TheRailwire
General Discussion => N and Z Scales => Topic started by: Kentuckian on January 06, 2013, 11:51:04 AM
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I know this has been beat to death, but I can't find the info I need, and I can't get the "Best of the Wire" links to work. What fraction of an inch do the MT bolsters need to be lowered?
My father-in-law is a retired machinist and is needing something to do to take his mind off some health issues. Milling frames may be the ticket. I'm thinking about 1/32", but wanted other opinions.
Thanks.
Kentuckian
C & O in eastern KY.
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IMHO, there is no single answer to this question, because
1) Some equipment is so off in height that lowering it to the prototype height would unduely distort the proportions, thus making it look even worse overall.
2) Because of the above, one might decide to establish personal standards whereby equipment heights are overall deliberately off by a set percentage.
Also, although this defeats your purpose of helping out your father-in-law, you don’t need fancy equipment to easily lower freight car bolsters. What I do is take a flat hard surface, place the car floor bolster-up on it, and file it down with a shimmed metal file. The latter consists of a sharp metal file with 2 stacks of plastic card taped to each end. The card (thickness obtained by trial and error) guarantees that the file remains parallel with the reference surface, and only cuts to a specific height.
Finally, there are currently a bunch of threads visible on the first page of “Best Of The Wire Archives”, and here are a few:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23747.15
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=4350.0
MH
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Does he do CNC? If so, you can have him work on cutting the side sills and inner frame stops to somewhat correct the MTL PS-1 boxcars as in this thread: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28313.0
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Honestly at this point I would just go with BLMA trucks. They'll lower the car a little and improve the look of the off-set trucks. The MTL standard box car just can't be made to look right.
Mike's method does go one step further in correcting the over all height, but also creates other issues with the rest of the car.
Jason
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Just picked up an MT bay window cabin (PC) on the cheap. Wasn't there something here that mentioned how to lower it? Can't seemt to find it.
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Tom Mann lowered one of the bay window cabooses when it was first released, and the thread probably still exists in this forum. But the body height is way off as well, so lowering the model doesn't resolve all of the issues.
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I solved mine the easy way - no measuring. If you want to use milling machine, measure the height to the underside of the floor. On mine, I filed the bolster until it measured 0.275 inches, the right height for a 1025 coupler. That way, I could mount the coupler using the existing holes, saving a lot of work. If that looks good to you, regardless of your choice of coupler, subtract 0.275 from whatever the original height was, and mill off that amount.
How did I do it without measuring? A piece of 3/32 square brass bar was the right height for a gauge, and I eyeballed the height of the bolster to match the bar...
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Thanks for the replys. N Kalanaga, this is what I was looking for.