Index>Modeling
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> Boonton Combine
Kitbashing
a Funaro & Camerlengo Boonton Coach into a Boonton Combine.
WARNING: The
following dissertation contains modeling methods which may be appalling.
Almost every
steam powered passenger and milk train I've seen
Materials
- F&C
Boonton Coach Kit
- Evergreen
Sheet Styrene No. 9030
- Evergreen
Sheet Styrene (clear) N0. 9007
- Evergreen
Car siding No. 2037
- Grandt
Line Passenger Car Roof Details No. 5043
- Pikestuff
Coach seats No. 541-4101
- Eastern
Car Works Pullman Standard 4 wheel truck, (part # 9005.)
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has a Boonton
combine as well as a coach. In the near future, F&C are going
to re-release a much improved resin Boonton coach kit along with a
combine. This is all fine and well except for 2 things.
1) The improved
kits are going to be twice the price they were and
2) I wanted a
combine NOW.
Therefore I looked
a few things over and decided I could whip up a combine from one of
the old coach kits without undue trouble. This is not meant as a step
by step, but rather a basic "here's how I did it."
Start with a
Funaro & Camerlengo Boonton coach kit. (These are no longer issued
by the way, so if you don't already have one tucked away for 'someday',
you'll have to really look around. Ask your friends. I haven't
even seen them on the dreaded eBay.)
The June 1969
issue of Railroad Model Craftsman would be helpful for this project,
but not necessary. It contains drawings for the coaches similar to
what comes in the F&C kits, but includes a combine drawing. Any
photos you can find in books will help you with this project as well.
Cutting:
Basically, you start, by counting back from an end and cutting out
the 3rd and 4th windows to make a door opening about 5 scale feet
wide and 6 feet high. I did this by marking with pencil lines, drilling
holes in the 4 corners (inside the required dimensions) and carefully
cutting with a sharp #11 blade (in the handle of course). I then carefully
filed the door opening to make it straight and true as humanly possible.
Filling:
Next we need to fill in 3 windows, the two between the door opening
and the end of the car and the one on the other side of the door opening
we just made. I shaved off the rivets between the two windows and
those along our new door opening, leaving the rivet strip above and
below the door opening.
Then I put masking
tape behind the windows I eliminated and filled them with epoxy. If
you do this carefully, the epoxy will just fill the windows enough
to make it look like a blank side. Too little and you'll still see
the windows. Too much and the epoxy will run all over and cause confusion
and delay.
Filing:
After the epoxy dries overnight (recommended,) take a flat file you
trust and carefully file the flat of the windows to true them up (if
needed.) While you're at it, use the file to round over the sides
of the door opening, leaving the top and bottom flat. At this point,
I threw some Poly Scale Pullman Green paint on the filled windows
to help see if they looked OK. (They did for the most part.) Remove
the masking tape.
Door:
The door is the simplest of simple as it's just a blank with a small
window. Take a piece of sheet styrene and cut a window in it about
1 1/2 x 1 3/4 scale feet wide. Now cut a door around the window a
wee bit bigger than the opening, sufficient for gluing. Make the bottom
right on the line or the bottom of the coach won't fit right.
I glued my door
in place to complete the side, but you can wait until you construct
the rest of the kit if you wish. It should also be possible to create
a slightly open door, but you then run the risk of showing off an
unfinished interior.
Viola! (or as
I say, Walla!) Now assemble the kit as per the included F&C
instructions and you've got a Boonton combine. Just add a vertical
grab iron to the left of the door along with a stirrup step and everything
will be swell. (a divider between the baggage and seating compartments
were also added, but maybe that's just me.)
Photo
Sources
- Erie/DLW
Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment by Larry DeYoung
and Mike Del Vecchio
- Lackawanna
Trackside by Mike Del Vecchio
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Note: I finished
off the combine with sheet styrene glazing, paper window shades of
various heights, and seats from Pikestuff. The interiors of the Boonton
coaches were reportedly a maroon color and this will help hide the
interior. I also put about 6 seated passengers in the seats.
The trucks I
am putting on this car are Eastern Car Works Pullman Standard 4 wheel
truck, (part # 9005.) No doubt this is not an absolute match, but
it was recommended to me as a 'Goodnuff' by Rusty Recordon. Don recommenced
removing the little brake 'ears.'
Numbers:
So far I've only found one photograph of a combine on the Sussex Branch
which has a legible number, it's #425. Any others out there? Someday,
I'll want to do a second combine.
Since receiving
the Erie/DLW color guide to Freight & Passenger Equipment, I
see that my combine (above) needs to be renumbered. The 425 had
one less window per side than my kitbash. Luckily, I can simply
renumber it as the 419 which is pictured in the Guide on page 79
coupled to what looks like a pflauders milk car. Sounds like another
likely candidate for Branch operations.
By the way,
the prototype for this model (the 425) still exists in Wisconsin.
See it here: http://www.mcrwy.com/collectn/stlpas/dlw425.html