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| I wanted to build a business car to go along with my two passenger cars, but
I didn't want to use a RailKing Overton car as a starting point. The two passenger cars are
shown below.
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I. Body Rough In
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A. Body Chopping
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Here are the two RailKing cabooses I used to build the business car. They were
stripped of underframe, windows, platforms, smokejack, cupola, and marker lights.
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Before I cut the caboose bodies, I made several test cuts.
This MTH bay window caboose was test cut with my Craftsman Chop Saw with a 40 tpi blade.
Chunks were broken out by the coarse blade.
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| I switched to a 104 tpi blade and the cut was still rough. I then used a
200 tpi blade to cut the bodies. This was the finest blade I could find, so I used it.
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I filled the inside of the each body with pink foam to stabilze the body during cutting.
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| Cutting the bodies into two pieces.
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When I fitted the body halves, I didn't like the middle window.
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I recut the bodies to eliminate the middle window. Halves were glued together with epoxy for plastic.
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B. New Underframe
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A new chassis was made from .060 styrene sheet. Walthers queenposts were added along with fishing
line for trussrods. Kadee couplers were mounted along with MTH
T-Section archbar caboose trucks. Here is the rough-in of the car with proper coupler height.
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II. Final Details
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Details on the body have been added and await final sanding. The roof didn't have any
overhang so it was extended with .080 quarter round. Lettering boards made from .015 strip.
Belt rail is .080 wide. Smoke stack holes have been plugged. |
| I drilled new holes for the stacks, added clear styrene for windows.
The body is painted dark brown with an avocado roof to match the other two cars.
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