and he notes The Kinsman passenger cars were cut at Northeastern much the same way the Ambroid H0 cars were made. They did not use punches for window openings - they were milled from a solid block of Basswood. I saw this done when Gene Fletcher and I toured the plant back in the 70s.
First they select the wood from a pile, looking for a chunk that's free from knots (or has as little as possible). Then the chunk is sawed into a square block where the leading edge is the length (plus a little extra) of the car times the height up to the top of the windows. Then the block is secured in a special milling machine and all the the windows are cut as a series of grooves to the proper width and depth. Meanwhile another strip of wood has been milled to match the window block and it is glued over the grooved windows to make a 2 ft. thick car side. Next step is to slice off the car side to close the proper thickness much like a deli worker slices baloney except (as I recall) they did a half dozen at a time. Then the sides are fed though a sanding machine for the final thickness and then re-fed into a scriber machine for that detail. The last step was to cut the car side to the proper width. You can see the results of this on the obverse side of the car - it shows the glue points. The window strips in the clerestory roof were pretty much made the same way. The fascia strip and belt rail were added later. The cars you are modeling (I believe) were built by Osgood Bradley and rebuilt with steel under frames either by them or at the B&M's Concord (NH) shops and were used in 1st class service. Last time I was at Greenfield (MA) there was a string of 'em tied to a wreck train. But that was about 30 years ago! There were a couple of Osgood Bradley "Flyer" Cars used as a diner too. I think your suggestion about buying a kit sounds more plausible than setting up a woodworking shop! At 07:04 PM 10/2/2011, Wesley Ewell wrote: > > >That is true for the freight car kits, but the >passenger car kits have some features that are >difficult or very time-consuming to do at home. >For instance, the clerestory roofs are routed >out so you can see light through the windows. >The window openings are die cut, so they are all >identical and straight. The sides have belt >detail routed in place. Although the earliest of >these cars were built by Laconia, the ones I am >modeling (and the prototype for the Kinsman >kits) were built by the Boston & Maine well into >the 1920s and had wood bodies on steel frames. >The windows on the Laconia cars were rounded at >the top corners; the B&M cars had rectangular windows. -Wes > >________________________________ >From: Rusty <<mailto:thebrassbasher%40yahoo.com>[email protected]> >To: <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com>[email protected] >Sent: Saturday, October 1, 2011 11:55 AM >Subject: {S-Scale List} Kinsman kits > > > >Based on the current activity on eBay there are >several Kinsman and Northeastern kits now >selling in the $40 to $50 range! If a guy has a >copy of the plans in these kits he really doesn't need the kits! >J.Rustermier [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
