Like at least one other lister so far, I do not sweat this issue and just pick up a brush, dip it into the selected paint, and paint the wheel faces in situ, i.e. while still in the truck. This has been a habit for decades, and not once have I had problems of peeling, fowled-up bearing faces, slathered wheel treads, etc. And best: I am finished by the time that my good friends are still searching for their wheel masks, etc. , finding their gloves, but not yet looking to firing up the ventilator and compressor to see if they work and the airbrush is clean. I will have completed many more by the time this process is finally reversed.

I DO use masks, etc. and fine spray on wheels with exposed faces, such as locomotive lead truck wheels, etc. , or with spoked wheels. I do on occasion protect the wheel treads with a fine thin coat of oil applied with a pipe cleaner. This is easily wiped off later after the paint dries.

My selected wheel paint is a historic somewhat random and drifting mash-up of Floquil black, weathered black, and Rail Brown, a jar of which resides in front of me on the bench, ready to use.

Denny

Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento, CA 95864

   I just use those Floquill paint markers. No clean up at all.

Doug Wetherhold
RDG East Penn Branch
MP 9.2 Macungie, Pa

On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 03:56 AM, Tim O'Connor wrote:

this?

Or this ...

Bob Witt

On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 04:41 AM, John Barry wrote:

Does anyone know if the production records of the Pressed Steel Car company have been preserved?  If so, where?

 

Check Eric Neubauer's web site: http://www.ericsrailroadcarhistory.com/

Pressed Steel Car Railcar Production (2014) includes 203 pages of production lists. The following contemporary builders are included: Austin-Western, Bettendorf, Illinois Car & Equipment, Koppel, Mt. Vernon Car & Manufacturing, Ralston Steel Car, Schoen Pressed Steel Car, United States Car, United States Rolling Stock, Western Steel Car & Foundry, and Western Wheeled Scraper. See Eric's Car of the Month page for free download.


Bob Witt

Is there any update on Reboxx wheel sets? 

Thanks
Mark

Most model railroads are never completed. Mine suffers from the owner's habit of pursuing digital archives. In this case, I was looking for (and found) Sunkist billboards for my Citrus Modeling Group and went from Getty Images to the actual source, the New York Historical Society's digital collections

( http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/ ).

Once there, I wondered what railroad items were in the collection. They have literally hundreds of photos of elevated train infrastructure being removed in early 1941 under a search for "Railroad". Queries for "Train" and "Pier" (as in d"own by the docks") were more fruitful.

Below is what I found.

I hope you enjoy these and can make use of the photos. These can be enlarged quite a bit while retaining good detail.

Bob Chaparro

Hemet, CA

++++

SP Boxcar 83468 & PRR Ventilated Boxcar 73922

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68733

PRR Boxcar 7?746 "Empire Line"

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A72870

Railway Gun & Camouflage (?) Painted Boxcars

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A72295

Four MTD Reefers

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A64065

Assorted Boxcar Rooftops

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A65688

B&M Boxcar 70027CT Plus Gondola

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A65652

Partial UP 122156 Boxcar

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A67344

Assorted Boxcars

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A67414

NYC Boxcar 198604 Plus Other Boxcars

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68116

IC Boxcar 28000 (Partial) & VRR Boxcar 8610

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68334

Many Boxcars On Car Floats

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68115

SOU Gondola 180010 & NYC&HR Reefer 131147

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68324

New Haven Boxcar

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68339

Partial Great Northern Boxcar (Hopper Box?)

http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A68532

Because I'm not building contest models, I'm with Tony Thompson and Jim Brewer on this. The wheel mask was a lot of effort and didn't protect the axel ends. A microbrush makes quick work of this. On my layout it's not easy to see unpainted wheelbacks but I do hand paint some of these and the axels.
Bob Chaparro
Hemet, CA

Clearing out a few odds and ends. Prices are $25 each shipped in the US. Contact is jaydeet2001 [at] yahoo.com

Intermountain/Pacific Freight Enterprises (Terry Wegmann) PFE R-30-18 #61384 (1942 scheme) [ROS 2-42]
** Buyer's caution: to my eyes, this car looks to be more of a tan color than what I would expect PFE orange to be. **

Red Caboose GS gondola UP 65178 [NEW 6-51]

Atlas ARA 1932 box SAL 18718 Silver Meteor [JAX 10-56]

Atlas ARA 1932 box Erie 76642 [MDV 5-42]

Tangent GATC 3-compartment tank STCX 9234 [SHN 5-30]


David Thompson

--

No mask. After I install the wheel sets in painted or unpainted side frames I brush paint them. I lay the loaded brush on the wheel and by turning each wheel paint it in seconds. I may have to touch up the rim again. The back of the wheel just a loaded brush on the wheel and spin the wheel ( if installed properly) with the loaded brush applying paint at the same time. The axle the same as the back of the wheel. It takes me a lot less time to hand paint wheel sets rather than loading in a jig and spraying- setup and cleanup.
Lester Breuer

this?

--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts

Tony

Their main utility IMO is not the wheel faces but the ability to paint the axles and the backs of the wheels a nice weathered rusty appearance, different from the weathering of the wheel faces.

Tim O'

--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts

On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 06:56 AM, Ed Hawkins wrote:

A general drawing of the car was published on p. 263 of the 1937 Car Builders’ Cyclopedia. This drawing shows a vertical-staff hand brake that few, if any, cars actually received. For developing a scale a model it provides the basics. It’s the version having straight side sills between the bolsters and an upward bend towards the corners.

The thought occurs to me that this might be a good time to have a discussion on how to find research drawings in this day and age. I date back to the days when we all relied on the general arrangement drawings of the generic "standard" car desgns published in the Car Builder's Cyclopedias, the followed photos to try to determine what exactly was different on the prototype we intended to model. After decades of this, we are all used ot asking for sources of drawings of standard designs.

The problem with this is in the past couple of decades, so much more material has become available from different archives; not only general arrangement drawings, but additional drawings all the way down to the component level. As an example, a general arrangement drawing of a boxcar will give a pictorial representation of pressed shape of the ends, without any dimensions. The component drawing of the ends will include dimensioned sectional views, and include all the information to model the surface in CAD, which can then become the basis for either CNC toolpaths or a 3D printed part. However, you'll never access these drawings asking for drawings of a "1934 AAR twin hopper". The drawings aren't labeled that way, and therefore aren't cataloged that way.

The various "standard designs" all allowed variations of component parts and fittings. Because this variation would likely affect mounting hole locations and the like, the car builders treated each and every order as a custom job. They may have done the base drawing by tracing older drawings of a standard car, but they prepared a full set of drawings for each order, and rarely do these drawings reference the underlying standard. All of this is a long way of saying that if you want to access these more complete archival drawings, you need to know the builder, and the builder's lot number, unless you are dealing with one of the railroad specific archives.

At the moment, the gold standard of drawing archives is that which is maintained by the Norfolk & Western Historical Society. The3y are well funded and are actively scanning the drawings in their collection. Their web site http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/ is easy to use and provides thumbnail images of the drawings, so you can determine if any particular sheet will be useful for your project. Ordering is on-line. Reproduction costs aren't excessive, and the drawings are mailed in a couple weeks. If the N&W had examples of the car you are interested in, this is a good place to start.

I believe the NP and Southern Ry. historical societies also have extensive drawing collections, but I have no experiance with them. Perhaps someone else can comment.

The Pullman Library at the Illinois Railway Museum has a massive collection of Pullman-Standard and predecessor company drawings. Not quite as easy to use as the N&W collection, as the Pullman Library faces the constraint placed by the owner of the drawings that they NOT be made available until a license agreement is signed, which precludes putting useful thumbnails on their web site. They also have less funding, so there is no continuing scanning program. Drawings are scanned as reproductions are ordered. That being said, the library will scan anything that is ordered. Continuing work mostly involves cataloging the collection for easier access. The key to easily finding materials held by the Pullman Library is the lot number. Let me repeat, the key to finding materials held by the Pullman Library is the BUILDER'S LOT NUMBER. These are often to be found in other railroad historical society rosters and equipment diagrams. The library does have some of the Pullman-Standard hard copy indexes, which typically show the lot number, date of order, railroad that placed the order, kind of car, and possibly the number series assigned, if it was known at the time the order was placed. What the index DOES NOT SHOW is any relationship to any "standard design". For that matter, the drawings themselves will not reference any standard design, either. Knowing that you are looking for hopper cars built in 1934 may be enough to locate drawings, if you know the railroad that ordered them, and having the number series will help confirm that they are really drawings of the car you want. As I said before, builder's lot number is better. The index of Haskell & Barker and Standard steel Car Co. drawings are much less complete. Here is contact and general collection information for the Pullman Library: https://www.irm.org/pullmanlibrary/

Apparently the National Museum of Transportation in the St. Louis area has some archival American Car & Foundry drawings, but I have little experiance with that collection. Best take Mr. Hawkins up on his offer of help if AC&F drawings are involved.

I hope some find this information helpful.

Dennis Storzek

I wondered about all those sizes too. I got the Proto 2000 one and have used it on every 33" wheel I've got: Intermountain, Rapido, whatever TMW uses, etc.  Both .100 and .088.   Key is to use a rubber band as shown. Spray with Cammo brown from a rattle can gives the wheels that unpainted but even rough texture. Pop them out and a quick couple of rotations with the fingernail on the shiny surface and you are done!  Very durable finish too.
RJ Dial

I just push a length of insulation from an appropriate size of wire onto the axle end. I use a long enough piece that no paint finds its way to the axle.

John Bopp
Farmington Hills, MI