# L&N Wood Chip Car Build



## Sawdust (Oct 26, 2010)

I just recently bought a B&O extended hopper from RustyCuda & got inspired to bring one I built out to share. This is the donor car one of four my wife bought me not knowing the BLT date was too new for our era.










Instead of using brake fluid to strip which takes awhile I used lacquer thinner QUICKLY! then even quicker I washed in soapy warm water :laugh:










I ground off the rivets so these ribs would lay flat on the sides.










Here I cut the extended ribs, the end & side panels & the frame for the top.










This car had molded ladders :thumbsdown: so I ground them off & replaced them with Central Valley ladders. 










Painted with auto body gray primer then red oxide primer for the finish coat.



















I couldn't find the same lettering as the prototype so I used what I had in dry transfers. I made the faded orange sign & the horizontal lines on my computer & after a few shade changes got something I liked. I printed them out & sanded the paper off the back as thin as possible then glued using a paper glue stick.










The prototype










Any questions or comments are welcomed, thanks for looking!


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## broox (Apr 13, 2012)

Looks awesome!

I need to find a cheap (free) local hookup for styrene. I believe some signs are made from styrene, I'll have to look around see what I can get for nix


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## Sawdust (Oct 26, 2010)

A lot of our box stores use styrene sheets for signs. For a thicker material I have bought damaged bathtub wall panels from home improvement stores. I know a guy who used the plastic panels on window shades. He said they reacted to solvent glue just like styrene. The price you have to pay I guess it pays to be creative.


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## NIMT (Jan 6, 2011)

Sawdust, 
Excellent looking build you did there! I'm going to need to build a couple dozen of those for my logging operations!


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Sawdust,

That is some superb modeling work. Between you and Kingred "sanding paper to make it thinner", I've been a bit in awe as to what our crew here at MTF has been doing lately.

Very, very nice work!

TJ


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## Ranger (Mar 4, 2012)

Excellent work!!


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## swiggy (Jan 25, 2010)

wow...................amazing build


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## Sawdust (Oct 26, 2010)

Thanks everyone for your comments.


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## dec_20187 (Feb 16, 2013)

That's cool. What kind of glue do you use for this?


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Nice modeling. :thumbsup:

I wonder what the square is up on top of the prototype in the center is for?


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## Sawdust (Oct 26, 2010)

Dec...I use Tenax7R. Any solvent based glue works great on styrene. It has a chemical reaction to plastics & actually welds the plastic together rather than leaving a cement trail. It takes a little practice because it dosen't take much & it wicks it's self rapidly along the two members being joined.

Big Ed...Hauling & salvaging WC started out as an experiment. It became so profitable to the RR that the average 70 ton hopper wasn't making it worth while because it couldn't carry enough in volume. They started extending hoppers to haul more. Since these cars were not designed to haul large volumes of wood chips they never flowed very well when unloaded without getting backed up. The pockets you see on the sides is where a car shaker would grasp the car & shake. This shaker was mounted on a movable track along side of the rr track & as the car sit unloading it would grasp & shake. 

Thanks guys for your comments.:thumbsup:


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## NIMT (Jan 6, 2011)

There are a few of the wood chip loaders at various sawmills up here, but they don't haul any of the chip via rail anymore, it's all done by truck.


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