# building wooden passenger cars



## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

my now I have nearly completed the project, but I thought I would share a few photos of building three passenger cars for my 1:20.3 scale forney. I had some nice cars which were not quite correct scale wize. a freind had given me some cars he had started and I worked them to be pretty nice but I couldn't get them to quite look like proper two foot gauge cars. I felt I had to start again from scratch this time. Maine Narrow gauge cars are really quite small compared to standard or even 3 foot gauge cars and have different proportions.

Here is WW&F coach 3. you can see it is very low to the ground and low overall making it look long and skinny. if I stand on the cinders next to it I can look in the windows easily.









to keep the car low, I felt I had to make my own trucks. I have some nice quality birch plywood which I used to saw out the major parts. I added some maple pieces for the bolster and other details










I used square tooth picks and bras escutcheon pins to assemble the trucks and Bachman wheel sets. These trucks are actually equalized to help keep the cars on my rough tracks.


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

I made the car frames from oak. Just for fun it is from a tree cut in the yard and sawn by a local sawyer. 










The queen posts are made from brass rail. I started by sawing a slot in the head 1/16 wide and the same deep. then I sawed off short sections of the rail and soldered them to brass base plates.










they are then glued and pinned to the needle beams on the frame.










I sawed 1/16x1/4" pine for the decking and glued it to the pre-painted frame.










the sides of the car were fabricated from strip wood, plywood and scribed siding. this is the same technique that Ted Stinson used with his kits and Garden railways plans. Here is the combine in progress


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

The roof on a clerestory passenger car is a challenge. the way I tackled it was to mill roof sections on my table saw. the side roof consists of the curved roof outside and angled inside, the lower clerestory window frame and a "board" which extends down into the car above the main windows to hold the roof in place. this "board" is trimmed so it fits between the end walls of the car.










the window frames are made with a slot to accept plastic window panes. with pre-cut window panes and vertical mullions assembly is pretty quick. a final grooved strip closes the top. note that all the window frames were pre-painted to keep (most) of the paint off the glass.










the main roof fits between the tops of the clerestory windows. This too was milled to shape on the table saw. By running the peice diagonally across the blade (with a fence clamped to the table) I cut the curved ceiling. the curved roof was cut in several passes with the blade angled.










the ends of the roof were solid pieces of cedar roughed with my band saw, then fitted and glued in place. additional pieces were added as needed. the final shape was made using a rasp and sandpaper.


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

Well-- I didnt show everything but I hope you enjoyed what I did show. Here are some (almost) finished shots.

I painted the cars with acrylic exterior paint and (wallyworld craft section) crafts acrylics. Several coats were needed to get good coverage. the paint has a nice satin finish and is easily cleaned. I hand lettered the cars with a gold "sharpie" marker pen. I am not perfect at it but I like the hand lettered appearance well enough!









this is the combine which i have spent more time doing interior work on.








the luggage is just sawn out of cedar scrap with penciled on frames and hardware.









The combine has bench seats running the length of the seating area and a coal stove for heat. using dark Red Cedar and pine gives the interior some added interest. I coated the interior with linseed oil to bring out the color in the wood.










well enough of show and tell for now, but I took more photos if there is anything you want to see more about.


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## cocobear1313 (Apr 27, 2012)

Eric, very nice! Would you mind sending me an email to [email protected] ? 

Thanks, 
Dave


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice work Eric!!


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

What a wonderful piece of car building. 
I like the time you took to make the photos 'real' with the help of the scale helper. 
Just shows what can be done with some wood, and I would think a lot of time. 
The lining and lettering looks great. 
A great amount of detail everywhere you look. 
All the best, 
David leech, Delta, Canada


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## BradN (May 5, 2008)

Brilliant work Eric. I'd love to see pictures of how you cut the roof top on the table saw. Any chance you'd be able to post pictures of that set up on the saw. Your roofs are right out of a book by the late great David Jenkinson entitled 'Carriage Modelling Made Easy'. For his roofs, Jenkinson utilized the sort of machine used for making crown molding, and this required special knives to be made for each type of roof. Your method seems much simpler, and I would greatly appreciate your willingness to expound upon it.
Thanks for any help,
Brad


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Very nice! What are the overall dimensions of the car? 

Later, 

K


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

WOW, You have quite a knack for wood working. While I can pound a nail pretty straight, I'd be wasting my time and the wood if I tried what you are doing. The coach looks great. But, I really like the little carpenter that is helping build the coach.


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

Well I dont know how good this photo is but I have a pine board clamped to the table diagonally on the right side of the photo. the dark cedar is the future "roof" you can see the blade protruding through a chip board "zero clearance" saw cover. the blade is up only about 1/8" and has enough set so that it can cut slowly when I push the roof through. as you might imagine, I can cut an arc shaped cove out of a board and the radius can be as small as something like half an inch to the diameter of the blade 5" radius in this case. obviously if you want to carve out a lot of material you will need to take several passes.










you can see the tool marks running diagonally across the coved out section.









this is the final pass cutting the outside of the roof. I started with a 5 degree angle which was adjusted to cut almost to the middle of the outside of the roof, then did 10 degrees, and finally in this shot 15 degrees.








a final pass cut the notch for the window frames.








the final shape of the outside included a little facet appearance which was easily sanded into a smooth arc. 

the coach and combine set are about 22 inches long and the last coach is 27 inches. they are about 6 inches tall and 3 7/8" wide


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Eric

As usual, an exceptional job of modeling, especially on using what's lying around the shop to accomplish the task at hand. I like others really do enjoy your how I did that postings, so if your find yourself in the mood to elaborate further, please do.









Reminds me of one of your earlier posted topics.

Eric Schade: Using Scrap Materials (PDF 818KB)[/b]


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## docwatsonva (Jan 2, 2008)

Eric,

Being one who has scratchbuilt a passenger car I have to admire your work. Anyone who can take chunks of wood and convert them into a car such as you have made is truly scratcbuilding at its finest. Congratulations on your achievement. I am in awe.

Doc


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## steam5 (Jun 22, 2008)

Great work and what a nice idea to cut the roof! 

Thanks 
Alan


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Beautiful use of wood! I always enjoy seeing how tools can be used in different ways. The cars look great.


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

I cleared some snow off the track and it seems to be melting clear so I set the cars and a loco on the rails for a portrait.

This photo shows combine # 6 and coach #5, coach #3 is hiding in back. I think the scale and proportion to the Forney look pretty good .










here is coach #3 which is my version of W&Q # 3 from the WW&F museum. this one is one window shorter than the prototype but conveys the feeling pretty well.










I installed seats in coach #3. these too were milled from cedar on the table saw then cut to length. I sawed out armrests from 1/8" plywood and glued them to the side of each seat. the seats sit on a 1/2 block of wood to get them the right hight.


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