I’m relativley new to the hobby. I have scratchbuit a few structures and am now interested in scratchbuilding my own frieght cars. I’ve read about many methods including using styrene and casting with resin. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I built an O scale box car out of sheet metal. I made the wheels out of washers , painted the whole thing blue and lettered it for the D&H. It was my christmas present for my brother 2 years ago, he has it on his dresser in his house…I am suprised he still has it!
Check the magazine index on this site, enter some info and find past issues of magazines that go into the subject in great depth. It’s all been done many times, and the articles would give you a lot more than someone could post here other than posting an entire article. There is a lot to it!
Bob Boudreau
Many years ago I was in the same spot as you. I bought a wood boxcar kit & then bought strip wood & scribed siding in the same dimensions as the kit wood. I used the plans as a guide. I ended up with 2 boxcars, 1 kit built 1 scratch built. After building this first one I was able to build many & different cars.
Tom
Nick;
Get a subscription to Mainline Modeler, and pick up as many of the back issues as you can find. Every issue has several techniques, using many different materials over the years. The last few issues have a series on scratch building a Virginian box car.
Thank you for the tips and advice. nfmisso thank you for suggesting main line modeler. I vistited the site and it looks like it is a very usefull magazine. I’m thinking about purchasing the back issues about building the box car.