So yeah this is my first attempt at building anything and I reeeaaaally want a Flanger car so here goes!
The plastic base/botom is off a Bachmann big hauler gondola car I had swapped trucks one of my engines tenders and also stolen a few of the grab irons for other stuff. So anyway the base is from that with 5 inches cut out from the middle (you can see the seem in the last two pic’s) then built the top flatbed part out of wood i had bought from hobby lobby to build a passenger platform.
Sorry for the crappy pic quality used my cellphone im at work, this place is dead today everyone is off so I brought all the stuff with me and some tools and spent 15-20 minutes here and there working on it. Still need to do some work to it, add some detail junk and make the plow!
Well I did this today, I did the railings before looking at any of the pictures of real ones today so i kinda screwed that up… oh well im just building one and bits from all of the pictures ive seen of them to make somthing that I think looks like a flanger car that I like and to tell the truth im fricken giddy right now i cant stop fiddling around with this thing lol I cant wait to show someone what I’ve built sorta [:P]
I think Ive done about as much as I can the rest is going to all be detail parts n junk, for the plow I used 2 blank ID cards (like a blank credit card with no numbers) and a strip of brass on the front and back. I Hot glued it to the plastic frame and also put 2 brass poles supporting it from the back that i heated up so they would make a dent in the plastic before gluing them inplace . It can even make it around R1 curves [:O]
This isnt a real Flanger Car but it plays one on TV lol the plow will be just above the rail head so it wont be living up to its name without some kind of adition to the plow… oh well it still looks the part and im happy [:D]
Actually I didnt mess up the railings, I put 3 posts in and the D&RG flangers only have 2 and thats what I have been mostly looking at… IDK why I wasnt looking at RGS flanger 01 lol it has 3 posts but no shroud! doh [B)]
Oh well… I’d say it kinda looks like a cross between RGS Flanger 01 and D&RGW Flanger OJ [:I]
Yeah im having fun! I thought the winter would be a drag because I didnt manage to get any track laid outside before it got to cold and I had to take up my 8’ x 10’ oval in the living room err should I say reduce it to a 4’ circle around the tree lol anyway lately Ive been kinda bummed because all I can really do is look at my trains and fiddle with them wich I guess isnt really a bad thing because the more I fiddle with them the better they look to me [:P]
This flanger car though… [:O]
I was telling one of my friends yesterday that I want to build another one lol and I do! Im not even done with the first one and I have lots of idea’s on how to make a better one! Like how I have the plow blade setup, its 2 plastic card’s with a strip of brass front and back for support and its all glued to a wood mount wich is glued to the car frame…
If I did the same thing but didnt glue the blades (plastic cards) in just the brass supports I could have interchangable blades [:O] Insted of making the lever ontop work and actually lower the plow you would just swap out the blades for a set that are 1/2 inch longer with the notches cut in for the rails.
Was also thinking about mounting brushes behind the blade on each side so then the car could be used to sweep the track [:P]
You’ve got me motivated to try building one too. Always wanted a D&RGW flanger in 1:22.5. Although I’m not exactly sure how to build the curved blade. Anyone know where to find plans, or any scale drawings of D&RGW flangers. I’d like to make either OF, or OH.
well there are kits and brass versions in smaller scales so there have to be plans out there somewhere, Im just looking at all the pic’s I can find on the net of real ones and making somthing that looks like one. My blade isnt curved im stumped on that too and only went with this because IMO it looks okay but next go round I plan on using brass for the blade im hoping to make my next flanger car functional [:)]
Finally got some work done to it this last week, I had painted it grey but changed my mind also was lazy on the lettering. I used stick on letters & numbers while it was grey then painted it brown and pealed them [:P]
The trucks pictured dont go with the flanger there just a spare set. The flangers trucks are currently on a boxcar they are LGB freight trucks with Aristo wheels. Also like to note that it uses truck mounted couplers and can do R1 turns lol!
the control lever is an ozark switch stand.
I have an idea to use these brush type strips that are mounted on building doors for better insulation the bristles are like 1/2 inch long, anyway idea is get two 1" lengths and mount them to the black of the plow blades to brush the rails & flange way… right now the blades are the same height off the track as the plow blade on my Bachmann K27.
That came out really well, Flangers are one of those necessary but often little made products in model railroading, one thing I have found working in large scale, when you cant get something, or that something in mega-$$, its often better to bite the bullet and just build it yourself, and once done you realize it wasn’t as difficult as you thought it would be, nice job.
