Ambroid kit

Irishrover

I have built a few Ambroid kits. They are a lot of fun.The biggest thing I remember was the outside bracing. It is a Craftsman kit. I didn't;t mind the window pieces, but hated cutting the openings.

                                                                                                                         Ray

I'm going to enjoy following

I'm going to enjoy following this thread.

I am though, somewhat intrigued by the glass with the yellow liquid.  It looks to be closer to full in the second picture.  ???

Bart

 "I am considering using some

I prefer something other than wooden bolsters too, due to the grain they can be  hard to drill straight and where you want the hole :> ) . I've also used Athearn plastic frames under wooden caboose models, they include rudimentary cross members and coupler pockets....DaveB

Ambroid Kit

Had a similar kit and found that painting the sides resulted in some warping that had to be corrected with "steam." and a heavy weight. The kit was at least 15 years old and suffered several moves around the country. It produces a nice cabin that looks good with added details and trucks.

Time travel

Well, the glass with the Diet Mountain Dew is unstuck in time, so it shifts back and forth...in this particular case, it spontaneously refilled itself, and a few hours later, the level of the bottle went down a corresponding amount.  Either that, or I refilled it.

Considering that, on the club layout, I've seen a 2-6-0 pulling an Amtrak consist, time warping seems to happen in the model world.  Either that, or Amtrak's motive power went Kerblooie, and someone had to pull the train and get the little people to the station.  A breakdown can change operations in a heartbeat.  (His loco was fine after a few adjustments, but out of action for a bit.)

Thanks for the comments

David, that is a nice looking cabin car

This particular kit has the windows all cut, which is nice.  I might place the cupola off center; I see some B&N and Maine Central cabooses had them off center, as did the SR&RL.  The North Central is a result of the merger of the Maine Two Footers, and this is their "broad gauge" division

Cabin

Thanks. You will note the figure up in the cupola watching the train ahead. I had to cut and sand a figure quite a bit to get him in there but it gives a great look to the train. He actually "sits" on the roof under the window which is very shallow.

Ambroid Caboose build

IrishRover, I've never built an Ambroid kit, but I did build a Gloor Craft bulkhead flat car. It too had wooden bolsters. I used the wooden bolsters, as the center of the bolster was marked on the Gloor Craft kit drawing.

These were fun kits to build. Just take your time and enjoy the build. Yes the laser cut kits go together a lot easier, but I actually enjoyed cutting and shaping the side sill and center sill sections of the kit. I'm looking forward to following your blog on this kit build.

Lessons Learned 1

I'm calling this "Lessons Learned" post number 1, because I'm sure I'll learn a lot of things that should have been done differently.

1.  It might be good to spray prime the wood after adding the bracing.  Glue sticks to paint--but only as well as the paint sticks to the wood.

2.  Outside bracing may well be better off put on before window frames.  As you can see, the bracing comes into conflict with the windows.  Also, even a tiny bit larger wood than the wood provided can throw things off.  Photo 4 shows the problem clearly

Rather than try to salvage the sides, I took some ship decking that I had on hand and cut it to size; the planks are exactly the same thickness as the caboose sides and ends.  (I might try my hand at a scratch-built outside braced boxcar at some point.)

3.  Use a super sharp knife!

4.  When using templates, it is MUCH easier if anything that needs to be put on the inside goes on later.

 Photo 3

 Photo 4

I hope to make some more progress tonight

Window frames and others

I carefully cut out the windows.  I used a chisel point exacto knife, and managed to get them to come out right, thank goodness.  The side braces are Northeastern Scale Lumber 4 x 4's, and the window frames are 2 x 2's.  Since I managed to mess up the channel intended for the center vertical beam, I swapped in an Evergreen Plastic I-beam that I had lying around...not sure what size.

I'm dreading the underbody work, and will be digging through my assorted plastic parts to see what I can use--definitely Tichy bolsters!

When I get further along, I'll need to figure out how to provide for future access to the interior; if she comes out well, interior lights and marker lights could well be in her future.

I'll also have to decide what color the North Central paints its cabeese--probably the usual caboose red, perhaps with some sort of accent.

Photo 5

Lighting is different; the sun's gone down, so I had to move inside; the porch hasn't got enough light.

I completed the 4 sides of

I completed the 4 sides of the caboose, and assembled the copula.  With much effort, I get the center sill centered.  (Perhaps I should learn a few words of Klingonese,Irish Gaelic, or Norse so I can vent frustrations without anyone around knowing what I'm saying...)

 Photo 6

I got out the Tichy bolsters I mentioned earlier, and tried them on for fit.  They're a bit thinner, so I cut a thin piece of Evergreen Styrene to go under the bolster if need be.  Looks like it's time to do a bit of test-fitting on the track.

Some of the wooden pieces that need to be cut to size, I might do in plastic; they'll come out better.

More later--got to shut down; incoming storm!

Sticks

Considering the fact you are building with a box of sticks, I think an appropriate term of frustration might be "fiddlesticks". One of my grandmother's favorites.

The most important tool when building these things is patience. A quality I am not renown for but have managed to build a few of these types of kits.

Fiddlesticks...

I have a bit more than a pack of sticks, like the white metal castings, and I must say that the tolerances on the wooden pieces are excellent. The biggest frustration can be getting things nicely centered, though.  And also knowing that, if I need anything, it will have to wait until I make the hour plus (each way) trip to a hobby store that has stripwood, castings, sheet styrene, etc.  The only place closer has some couplers and trucks, and occasionally some new oldstock, but is NOT a place that caters to scratch-builders.  They don't even have accurail cars, though they do have plastic building kits.

I keep an ongoing "Hobby Store" list, and even so, find that I forgot something the day after I got home.

More photos later today.

More progress

Having a day off, and it's modeling season (Too hot to be outside!) I made more progress.  Body is nicely primed, the Tichy bolsters are underneath the caboose and glued on, and I set things together; it looks like a caboose to be.

Hobby Store--I am out of Kadee #5's! I had to steal ne to test the height of the car.  I HAD t use a thin strip of plastic under the bolsters; otherwise the center sill would interfere with the trucks.

Photo 7

Photo 8

Caboose is curently held together by gravity, but it's nice to see it looking like a caboose.  Underbody is barely begun.

Train Line installed

I'm a bit behind in the blog, so getting the posts caught up.  At least I've been taking pictures as I go

I have installed all of the framing and the the train line.  The mountings for the brake hardware are not in place yet, and one center piece fell off; I reglued it right after I took the pic.The white pieces are plastic instead of the wood that came with the kit.  The train line was simple, though next time:  Drill out the Tichy bolsters BEFORE gluing them in place!!!  The other plastic frames, I drilled before installing, and slid them onto the train line as well; that made it much easier.  I didn't try to drill through the center sill; the train line is actually 2 pieces.

I'm pleased with the progress; but this kit IS a lot of work.  More progress coming soon!

Right hand side of the train line is brass; left side is the metal that came with the kit.

Any comments are appreciated, and any questions will be answered.  I think this is going to be a fine caboose for the North Central's Broad Gauge Division.

Brakes

I looked at the assortment of tiny pieces that would need to be laboriously sanded into particular shapes, and would resist me every step of the way, splintering and not cooperating, and said "NO! This will not come out well."

I used an Accurail brake set instead.  Accurail is, I think, underrated by some.  Their cars make good basic fleet cars, and they charge a lot less for such parts as sets of brake lines than many others do.  In this case, I wanted brakes, since they will be visible, but didn't need contest quality detail under there; I'm not modeling a train wreck with an overturned car.

The brake set was a bit too long, but a bit of work with an exacto knife and glue took care of that.

When I drilled the right hand mounting plate out to take advanage of th pin on the brake set, it splintered, so I used some Evergreen styrene to make a new one.  Plastic is MUCH better for the small detail parts!

I still need to dig through my parts box for an air tank

Next update:  End platorms

Planning for the future:

Painting:  I'm not sure what color the Great North Central's broad gauge division wil be using, but most likely caboose red of some sort.

Superdetailing.  I'm going to need to get, at a minimum, marker lights.

Are people still interested in this build?  Is my blog helping anyone else who is planning a similar project?

"Are people still interested

    I'm enjoying it. I think everyone should build one of these older craftsman style kits before they can call themselves model railroaders :> ) .......DaveB

interest

David

I sure hope people are interested. To me building is the best part of the hobby, although there are a lot of great aspects to this hobby and I enjoy most. Here are a couple of photos of my efforts

                                                                                                                                     Ray    

Interested and following.

Interested and following. Curious though, I've built a few wood kits and never encountered splintering like you have. The wood must be very dry.

 "I've built a few wood kits

Yeah, old and dry and maybe the grain running  the wrong way for the drilling required? or perhaps just too big a bit??   Saturating the wood  with thin CA should help strengthen it up a bit. I've also used CA to harden old car sides both wooden and cardboard........DaveB

interested also

I am watching your progress on this. I have built a lot of Ambroid and Quality Craft wood kits over the years, HO and O scale. They are great kits, I have a couple in the works but have been working on other things. I have the GN caboose and the Celotex all door box under construction.

Thanks!

The wood was very dry; the kit's probably over 50 years old.  (The prototype information referred to the cabooses being built in 1916 nad still being used now, after 40 years.)  The piece was also quite thin, and the needed hole was near the edge of the piece.  Frankly, for bits like that, plastic is better.

Lots of bending wire into shape, filing and sanding...it's a challenge.  I grabbed it beause it was cheap, and I'm glad I did.

Those are some nice old kits

Those are some nice old kits that came out well

The adventure continues...

I did not like the doors that came with the kit (Or rather, the door that would result from following the instructions.)  It looks like it was made by cutting out a piece of the side of the caboose--lots of planks running horizontally.  I've never seen a door like that.

Rather than building it, involving lots of tiny quarter-rounds and finicky cutting that would produce a door I wouldn't even like, I took a different path.  I took a couple of Woodland Scenics doors (the ones for the modular buildings) from my parts box and trimmed off the ridges intended to be used to glue them to the structure.  Then I trimmed off the transom, and filed to fit; they go in nicely.  I'll put some dark gray paper behind the glass to hide the raw wood, or perhaps print out a blurry caboose interior.  (Or use frosted glass, perhaps.)

I made the railings for the end platforms from a mix of the included metal wire and some brass wire.

The brakes under the caboose look right, I think.  The caboose should always be right side up (I hope) and the underside shaded, so ultra-precise details wouldn't add anything to the model.

 Photo 11 & 12

Everything is held together by gravity right now...much more work to come.

The blog almost caught up to my actual progress now, and I'm encouraged by how it's coming out.  I need to find a good caboose red type of paint available in both a spray can and a jar.  I also need to decide if the North Central will have any sort of accent color on its broad gauge cabeese.

This has been quite a learning experience--and makes me thankful that I can get some cars ready to roll--but I'm glad I took this project on.

What think you all?  Any thoughts, suggestions, etc?