Milepost 551
Several months ago, I wrote an article for the NKP Historical & Technical Society's NKP Modeler's e-zine. I had hinted at this article a while back and feel that it's time to share it here with you. The next five posts will deal with it so sit back & enjoy. If you would like to try to build one for yourself, I still have some caboose kits available that are the basis for the kitbash. Contact me at danmerkel@sbcglobal.net and we can get you some.
Here's the article:
When one thinks of the Nickel Plate, they often think of the 2-8-4 Berkshires on the head end of a high speed freight making time across a straight, relatively flat steel raceway. But there are other icons of the Nickel Plate and among them are the memorable 1000 series cabooses. It's not within the scope of this article to tell you about the 1000 series; I'll leave that to those who know more about them than I do. But I can share with you my slant on building one of these famous "cabs" using two Roundhouse/MDC 3-window wooden caboose kits and a few odds & ends from the scrap box. Let's get started...
As mentioned, the raw materials for the caboose body come from the two MDC kits. What we are going to do here is to cut the bodies into three pieces as shown.
The first cut simply cuts the car into two equal pieces. That cut can be made right between the two windows in the middle of the car sides. I counted boards to get the cut exactly where I wanted it, then laid a steel straightedge right on the line. I held the straightedge in place with a small C-clamp and carefully ran the back side of a #11 Xacto knife along the edge, making several light cuts. After a while, the blade goes through and your cut is complete. Do the same on the other side then cut the floor and you are done with your first cut. Cut the other car body in the same manner.
You "could" use the two pieces with two windows as they are right now, but I opted to try to get a little better window spacing, so I made a second cut on the car half with two windows. I made this cut about a third of the way past the first window from the end, repeating the same on the other side. When the cut was complete, I squared everything up with an NWSL Sander. Patience at this juncture really pays off with nice seams later on. Repeat the process on the second body piece then set them aside.
Next up is the roof. As you can see from the photo,
I made my first cut right next to the short end of the roof at the cupola opening. The second cut was made right on the ridge to center the cupola on the car once the middle section is turned 180° and glued back together.
From the scrap box, you can find some small square plastic stock to reinforce the glue joints. Set this aside to dry.
The only remaining cuts are small ones. The 1000 had one side window in the cupola and the MDC cupola has two. I cut the sides out as shown. Use a file to clean up the cuts here as well, since it makes things a lot easier down the road. Put away the razor saws gang as the "kitbashing" is all done.
That's it for Part I; next time, we will work on putting the body back together and wee what we have so far...
dlm
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