Hy-cubes

Here are some more , others can be seen on the JC studios Site , I am listed under scratchbuilder1-48

All I can say is WOW! Man are those things huge. What is the minimum radius required? Out of curiosity, did you build them from brass or styrene? Excellent work BTW.

-Paul

I am absolutely in love with the baby-blue DT&I boxcar. There are still a few of those up here in pool service.

those are great! thanks for sharing!

I'd love one painted Grand Trunk Western, and one painted Norfolk Southern! I remember several years back at the Chicago March Meet, someone from the Milwaukee O Scalers group had several of these cars for sale at $40 each!!!! I'm still kicking myself for not getting them. The detail was quite nice, as these were also scratch built in styrene.

Nice work Bernie. Do any more Autoracks lately?

I wish such cars were commericaly available in O scale. Very nice modeling. What color mixture did you use for the magenta DT&I car? Although it has been a long time since I have seen a magenta car, I see other similar cars almost every day. I suspect that their long term future is bleak, though, approaching 40-50 years of service.

Dear Bernie, card are great, went to the website, what is the price of the cars? Thanks, John

A little more info on these cars , they are created from resin castings.
I am no expert as some modellers ,but I used drawings of Pullman , and Greenville
to make the molds . And from archive photos . These are constructed of 6 resin sides and then the door arms are brass as well as all the grab irons etc.
The only store bought items are trucks couplers , brake wheel and brake cyl. underneath. There are 188 seperate parts total plus the decals in an 8 door car.
It takes 45 hrs to build one and I have done 31 to date.I have an Alps Printer and Adobe Illustrator set up on a stand alone computer to create the decals.

Lukas, yes the DT&I still has some floating around , the DT&I modellers site has lots of pictures of these . My shop here in Florida is next to the CSX main line and I have 2 sidings where from time to time one of these are parked, never seen an 8 door though.
I grew up in Dearborn Mich. so back in the early 70's lots of these were everywhere. I love the giant logo's.

I am currently working on an outside braced 8 door that Southern Pacific had.

Matt, I do not have any more auto racks left , I had built 10 , and a man in Palm Beach made me an offer I could not refuse , I do have the Jigs and fixtures to make the tri-levels though . I have a couple that are partially built.

I am now into modern era , stack cars , and the nice thing about the hy-cubes is that they are still out there and some just have the old logo's painted over.
I just saw a Wabash 4 door on a siding down here.the logos were just blocked out in blue paint.

As far as the radius , I think 60" is about what you need . Atlas trucks will not work on these , they are too wide. I have one customer who provides Proto-craft trucks the new ones. I use the Weaver plastic trucks with metal wheelsets. For 3 rail ,Weaver diecast is what I use.

These look more impressive up close as the files here can only be so big. The door arms and all the add on details really make for a nice model especially the riveted panels on the sides.There were welded seam , riveted sides in various types , I have 5 different sides , 3 different ends , 3 different roofs . I am working on possibly offering these as a kit , but are not easy to build as I use super glue to bond all the sides and once the backsides of all castings are prepped (sanded) and attached , if you don't get it on perfect ,you won't get them apart. The sides are less than .080 thick.

Matt here is a picture of a ATSF autoveyor

Here is a Santa Fe Hy-cube

Almost scratchbuilt:

It was built from a Lykens Valley Models kit; basically a box of sticks cut to approximate size. At least with an O scale kit you can see the parts.

If you ever make kits of them for sale, I would like to buy some. I have always wanted autoparts cars since I was a kid so I speak with motivation at my end. I also see similar almost every day as I commute up I-75. It has been a while since I have seen a DT&I magenta car, though. I believe they were originaly assigned to Ford Woodhaven (MI) stamping. What color or paint mix do you use for your magenta?

Wow, these are awesome Bernie! Do you still sell them? Kit form or rtr, some of these would be excellent to have. Thanks for sharing the photos.
John

As far as the Magenta color on the DT&I , the DT&I modellers picture archive has a picture of the car and I just mixed it at ny shop till it looked right against the photo .
I may offer a kit , But they are not easy to build , I have a system to do them as I do build them for people . I have a shop and do nothing but O scale and O guage buildings , layouts and freight cars full time .

To build these cars it takes 40 hrs from casting the parts to boxing them up to ship out.

If you go the JCSTUDIOSINC.com site , and check out scratchbuilder1-48 you will see some extra photos,

Bernie

Wow, 45 hours to build one car. Guess one would be looking at over $500 for one of these to cover labor and materials.
Nice job on all and enjoyed looking at your work.
Good luck.
Phil

Bernie,

I am also interested in purchasing some kits. Conrail had hundreds of these cars, in both 4 and 8 door versions. What do you typically charge for an unassembled kit?

Thanks!
--Drew

Bernie,

That some really nice work. If I were still in 'O' scale I'd be looking you up!

As it is, I just finished my first 86' Hy-cube boxcar build. This one is in 1/29 scale....the box body is 3 feet long.

Here's a picture I took just a couple days ago, right after I had applied the decals. Drew will probably enjoy this one.

HiDTI

Did you cast it or just make the one,also did you do any panel detail on the sides either welded seam or riveted. It looks great , I had thought of making them in your scale but I don't think the resin cast would hold up outside .
Did you make the ends too.

Nice job , Bernie

Thanks Bernie,

Some resin do hold up outdoors. There's a guy that offered 60' hycubes and as far as I know they've held up well. He uses an Alumilite - the one with the highest temp rating.

As for my car, I cast the doors and ends, most of the rest was scratch'd from ABS and styrene. My model is of a Pullman Standard design so it had welded sides which I simulated by scribing in the weld seams.





If you're interested seeing some more of how I did all theis here's a link to a largescale forum that I posted a lot of info on how I built mine:

Forum link here

http://tinyurl.com/7aufskq

Brian B.
DT&I 1980ish in 1/29 scale

Hey Brian, beautiful work , it is a great scale to work in . It is difficult to reproduce the rollers for the tracks and the door arms with detail you have in O scale .
I have a large back yard and have often thought of going outside in 1/29th scale.
I just don't like it on the ground . I model Santa FE and UP , I like the desert terrain. Have thought of doing O scale outdoors too. I have a battery interface board to operate TMCC from batteries onboard.

Super nice !!!!

Bernie, As I used to say when I was in 'O' scale....bigger is better...then I found this 1/29 and now say, even bigger is better! I am finding out I really enjoy scratchbuilding in this scale. It would be nice to be able to buy some detail parts but even they can be scratchbuilt if you have enough info to work from.

I agree with you about not liking the trains on the ground, I like being at eye level which is why I took down my outdoor layout and moved back into the basement. In retirement (not too far off) I've negotiated with my wonderful wife to build a rather large building to house my trains in. At that point I'll be able to run my 86' boxcar(s).

Another great thing about bigger is I only use CVP Airwire900 R/C battery power for my engines. The track can be as dirty as sin and it doesn't matter. I was moving to Airwire on my 'O' scale stuff when I got out.

Brian ,
If you don't mind me asking , how many hrs do you have in the Hy-Cube building it .

Bernie

Beatiful looking cars!

ncng

Such handsome cars; these cars were especially handsome in the '60's when bright colors were the rage; an O-scale model of one of these would look great just for display as I'd never have a layout big enough to do it justice!!!
Thanks for sharing the pix!!!
Tim

Bernie,

I don't keep track but it's lots and lots of hours.....into the hundreds probably.

Brian

Hello Brian DT&I
That is one incredible build , when I undertook making these cars , I had to draw the line somewhere on the level of detail as far as the underbody goes . I cast mine and unfortunately the center sill of mine is solid .

You did a masterful job and can imagine when people see that car , they say , I want one !!.

Bernie

Hey Brian ,
My guess was going to be 150 hrs !
What most modellers don't realize is that it takes A LOT of time to do something like this. Just trying to find good photos and research info , takes time .
I have had numerous requests from people , not here but offline to purchase these and when I tell them a figure , they get insulted .


Your car captures every nuance and detail as I looked at it very carefully . Your skill is easily worth 50-75 an hr compared to other craftsman and a car like that would be a give away at even $2,000.00 .
I love these cars as they look so cool with the 60's logo's .

All the best , Bernie

Bernie,
These are awesome looking cars. I would be interested in seeing pics of the SP hy-cube once it's finished. Thanks for posting.

Bernie, what radii can your boxcars run on with 3 rail trucks?

Bernie,

Thanks for your compliments, they are appreciated, from one scratchbuilder to another. You do understand all that is involved with building an accurate model and that means a lot. As you state the research and planning is potentially and most likely difficult as the plans from the builders are hard to come by, and access to taking real measurements has a lot of limitations. I was a draftsman for many years and enjoy drawing up the plans for my projects as I find that helps me work out how I will construct it as well. You also know of the plight of limited decals availablity, meaning you probably had to draw up many of the decals you've used on these cars.

It's funny you mention my underbody, as I hadn't anticipated detailing it when I started but as I got into it I realized it wasn't going to be that much extra work so I did it. I think what you did is perfect for making it castable, I understand the principle of compromising for buildability. You do very nice work.

You said you grew up in Dearborn, I was born in Dearborn and for my first 8 years (1959-1967) I lived in Inkster and then moved to Farmington for 16 years.

Brian B.

Bernie, great work and good looking cars. Have you ever thought about taking orders (with a very good deposit)? This is one car I wish someone would produce, preferably Atlas.

I've been looking for the Lykens Valley Models 86' auto parts box car kit. Haven't found one yet, but sooner or later, one will show up on Ebay. I know there are lots of parts, but was thinking about cutting pieces of styrene in order to make a plastic kit instead of wood.

Last summer, I was able to purchase a USHobbies plastic box car kit. Haven't done anything with it yet, but it has some good possibilites.

If you're able to produce the 86' auto parts cars, please keep me in mind.

Here is a new scheme for the cubes.

When I was a member of the Milwaukee o scale club we had a member who was building Hi Cubes like this out of Styrene. I wish i coulds have learned from him how to make them.

 

These cars are pretty nice.

you should go into production.