Brass kit

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi,

Toady I bought a good soldering station. Now I would like to try my hand at som nice brass kit of a freight car. The problem is that I havn’t got a clue wich manufacturers produce them or what would be an apropiate begginers modell? Any sugestions would be most apreciated.

Magnus

2

I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I’ve personally never heard of a kit to build a brass freight car. Why do you think there are any?

I’ve assembled a brass pile driver kit with a boom, and there are several other such items offered by Sheepscot Scale Models. You might want to check them out to see if they have any other items. But I doubt if they have freight cars, as plastic ones are so fine and plentiful these days.

Here is my pile driver. The body and boom are a part of the kit, the chassis is a plastic one from an Athearn 250 ton crane. All in HO scale:

(Click on photos to enlarge)

3

I believe that is was Quality Craft that did a HO scale caboose (Santa Fe?) that was a brass kit. I have seen some others out there. I believe the last one that I remember off hand was a reefer kit.

4

I know there were a few early HOn3 kits in brass.

Kits aside, this is an area where once your skills develop, you can scratchbuild a whole range of items easily with some planning and commonly available brass stock.

5

I think some of the British manufacturers do etched brass kits. Locomotive Workshop years ago used to make a few brass car kits in O scale, maybe S too. You might check eBay for old kits.

Otherwise, I think you’ll be scratch/parts building. There are some makers of brass detail parts, but you’ll have to do the body yourself. Search the magazine index for brass scratchbuilding - I think some of the old issues had articles on it.

Good luck

Paul

6

Here ia a link to a company that makes both plastic and brass kits, just scroll down to check them out. I think the freightcar kits are plastic and the passenger car kits are brass.

http://www.mrrwarehouse.com/MRW-Made/Red_Ball_1.htm

7

There was a thread not too long ago that posted photos of several brass kits produced in Europe some where. Maybe Dave Bedard remembers the post or thread. We were talking about the virtues of wether to paint or not.