HO Scale Automobile – Furniture Boxcar, Pere Marquette 90350 Series

Description

This 3D printed HO scale kit represents a 90350-91849 series 40 foot boxcar built by the Pullman Car & Manufacturing Company in 1930 for the Pere Marquette to carry automobiles and furniture.  The cars had 12 foot double doors, Hutchins roofs, and three piece recessed type dreadnaught ends.

The kit includes all the materials you need to finish the car except paint and glue.

• 3D printed body (including ladders, grab irons, roof walk, etc.)
• 3D printed floor / underframe (including brake components)
• 1 set of custom printed decals printed using Ghost White toner on Micro-Mark decal film (each kit has a different default number, so no fiddling with individual numbers if you like the default and order more than one kit)
• 1 pair of Tahoe Model Works 40-Ton ARA Trucks (TMW-015)
• 2 pairs of Intermountain 33″ Wheelsets  (.110″ Tread Width)
• One 2″ piece of K&S Precision Metals 0.020″ brass wire (for the brake rod)
• 4 A-Line Stirrup Steps – Type B
• 1 pair of Kadee #158 couplers
• 1 pair of Kadee Narrow Whisker Snap Together Gearboxes
• 1 Kadee Equipco Brake Wheel (closest looking brake wheel)
• 4 2-56 screws
• 4 2-56 nuts

Tru-Color sells a Pere Marquette Boxcar Red (TCP-245) that would be appropriate for this car.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Do not leave unpainted 3D printed parts sitting out for long in the light, particularly sunlight.  The resin printing process uses UV light to cure the resin and over-exposure to UV light can make the parts brittle.  Once painted, the paint will protect the resin from continued curing.

Assembly Instructions / Tips / Recommendations:

Use a set of sprue trimmers to carefully go around trimming the 3D printer supports from the body.  Do the ladders and grab irons first.  Then work your way around the bottom edge of the boxcar sides.  Once you have the supports removed from the delicate features, you can switch to a “coarser” method for the bulk of the supports on the non-cosmetic underside of the body.  Many you can tear away by hand.  Once the supports are all removed from the underside, any remaining bumps from the supports can be cleaned up with a large file.  The holes for the 0.020″  brass wire brake rod will need to be drilled out.

Use a set of sprue trimmers to carefully go around trimming the 3D printer supports from the floor / underframe.  Remove the supports from the brake components and brake lines first.  There are a few internal supports that go from the brake lines to the floor than need to be carefully removed.  Then work your way around the edge of the floor.   (Note: If you want to paint the floor separately from the body, do it now.  Once you remove the bulk of the supports, the floor will want to warp. ) Once you have the supports removed from the delicate features, you can switch to a “coarser” method for the bulk of the supports on the non-cosmetic side of the floor.  Many you can tear away by hand.  Once the supports are all removed, any remaining bumps from the supports can be cleaned up from the sides and flat non-cosmetic top with a large file.

As soon as the floor is free from all the supports, place the four 2-56 screws into the slots in the underside of the body and glue the floor to the body.  CA or canopy glue can be used.  The floor has a tendency to warp once removed from it’s supports, so don’t wait too long to glue the floor to the body.

As mentioned above, Tru-Color sells a Pere Marquette Boxcar Red (TCP-245) that would be appropriate for this car.  This paint goes on thin and even after painting, if you hold the car just right in the light, you can sometimes still see the layer lines from the printing.  However, after apply a layer or two of the final flat clear coat after applying the decals, the lines become invisible.

The instructions for the Micro-Mark decal film recommended applying a clear coat to the decals before applying them to protect the integrity of the decals.  The decals were laser printed, so they are more durable than ink jet printed decals, so they may survive without the paint, but better safe than sorry.

Resources:

A lettering diagram drawing for the car can be found by searching the C&O Historical Society Archives with the term “90350”.  A builder’s photo can be found by searching for “90991”.

Further information with several pictures can be found the book Pere Marquette Revenue Freight Cars.  This was the primary source for the design.

Tony Thompson assembled an early version of this kit and described the process in a 3 part blog posting:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Note the correct stirrup step has been provided with the kit per Tony’s article.  Thank you Tony for catching that mistake.