I finished glueing on roof panels and rounding the edges. The roof of the prototype was welded to the car sides and edge was sort of just a big round over, with no overhang. This is a little harder to do on a model than your typical roof with a slight overhang. If you remember, my frames had a notch for a large styrene block. The block was slightly larger than the notch and was shaped with sanding sticks to match the curvature of the roof framing. It also adds a nice styrene to styrene bond at the corners. The roof panels were cut from .030 styrene on the laser, and the locations of the roof walk supports were engraved. Again, this saves on measuring and marking with a pencil, and the laser is more accurate than I can be. The corner styrene block/roof sheet is rounded over with sanding sticks.
Photo above shows 1/16 z bar strips added as the walkway supports on the smaller roof.
The roof walks were cut from poly backer, which is about .023 thick. In o-scale, this would be a little over an inch in the real world. Appropriate I think. My initial walk is on the left, but comparing it to the photos of the prototype, the crosspieces had too much separation. Speaking of the prototype, these cars were initially built with wood end platforms and roof walks, but, the merged Erie-Lackawanna, replaced the wood on some of the cars with metal open grating. Since I am building at least a handful of these, I will use wood on some. This first car, is going to be a 1970’s Erie-Lackawanna.
Completed roof walks.
I realized tonight that I don’t have any brake gear for this car. Tichy makes a very nice AB set in HO, but not in O. Does anyone make a plastic brake gear set in O? Or do I need to get metal castings?
Jim
