I have a caboose kit that I have been building on and off over the last couple of years but now I'm at the point of installing the handrails for the ends. I can't seem to find the part commercially so i will have to bend my own. I was looking a jigs for making them and I found the kit 915 from AMB but I can't find any photos of it so see if it is just grabs or handrails as well. Is anyone familiar with the jig set?
Lone Geep
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It's not that difficult to build your own handrails and ladders, and straight and drop-type grabirons are available from Tichy.
I'm not sure if Detail Associates is still around, but at one time, they did offer the curved grabs that many cabooses had on their sides, near the ends, along with the upside-down "L"-shaped ones on the ends of cabooses.
If you want to make your own, Tichy offers a wide range of wire sizes in phosphor-bronze, which is much more resistant to fatigue (usually re-bending) than is brass wire.
To create handrail details that are consistent in size and shape, I make forms using either wood (hard maple) or styrene, usually cemented to a somewhat larger piece of the same material.
In the photo below, the scorched piece on the left was made for forming end ladder stiles for the caboose - I used .015"x.030" strip brass (from Detail Associates - also available from K&S) soldering two strips atop one another, then using pliers and finger pressure to curve the material around the top of the added piece of wood.
Once the curve was made, I then used a draughting compass (with points on both legs) to mark-off locations for the rungs, then drilled through both stiles before unsoldering the stiles from one another. That, of course, required removal of the solder that had held the two stiles together for bending, and also the re-drilling of at least some the holes for the rungs.
It's been some time since I did this, but if I recall correctly, the jig to the right, with paired slide-able pieces of wood in the centre, was meant for adding the ladder's rungs: the stiles were held in-place with straight pins, and with the sliding portions moved to near to the mid-point of the ladder, a piece of wire was inserted through the stiles and soldered in-place.After adding small wads of wetted Kleenex to those soldered joints, the sliding wood was moved to allow for installation of the rest of the rungs, always adding wetted tissue to each newly-added rung.Once both ladders were assembled, I used a cut-off disc in a motor tool to remove excess wire from the outside faces of the stiles.
Here's the completed caboose, with scratchbuilt screen doors on both ends...
...and with a swingable gate in the centre of the handrails on the platform...
Only another four Athearn cabooses to re-build, and another eight or nine wooden ones (actually styrene) to scratchbuild.
Wayne
Following up on Waynes commetn about the detail associates detail kit for the AMB cabooses:
https://www.trainz.com/products/detail-associates-550-ho-american-model-builders-caboose-detail-kit?variant=39261598220410
They appear to be OOP but searchable on Ebay or other sites.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Hello All,
I have heard of modelers using Resistor Lead Bending jigs to form handrails.
These are readily available at most electronics specialty stores.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"