Sounds like a fun challenge

Ok 1st question, are there directions? and

2nd can you post a photo with the pieces laid out?

There are several of us here who enjoy putting old kits together, But I am a bare beginner at doing this, so a bit more info would help and photos are worth a 1000 words.

Jack

Not the Payroll car but ...

These may help with the big picture. Generally the kits followed similar steps in construction. Hope this helps you get started.

Sure, here are the pics: The

Sure, here are the pics:

The bottom are the instructions for the O-24, but they're pretty folded up and might be hard to see the drawings, so I included the instructions from the H-24 at the top which are in far better condition. They're the exact same images, just with scaled down dimensions.

This is actually the first time I've unpacked the whole O-24 kit, but all the pieces are here - plus a little balsa wood my great uncle said he included in case he needed extra bracing. Wires were left in the box for the sake of not losing any of them.

What I didn't realize until now, though, is that he had gone pretty far in marking down which pieces were which, as the pencil markings and labels he put on so long ago are still perfectly legible everywhere they can be found. That will certainly be of great help when I finally start resuming the payroll car's construction.

Enjoy older kits as well

From experience (bad ones) I found that finishing the parts with sanding sealer first will help keep everything from warping. First the floor is assembled and mounted on trucks to get the coupler height correct. Do the sides completely before assembling them together as the shell. Brace the backs at this time but remember to leave room for overlap issues. I like my roofs to be removable so a brace along the top mates with one on the underside of the roof to provide a nice fit. It also makes it easier to add interior details later if desired.

Think about whether you want lighting in the car roof before too far into the build so that wires can be concealed and a light strip mounted. Consider NCE Lite It to allow DCC control of these lights and markers (if any). There are a lot of ideas on adding “keep alive” capacitors as well so use the search box and you’ll get some ideas. 

Take your time and do a little each day and it will be done in a week or two. These are fun kits but beware as they are addictive and gateway drugs to scratchbuilding!

Awesome, this is exactly the

Awesome, this is exactly the kind of help I was looking for - given my uncle already had started construction, on the one hand I wanted to assume that he'd already done that years ago, but on the other, while taking the parts out of the box, there was some minor warping going on with the side panels that might need correcting later but I don't know if that's because there isn't sanding sealer or because the kit is just that old.

I also do like the idea of the removable roof, since at O scale it's probably big enough that I will need to install some interior detailing. I have an absolute surplus of wood strips thanks to my sister buying way too much wood for a school bridge project years ago so making interior ridges should be no issue.

I'm not concerned about lighting or really even operation, as I mentioned before this is O scale but I typically model HO - the closest this car will probably ever get to a layout is a diorama if I find I ever have the space to pull such a thing off, more realistically it will be a shelf display piece. However, its HO scale counterpart will probably find its way onto my layout if only as a 'preservation/museum piece' since I want to go for 1950s/60s transition and I've been told this style of payroll car predates the Civil War.

But now my main concern is painting, because this car has a unique 'boardwalk' side where the 'bank teller' windows are located - with the exception of built examples of this exact Ambroid kit, the only prototype photos I've found have these 'teller' windows mounted on what otherwise appear to be standard, albiet modified for purpose, passenger cars. I'm just not sure where between beginning and ending the building of the kit is the point I fully apply paint and decals, since obviously the inner wall sections need to be painted before that side rail goes in. Here's a picture of a built example (though I think it's HO scale and the person who posted this said there are aftermarket parts on this sample) as a B&O, which I think is close to what I want my final product to look like.

Take it slow

I did a couple of old Labelle kits that had much worse directions. Sometimes it's a matter of studying the directions and the available parts to figure out what's what. I suspect that most of these old kit manufactures expected their builders to have had some scratch building experience. Any chance you also got an old stack of MR or RMC mags. Up until the early 70's there were construction articles on doing old passenger cars which might help.

Northeaster Scale Lumber is a strip wood maker who has been around for ever it seems like. They supplied the wood parts for a lot of kits and still carry it for scratch builders in O and HO.

It also maybe possible to replace some of the castings if you search out those companies who make parts.

Jack

Paint & Decals

I would paint the inside and outside before assembly. I use a spray lacquer sealer that dries pretty quickly (do it outside btw). Put the warped pieces on double sided tape on a scrap of wood to seal and paint the inside. This is easier before the windows and trim go on/in. 

When dry flip it over and paint the outside after doing the trim, windows, corners & fascia. A couple light coats makes for a nice finish. When completely dry give it a coat of clear gloss and wait some more!  This makes putting on decals much easier. After those set, a shot of dull coat will make the edges disappear. 

O scale is really fun as you can detail the crap begeebus out of it. I’ve been looking for a reason to get a standard gauge steam engine to use as a way to show the difference between those and the little narrow gauge cars and engines. It would be purely ornamental (for now) and I can see the appeal of working in another scale for fun or as a way to remember someone. 

Sounds like the best way to

Sounds like the best way to go - though I might have to paint the floor first before I can really get around to painting the walls, as the walls are in sections and I don't know if painting them seperately and then putting them together will give a unified finished look, as opposed to attaching them to the floor and painting them all at once together.

I also might have to cut a groove in the floor as the door that sits on the inside has a bottom that based on the 1:1 drawings will extend into the floor itself, and cutting the floor seems easier than trying to grind off the bottom of the door.

there's great advice here

You've got a great kit - Ambroid's were cut with outstanding precision for their era.

My thoughts:

1. Build it to operate. You can't predict what the future holds.

2. Brace more solidly than the kit suggests. (Use basswood or metal, not balsa.)

3. Seal every surface and edge of every piece of wood (using paint or sanding sealer, as suggested above.)

One thing we've learned since the 1950s is that good models can last for decades.

Mark Charles

Ann Arbor, Mich. USA

Since I don't know if my

Since I don't know if my great uncle sealed the wood or not, I'm going to go ahead and seal the wood myself just to be sure. My main concern now is what to do about the floor - I've never built a passenger car with an exposed wood platform floor, so I don't know if I should basically have the floor finalized before I start putting down walls or not.

So, after much research and

So, after much research and debate, I've finally figured out that ultimately, the exposed wood plank floor will need to be more or less fully prepared, barring some final weathering, before I can put the walls in since that way I can ensure the wood floor is properly set up as once the walls go up, access will be extremely limited for the walkways without potentially damaging the walls. Which means the entire undercarriage section (save trucks) will need to be done first, which more or less shouldn't be too big a deal as all I need is to aquire a decent pin vise to make the hole bores for the wires.

However, that leaves one last major problem: the door casting that goes in the middle of the car. The "tab" that this door casting has extends past the bottom of the wall piece that the door is supposed to sit in and would theoretically slot into the floor. Do I need to somehow grind the door down such that it sits flush with the floor, or instead cut a hole into the floor to tab the door bottom into? The instructions, naturally, do not explain how to deal with this.

Doors

I am assuming that these are the entrance doors to the car on either end. I had a similar issue with the 2 Labelle cars I did in HOn3. In my case the end walls had to fit into a slot on either side of the end platform. A truly royal pain in you know where. If you can file down the bottom of the door with out ruining the door I would try that.

2nd choice would be to use a new #11 blade and very carefully carve out the slots. Once you have it started, depending on the size of slot you need might be easier to use a flat needle file.

Jack

Actually, it doesn't have a

Actually, it doesn't have a door on both ends - it has one on the far end facing away from the camera, and two parallel to each other in the middle of the car (the one on the opposite side has a set of metal end steps)

The door in this picture (under the "AND") is the problem door. Here's the area mocked up using the parts in my kit to illustrate (I'm sorry about the size):

Thanks

Photo helps. I would file the bottom of the door flat.

Jack

Ambroid

I did an Ambroid outside braced caboose, and I made a few concessions to the modern age.  You might want to, also.

For one thing, bolsters are, IMVHO, something to get from a modern supplier.  I also used modern brakes, rather than fabricate brakes from fiddly little bits.  Unless you're trying to do it exactly like it was done then, you should consider what parts to buy modern, IMVHO.

The idea was generally I was

The idea was generally I was going to try and build this as close to how it originally would have been built 40 years ago, since the spirit of the project is picking up where my great uncle left off, but that's in very loose terms at this point boiling down to 'use as many original parts as possible' since there's evidence he glued the middle wall in place on the floor and nothing is painted, and given what I've learned I'm skipping the sanding sealer (I want the wood grain look) and will be painting the walls before assembly to make sure they don't warp (any more, they're a bit warped and I'll need to subject them to being pressed flat by big books to get them back into proper shape). I will also be staining the wood before painting or even further cutting, since that brings out the grain I think. However, I'll also probably have the whole underside assembled so I can just paint it all at once with a spraycan or airbrush if I ever get my dad's old airbrush working (and find a compatible air compressor).

That being said, it doesn't look like there's a whole lot in the way of provided brake material so I might upgrade that (problem is, this is supposed to be a car from between 1880-1900 from what little info I can find out about the style and those...really didn't have elaborate brake systems from what I can tell), and I most likely will replace the bolsters as while those ARE included, having pre-drilled holes and a pre-shaped form will save me trouble as they'll get the same job done and probably be more efficent in the end anyway. My uncle probably won't mind when I eventually show him the final product, either.

It Begins (Again)

So, finally got my hands on the sanding sealer and I've applied a test coat on the floor to see if it negatively impacts pencil markings in an area where I won't need to see them. Fortunately, the sealer doesn't appear to be doing anything to them which is great - not sure about what'll happen after sanding between coats now but I've got some Tamiya P600 finishing paper (don't have any 400 grit) to use.

However, now I'm not sure if I should have the floor fully set up and painted, weathered, etc. before the walls go up, since I NEED the pencil markings to mount the inset walls correctly. And I don't want to redraw the lines after I've done all that work because in the event they aren't fully hidden when all is said and done, then it'll look bad. I'm wondering if maybe I should just stain the floor boards (going to use either watered down brown acrylics or brown india ink, not sure yet) and skip the weathering, because trying to weather the narrow exposed strips that will be left while avoiding damaging the walls doesn't sound like fun.

The Payroll Car

I built one of these in HO scale about 4 years ago, when I was going through a Ambroid/Labelle mania. The greatest weaknesses I found in the kit was that the window holes were not cut out (one of my least favorite jobs in scratchbuilding. Of course the Ambroid dormitory car is even worse....). 

Also, by design apparently, the "frame" is somewhat non-existant - We are to believe that the structure is simply mounted on a big flat piece of wood (which it is). I don't know if the O scale version is similary cursed.

When I finished the model I realized that it wouldn't fit in to any of my re-creations and determined it would be parked on a siding and used as a makeshift passenger station.

Yep, I have both the O scale

Yep, I have both the O scale and the HO scale versions of this kit and I'm only building the O scale version because my great uncle already started it long ago - the HO scale kit is still mint and I feel is more interesting in that state. Especially since I think I'm going to eventually model the 1970s so the HO scale wouldn't fit on my layout - the O scale one I am building is to be a display piece.

But after comparing the instructions and part count of both kits, I think it's safe to say that the O scale car is virtually an upscaled version of the HO kit in every way.

And after further review of the parts, following sanding the walls and floor with 600 grit sandpaper (I didn't have any 400 like I thought), I've discovered that maybe it's unavoidable to have to build the thing almost entirely because of those window holes. The wall pieces are NOT exactly the same measurements as they are on the diagrams, lengthwise I'll have to cut one piece by a few millimeters in order to get them all to fit properly (I could cut ALL the pieces to fit in the diagram but then that loses the straight edges already present...still might end up doing this), and the way the instructions are written, the implication seems to be putting the walls into place on the bare skeletal frame and THEN marking and cutting out the window and door holes. And the walls have excessive height, too, because you're supposed to sand them down to be flush with the inner roof contour for the sake of the thinner exterior roof that goes on top.

Painting might be the last thing I can do, simply by the nature of the way this kit is meant to go together, likewise a removeable roof like I was planning may not be possible purely because the inner roof appears to be a critical part of keeping the whole thing together in the first place!

Alternatively, I can get around needing to assemble the structure by just gluing the walls together but that might be a risky endeavor if something doesn't end up lined up just right.

However, since you said you built the HO version four years ago, anything you can remember that I should look out for or otherwise could suggest since the build just got a heck of a lot more complicated for me?

Ambroid O-24 Payroll Car

Looks like I'm a year late here, but I'll add a couple of comments anyway. I'm 83 and about at the end of 40 years of building mostly HO kits but am a "closet" O scaler. That scale is a lot more fun for me to build even though I have no O scale layout. The payroll car kit was one I found on eBay and so here I am. I have lots of advice on how to build this kit though it's probably too late for CNWman now. I would just like to add that it's important to carefully read the instructions and pretty much understand what to do before starting any kit. The instructions for this kit are rather nebulous and not unusually so. I generally have found that doing the underbody work first is helpful as turning the partially finished kit over later to access the detail work under the car can damage upper work. In any case, an absolute must for any wood kit like this is to make sure all parts are square, straight and true before gluing! You can't let any misalignment pass as it will come back and bite you in the butt later in some other part of the car (notice the slight misalignment of the right facia board of the model in the photo of this article that occurred because the wall sections were not perfectly aligned--though hardly noticeable). The kit I got also had poorly formed and broken queen posts, turn buckles and some windows. I repaired the windows and bought better posts and buckles. My kit is ready now for painting, and I will paint it a standard Pullman green as that is what appears to be best  in the very nice model photographed in this article. Lots more comments I could make but have to get back to work on the model! Hope CNWman"s version worked out for him.

More from the old man

Finished 'er up with up scale paint job and private road name. Now if I could just figure out how to paste a copy of a photo on here. . . . Tried everything and nothing seems to work!