Many thanks for the help with my questions about ACL and SL-SF paint schemes. Special thanks to Richard Hendrickson and Ed Hawkins for generously sharing their extensive knowledge and research.

Tim, Well, I'm glad you went back and checked the archives. What I stated 15 years ago was correct but what I posted earlier today wasn't totally correct as I had neglected to look at a sufficient

Bill, I only had success with smaller drills when I bought a package of an assortment of inexpensive drills from Drill Bit City

Ed covered some of this same ground in a Railmodel Journal article in August 1993: http://trainlife.com/magazines/pages/150/10867/august-1993-page-29 Tim

This is the original 1998 email from Ed Hawkins that I got my ACL information from -- Obviously Ed has had 15+ years to investigate the matter further. :-) Tim

According to an email from Ed Hawkins, ACL continued to use Romanletters until 1951, when they changed to "sans serif" letters. In 1956the emblem changed again, but still with sans serif

I feel that drilling to the same size or a close size to the wire that will be inserted is not a good idea..thin CA does get pulled into a joint by cap action..but if there is aline to line joint does

Thanks for the reference to BLMA...I didn't realize that they had .008" grab irons. Jack Burgess I realize that we all model for our own satisfaction and set our own standards for our

I realize that we all model for our own satisfaction and set our own standards for our models. For me the world changed once Al Westerfield moulded NBWs on his castings for hand grabs. Now a model

Jim, I don't have an exact date, perhaps Sam Clarke at Kadee does. Pullman builder's photos of new cars show the transition sometime between 12-52 (17800-18049 Frisco Fast Freight) and 2-54

Jim, I have numerous photos showing freight cars of many RRs with mis-matcvhed trucks. Especially in the case of older cars, if a truck required replacement when the car was off-line, the railroad

I'm not having a great deal of luck with the search function in Yahoo Groups (other than finding auto insurance and singles in my area), so here's something that has probably been discussed before,

Jim,attached is a photo of an ACL steel box car repainted in 9-52 with stripes on both sides and ends. It’s an M. Nierdieck photo at East St. Louis, MO. daed 12-’56 from the Joe Coillias

Tim, Based on builder's photos, some of which are found in the Car Builders' Cyclopedia, 1941 to 1944 was a transition time for ACL lettering that included both Roman and sans-serif depending on the

Tim, ACL was still applying Roman lettering at least as late as 1942 and I have a 1954 photo of a car with Roman lettering, so I think “rare” is an overstatement, at least for the early 1950s. As

They seem to have been pretty aggressive in repaints, Tim; I just can't get my head around all cars painted in '48 or '49 being repainted by '53, but I guess that kind of program would have been

If you are talking about using NBW castings with styrene, I always use them but never drill a hole for them. Cut a several NBW castings off of the sprue, leaving the "bolts" long. (I cut off as many

I think I have communicated this already but in case I did not Detail Associates is now packaging the slightly larger Tichy NBW as #2203. One tell is that they are a reddish-brown styrene. DA has

Maybe just drill all the holes at once so that the Grab isn't obstructingthe drill. Put the nbw in first. Chuck Hladik In a message dated 2/24/2014 3:00:27 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,timboconnor@...

Jim Until I looked at 1930's builder photos of ACL box cars, I'd neverseen a photo of an ACL box car with Roman lettering. I think it'sreasonable to say they were rare by the 1950's. Tim O'Connor