Automotive Carriers

This is another project that my brother made.  He liked the look of these cars, but they were not produced by any largescale manufacturer.  He then decided to make them himself.  His original plan was to make 3 and give them to me for Christmas.  They took forever, and he only got one done in time.  He made them out of bass wood over top of plastic sign board.  It is the board that political endorsements are put on.  The roof and ends were made out of metal.

 He used tinning foil that he got at Hobby Lobby. To get the rib on it we used a Fiskars paper crimper that we have used on a lot of our projects. He then bent the metal to the way it needed to be on a brake that my dad has at his sheet metal shop.  The screens on the side was an open mesh screen also run through the paper crimper. He made all the decals on our computer with inkjet water slide decal film.

He is presently building two more of the carriers.  He is trying some new things on them, including a new type of grate on the sides.  He has also upgraded the old one to match the new ones. He has also changed them over to roller bearing trucks from Aristocraft.

I will update this page when the others are done.

UPDATE!! 3-1-04

Here is what is new with the auto carriers.  My brother has the frame done for 2 more cars.  He has also found a new type of metal to put on the sides.  It already has the ribbs in it and looks very close to the prototype. He is also putting it on the previous car. He has not finished them yet, but will soon.  He is also re-doing the roofs and is supporting them better. Here are the new pictures. 

UPDATE!! 8-23-04

My brother has completed 3 more auto rack cars for our train layout.  He did do some changes to the way they were built this time.  For the metal ribs on the side of the cars, he used metal dryer vent.  The only difference is that this stuff is made for commercial application.  We used size 14 inch because the roudness is not as much and it can be bent out without making creases in the ribs.  For the roof, he used precision plastic sheets as the tinning foil is too fragile to cary to train shows.  He decided to make 2 of them Union Pacific and 1 BNSF.  Here are some pictures below of the final product.  You can see more pictures of them under the Summer 2004 section on the main page.