Passenger Core Kits or Car Milling services

[Ike the BN Freak]

I've decided to try to make some progress on my BN Business car set this winter, however my biggest hurdle is the lack of passenger core kits.

I've got a decent stock of Kato coaches/sleepers I could also use, however I don't have any way of milling the sides down to allow the attachment of brass or styrene car sides. Same issue I'll have with my full dome and its replacement car side. Does anyone know of anyone who offers milling services? Or a source for core kits?

[Sharky_McSharknose]

I found this American Limited 85' passenger car core replica on Shapeways. Sadly, the tooling for the original American Ltd. core kit was damaged so those old authentic kits are very hard to find.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/YGQWHE4AX/n-scale-replica-american-core-car-kit

I have no experience with the Shapeways kit. Perhaps someone else on the forum does and can give some opinions on it.

[thomasjmdavis]

The shapeways "replica", from the graphics, is only the roof -floor-end sprue.  Those parts remained available from San Juan long after the full kits went off the market.  Plus it sells at a vastly inflated price- San Juan was selling that same sprue at $5 each. 

I had a conversation with the owners of San Juan a couple years prior to the sale of the company to Leadville Shops.  From what they told me at the time, the roof-floor sprue molds had survived, and it was the detail parts sprue mold that was damaged.  But I don't know if any of the tooling currently survives, or was part of the San Juan-Leadville deal. 

The best current solution:
Des Plaines Hobbies still sells many of their passenger car kits for Southern Pacific, CNW and Texas Special cars. 
http://www.desplaineshobbies.com/store/category/21/105/N-Passenger-Car/page3.html  (scroll down to "DPN" product numbers).  You may want to call to verify stock.  And if you don't care about what sides you get, be kind to your fellow modelers and buy from the items that have larger stocks so as to leave the higher demand items for the serious SP modelers.

The car kits include a full core kit with underbody details and trucks, as well as sides. The SP kits with styrene sides are $27, and that's less than the core kits go for on eBay, and only $1 more than the shapeways roof and floor.  I have purchased several of the kits from them in the past year, and they include ALL the "core kit" parts, and may even come with some extras specific to the particular car.

Tom D

[nickelplate759]

I really think that the underbody detail assortment like the one included in the old American Limited kit would be a good candidate for 3D printing - more so than the roof.   I'd certainly buy a good one.  There were a few parts of the old American Limited kit that would have to be done differently

1. The small curved roof-edge vents were molded flat and had to be curved by hand. Works in styrene, but 3D-printed parts should be printed curved.
2.  Same for the large square roof panel

Also, the A-M kit only included 2 styles of water tank.  There was no double-width tank, and the single-width tanks were fairly short and I often had to splice two to make a longer one.  Print it long and let the modeler cut it shorter if needed!

[CodyO]

I ordered 10 core kits spures in January of 19.

This has the roof,floor and ends.
I emailed  sanjuancar AT durango.net

[Ike the BN Freak]

I ordered 10 core kits spures in January of 19.

This has the roof,floor and ends.
I emailed  sanjuancar AT durango.net

Did these come with the detail parts sprue also, or just the ends, roof, and floor?

Also, I had one, can't seem to remember where I put it, but did the floors come with body mounting pads for couplers, or is that a I need to drill and tap or just stick with truck mounts?

[Wutter]

Also, I had one, can't seem to remember where I put it, but did the floors come with body mounting pads for couplers, or is that a I need to drill and tap or just stick with truck mounts?

You will need to drill and tap for body mounting (there are no dimples for drilling or anything) or use truck mounted couplers.

[thomasjmdavis]

San Juan Car Co was sold to Leadville Shops.  The whole has been renamed San Juan Models.  Given the number of times I have emailed them about ALM, I was surprised to discover that they have a new website that I knew nothing about, which is here:

https://sanjuanmodelco.com/

The only N scale I could find listed were the various styles of ALM diaphrams.  But you might contact them (I just did) about roof-end-floor sprues and/or any intentions to manufacture complete core kits in the future.

I'm toying with the idea of making them an offer on the tooling.  Anyone know an injection molding shop that can take on a small job lot type project and has some experience with models?  (and, where can I get a crash course on 30 year old injection molding technology and what goes into adapting a mold made for one machine to a different machine- so I would have some idea of what kind of cost to expect).

[reinhardtjh]

Did these come with the detail parts sprue also, or just the ends, roof, and floor?

Floor, roof, two ends, two doors for the ends and a long bar that I never did figure out what it was for. 

Also, I had one, can't seem to remember where I put it, but did the floors come with body mounting pads for couplers, or is that a I need to drill and tap or just stick with truck mounts?

Floor is smooth at the end, no coupler pads, pockets or markings.  Drill a hole where you need it and tap.  Bolsters are on the floor and a center sill.

[nickelplate759]

I believe the long bar is meant to be glued down the center of the roof to represent a duct that some cars had there.

[Ike the BN Freak]

Thanks for all the help on the core kits, which gets me the majority of the cars.

However, does anyone offer milling service, as the "focal" point of the BN business cars would be the full dome Glacier View. I am looking at getting the Union Station Products side kit, and mounting it to a Bachmann full dome. It would be nice if I can get the sides milled down to glue the new sides to the bachmann core