More Freight Cars

I bought a couple of 3D printed freight car kits on eBay recently, and with the Brewery done, finally got them both built.

The kits were pretty cheap, about $11 each for a flat and a medium-side gondola. The seller, All4toys, offers the flat, a few variations on the gondola, and a tank car. All are based on the same 14 foot, four axle chassis, and come with 3D printed trucks, but do not include wheels or couplers. The instructions suggest Kadee 300 On30 24 inch wheels, so I bought a pack of those and a pack of Kadee 148 couplers. All in, I spent about $19 per car, not including tax or shipping, which is pretty reasonable.

The seller was helpful and the cars came well packaged.

I started with the flat, which has a laser cut wood deck and side stakes. The chassis and truck parts are a fairly soft plastic and had a moderate amount of flash. I spent maybe an hour cleaning them up with an Xacto knife, file and sandpaper. Then I washed them well (Windex and an old toothbrush, followed by dish detergent and warm water) and let them dry outside in the sun for a couple hours. Then I spray painted them with dark brown rattlecan spray paint.

When dry, I scraped paint off the mating surfaces and assembled the trucks with ACC, then installed them with the provided screws.

Here it is with the unstained deck sitting on it.

Checking with a Kadee coupler height gauge, it looks like the couplers would come out high if mounted directly to the frame, so I'll use the provided spacers to lower them a bit.

There's a mounting point for a brake wheel on one end. I don't have any brake wheels on hand, but I'll drill a hole so it's ready for installation when I get one. There are also queenposts for truss rods on the bottom, so I'll make some from wire. I may also add stirrup steps on the corners -- I'll have to check first to be sure they won't interfere with truck rotation.

8/8: Continuing the build, here's an underside view with truss rods and stirrup steps added. The steps are made from staples.

Here it is with paint, and couplers installed:

Unfortunately, the couplers are still too high:

So I replaced the Kadee 24 inch On30 wheel sets with Kadee H.O. 36 inch wheel sets, which brings it closer to correct height:

There are a couple things of things I could try to lower the coupler height a bit more, or I could stick with the On30 wheelsets and use offset shank couplers.

Anyway, here it is on the layout for now. Side stakes will wait until I'm done fooling around with the trucks and couplers. I also need to order some brake wheels so I can add that detail.

Here's the other one, a low side gondola, ready for the paint shop.

Like the flat car, I added stirrup steps made from heavy staples, and hand grabs from light staples.

I painted it with a dark brown spray paint, then an irregular coat of light Tuscan red (grimy black on the trucks), then dry brushed with gray. I added a load carved from a scrap of EPS foam, painted tan then sprinkled with some sand that I harvested from a steam bed in Lockwood Valley.