kit...made better by good welding. It's going to be an "attention getter"!

Had a set of trucks and didn't know what to put them under? Been there, done that. Don't know how many years I had a couple pairs of old time passenger car trucks (one R-T-R and one still in kit form) before deciding to decorate those with Sierra "shorties" to go one top. Some years ago, pulled enough truck parts from the scrap box to make trucks that went under a transfer caboose (I think). Where there's a will...there's a way!

Depressed center flat car loads? Well, the first thing that came to mind when I rebuilt my depressed center flat was...what kind of loads were used for smaller model train cars? Large ship propellers...crank shafts...small compressors...and of course, transformers. Wanted to build something that was NOT going to add considerably to the car weight.

Drove around and snapped photos of nearby electrical substation yards to see how those transformers looked. Had to shoot photos thru the fence around the yards. Power companies don't like the public wandering around their hardware (for good reason). Some finger research on the internet also provided info and ideas. From there, scaled something that would fit the center area of the flat car. Normally, RR's don't ship transformers with the cooling tubes intact. Too fragile. But without the tubes, the transformer looks like nothing more than a box. The tubes and other details provided the framework of the item being shipped. So let me ask...do you want photos of real xfmrs? ...or my model xfmr?

Sidestep...some years back, built a Precision Steel Car 53 foot Gen'l Steel Car bulkhead flat. Decided to do my own wood work for the deck and bulkheads. Drilled and countersunk all the planks for stainless trim hex head screws and washers. Transferred the hole locations to the car deck and bulkheads. Yes, it was a lot of work, but the final result was worth the effort.

Waiting to see the end result. Keep up the great work! Carl B.
Life is like a sewer...what you get out of it depends on what you put into it!
I don't walk on water...I just learned where some of the stepping stones are!
I love mankind...it's some of the people I can't stand!
Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

John, you could probably come up with a fence for a carbide burr in your die grinder, but for the 35 bucks it was on amazon probably not worth the time unless you don't have air supply.
-Mike
Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

Carl, the idea of a crankshaft sounds interesting I'll have to do some more research before I decide what to put on it.
I'd still like to see pics of yours for ideas if you don't mind.
-Mike
ccvstmr
Posts: 2230
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2003 10:37 am
Location: New Lenox, IL

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by ccvstmr »

Hello Mike...

Basically built a box from 1/2" plywood. Solid plywood for the sides and back. The front was made with several full width pieces with slots cut for the cooling tube bundle supports. Tubes were made from 1/4" dowel rods. The tube bundle supports were 1/4" "wrinkled" plastic from a desk chair floor covering. Bundle supports had to be sturdy...didn't want to play a game of 196 pick up sticks if the bundles ever fell apart. Took (5) plastic pieces. Double layer top and bottom...single layer in the center. Drilled the holes for the underside of the top, the center and the topside of the bottom to hold the dowels. The pieces were clamped together so all holes stayed in alignment. There's (6) thread rods with acorn nuts on the ends in each bundle to secure the bundle before attaching inside the box. Used brass tubing between the bundle supports to hide the thread rod...in case someone wanted to find the thread rods. The ends of the dowels were beveled on a belt sander. As mentioned previously, without the cooling tubes, the box just looks like a box covered with aluminum flashing using contact cement. The tubes add credibility to the "load" (my opin).

1/16" alum angle was used for the vertical corners. 1/8" alum angle was used around the top and bottom perimeter. All angles attached with escutcheon pins. The transformer ribs were made from plastic lumber. Had a piece of 1/8" aluminum plate for the top. Turned the insulators out of acrylic rod using a form tool. Had some 1" aluminum disks that were used to simulate "access man holes". Think there's a couple Precision Steel Car fuel level gauges to monitor internal faux PCB's...and PSC lifting castings on the corners used for the tie-downs.

Here's some pix.

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Found an old Westinghouse logo somewhere (most likely on-line) and used that to cut some vinyl graphics for the sign board. Came up with the "contractors" MWE logo for Micro Watt Electric.

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Added the other gimmicks on the car end platforms to fill up the open space. Have transformer construction pix in my photo library.

How's that? Carl B.
Life is like a sewer...what you get out of it depends on what you put into it!
I don't walk on water...I just learned where some of the stepping stones are!
I love mankind...it's some of the people I can't stand!
Terr1bleone
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:01 pm

Re: Depressed center flat car

Post by Terr1bleone »

Carl, great pics very informative thank you. I especially like the things you put on the end platforms, it really complements the load.
- Mike
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