Scratchbuilding a boxcar roof

[Benjamin Maggi]

I am building a steel milk car (which closely resembles a steel boxcar).

https://dandhcoloniemain.blogspot.com/2020/04/scratchbuilding-b-milk-car-part-2-car.html

 

I am to the point of adding the roof and not sure how to approach it. I added three "stringers" down the car (which are evenly spaced) and they have the same roof angle/pitch as the ends. I am not sure what the next step is. I could add more bracing between them to support the roof, or use thicker roof material.

What have you guys used, and do you have pictures. The body and floor are permanently attached, so I cannot "join them" from the underside.

Thanks!

[dstarr]

Check out Northeastern Scale Lumber, either on their website or on Walthers.  They used to make, probably still do make, milled basswood HO roof stock.  There was a lightly pitched roof for boxcars, a clearstory roof for passeger cars, and probably some othe stuff too.

[doctorwayne]

Benjamin Maggi

The body and floor are permanently attached, so I cannot "join them" from the underside.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but it would have been easy to make the underbody removeable, which would allow easy permanent installation of the roof.

Here's a LINK to a thread which shows modifications made to a couple of LifeLike (Proto-no thousand) refrigerator cars, which includes adding roofs to the one-piece body castings.

This is another LINK showing somewhat similar modifications done to some Tyco cars, including one failed attempt for roofs and one successful one.

This LINK is to a rather lengthy thread which covers a lot of freight car modifications, including, towards the end, roofs.

Finally, this LINK shows the conversion of the old-style wooden roof on a number of Accurail Fowler boxcars, to more modern steel roofs.

I hope that you'll find some information amongst those links which will be of use.

Wayne

[Benjamin Maggi]

Thanks, those links are very helpful. And I agree NOW that adding a roof first would have been easier. However, I wasn't sure if I was going to scratchbuild the roof or purchase/modify a commerical one at the time so I glued the body walls to the floor. I then decided (too late) that scratchbuilding was the way to go. I am working on my NMRA MMR certificate and want all the points I can get.

Thanks again!

[rrebell]

As long as your roof is sag proff and fits properly and touches interior bracing and you are working in styrene, you can use the glue that most don't use anymore, tube glue. Used that on a project I had that my favorite glue would not work and I could not get to it from the bottom, it would have been near impossible to design it that way, it was a building.

[SeeYou190]

Nice work on the scracthbuild. I just looked through your build, and I am especially impressed with your scratchbult ends.

I hope you don't mind... I made your pictures visible in my post so people do not need to click your link to see them.

I am going to try to build some custom ends using your method.

-Kevin