dknelson...P.M. didn't say this explicitly but I glean from their brief write up and reference to "new" car sides that these are total replacement sides - that is, you cut out the original and replace it with their casting....
That sounded more likely to me, but the instructions that Dan posted clearly state..." We suggest building the car over a Train Miniature boxcar (later Walthers) as these are the correct height and length for modification....".
Wayne
Here's all I have...
X23
dlm
I found a tiny reference to the Convertakit line from Cannonball Car Shops in the June/July 1985 Prototype Modeler (on the trainlife website). Specifically they talked about a line with "new car sides" for Lifelike/Varney hoppers (the same tooling) to make 1) a panel-side conversion, and 2) a composite side conversion. There was also a day coach conversion for the 50' Model Die Casting Overland passenger car.
P.M. didn't say this explicitly but I glean from their brief write up and reference to "new" car sides that these are total replacement sides - that is, you cut out the original and replace it with their casting. Keeping the ends and bottom (and in the case of house cars, the roof). Not an overlay in other words. That would be too thick and would not mate with the ends (or roof for house car).
Cannonball Car Shops was known to me mostly for their reissue of rather old Red Ball kits, replacing the original metal castings with styrene of a rather waxy type.
Anyone willing to assemble a genuine Red Ball kit had to be prepared to file and cut and bend and splice and swear and in my experience, all those skills were carried over to the CCS versions. Correction, you needed to be better at swearing. So I think the then version of Cannonball Car Shops was aimed at someone who was probably a good scratchbuilder/kitbasher and was prepared to be imaginative with the aftermarket parts that CCS created.
If they said to use a TM boxcar it does seem odd for them not to specify just what car since TM was known and praised for creative tooling that allowed different ends and sides in combination, such as their PRR X-29s. Then again knowing CCS/Red Ball maybe they just expected the sort of person buying their stuff to know what they needed.
I thought CCS was long gone by the way but their website is dated 2020 and has a 2019 mention by the owner that his dire health was causing him to reduce the product line.
Dave Nelson
I just checked the instruction sheet/bag label and the correct name of the product is CONVERTAKIT.
Wayne (and others),
That is what has me baffled. First, it doesn't say which TMI wooden boxcar. As you say, there were at least two of them... a single-sheathed one and a double-sheathed model as well. The set does include ends as well as sides so IF the pieces are to be glued over an existing car body, there are end details as well. The whold thing has me baffled.
I was hoping that maybe someone else had heard of something like a Convert a Car kit and I could get some guidance from them.
For what it's worth, the car sides are very thin so using them atop a regular car wouldn't add much to the overall length & width... at least not for a fleet car/less than contest quality model.
danmerkel..."We recommend building your car over a Train Miniature wooden boxcar."...
I wonder to which Train Miniature wooden boxcar they're referring. They made a single sheathed wooden car....
...but they came with at least two styles of ends.
...and here's a similar car, where I removed the original ends and replaced them with modified Tichy ends...
They also offered a doublesheathed wooden car, but I believe that it also came with at least two different types of ends. This one has Tichy 5-5-5 ends...
...while this one retains its TM "steel" ends...
It seems to me that it would be easier to take a TM doublesheathed car, with ends similar to the sides, rather than the steel or single sheathed ends, the latter having the exterior bracing, but over horizontal boards.For a simplified version, use styrene "hat" strips from either Evergreen or Plastruct, or, for a more detailed version, create "hat" sections by using plain strip material, sanded to round its exposed edges, then applied over .005" sheet material cut to the shape of the flanges used on the type of "hat" material seen on those cars.
Here's Westerfield's take on the X23 which plainly shows the style of the hat sections used.
While the Train Miniature cars are somewhat diminutive, their width is pretty-much the same as other models of that era, so adding the Cannonball sides over the TM body will result in a too-wide car.
If you truly wish to use the Cannonball sides, construct a carbody out of sheet styrene, bracing its interior using strip styrene, and making it narrow enough that the addition of the new sides will bring it to a prototypical width. It's easy enough to add a steel sheathed roof, again using sheet and strip styrene, but you could also buy something appropriate from Intermountain or Red Caboose, as they do/did offer them as separate parts.
OK, this one is likely a question for some of you "more seasoned" model railroaders. I've been wanting a Pennsy X23 boxcar and ran across some sides & ends from Cannonball Car Shops. They were offered in a baggie with three sets of sides & ends AND an instruction shee that had a strange statement in it. It said something to the effect that, "We recommend building your car over a Train Miniature wooden boxcar." (I underscored over.)
So now I'm wondering if the parts were designed & sized to simply take a stock TMI wooden boxcar model, sand off all of the detail on the sides & ends then simply glue the new Cannonball parts on the sides & ends of the car. I did a Formu search and am either doing something wrong or it's not working correctly. So, do any of you remember CCS making kits like this? Did you ever try one? If so, were the results satisfactory?
I have one old TMI double-sheathed boxcar in my stash of stuff and the parts look like they would be reasonably close to fitting on the sides. But I don't want to trash out an olde car like that if it's not the way one is supposed to go. Any help along these lines would most certainly be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!