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The MÁV boxcar rebuilt from a Piko boxcar of German prototype. The cast-on items are removed. The louvres were replaced by an etched brass grid and slanted reinforcement bars were added from brass. The reinforcement bar corners are equipped with cornerplates from paper. The frame remained untouched. |
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The etching used for boxcars. On the bottom left there are ventillation grids, on the bottom right the slanted bars. The other components are all cornerplates. |
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The second group of etched components. This fret contains hornblocks
for two boxcars, one for a newer one with narrow fixation and another old
type with wide fixation.Of course these hornblocks can be used for other
freight cars.
The material is 0.4mm (0.017") nickel silver. This is strong enough to suspend the wheelsets correctly. |
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The underframe of the second boxcar made from brass. The arrangement of the brass C-profiles strictly follows the prototype frame structure. |
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The underframe with the wheelsets mounted. The wheelsets are from JayBee, the 40" freight car wheels. Of course with RP25 profile. |
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The underframe on the rails. One can well observe one spotting feature of the Hungarian later built boxcars, the stretched wheelbase. |
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strips on the top of the Piko boxcar became a bit too strong, the size of
1.0x0.5mm (0.04"x0.02") seems to be too large. I tried to make thinner and
narrower strips myself. This experiment was made from 0.3mm (0.012") brass
sheet. Both sides were painted by a simple canned ground color and after
drying lines were scribed on both sides evenly in a 0.9mm distance. The scribed
sheet was put into the etching tank and after a longer etching phase the
material was etched through along the scribed lines. Due to the underetching
the strips are only apr. 0.7mm (0.28") wide. Here you see it against the
sunshine. It is visible that not all lines were etched through correctly,
but the material is so thin there it can be broken away exactly.
This is the tool to make car walls similar to the wooden cars.A brass sheet
is sprayed by a primer color and parallel lines are scribed into. To scribe
parallel lines in regular distance a "ladder" has been made. Two rows of
0.5mm holes were drilled in equal distances into a 0.8mm brass sheet and
0.5mm wires were soldered into the holes. A small ruler helps to scribe the
parallel lines.
The distance of the holes is 1.35mm (0.053"). This gives the width of the standard 120mm (4.7") clads that were used to build wooden cars. The picture, however, shows the floor of a car that was covered with appr. 240mm (9.5") clads. This is made by putting the ruler into every second "ladder" step.
The above roof strips were made using another "ladder" with 0.9mm (0.035") step distance. Here an extreme care was necessary to scribe the sheet on the same location on both sides. This ensures that the etching creates real strips.
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The "box" soldered, top down. The side walls are fixed by two longitudinal strips, a narrow one on the bottom and a wide one on the top. The endwalls are soldered to these bars and also to the sidewalls resulting in a rather solid structure. The crossing sheet will accommodate the threaded holes for the screws that fix the box on the underframe. But their position is still unknown, as it will be determined by the coupler fixation. |
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Components for the suspension on my fingertip. The supports were made by grinding, the chain link by etching and the holes were drilled up to 0,4mm (0.016") diameter. |
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The mounted suspension. The base is a PBC sheet without copper layer. Four 0.4mm (0.016") holes were drilled exactly to the place where the suspension chain should be located. Four 0,4mm brass wires were plugged into the holes and the lower chain-link, the support and the upper chain-link. The pre-fabricated spring was put between the chan links and the whole thing was soldered together by a soldering iron. |
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The almost ready-made boxcar. The buffers are not the final ones, I want to buy a casting of the ancient type buffer from Weinert. These buffers here were just turned for the photo, without buffers the car looks rather odd. |
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Another view. There are still missing components, the two trapezoid curbing on both sides of the door. I have simply forgotten to put them on the etching master. But I hope before painting they will be glued to place. |
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Closer lookof the carside. The door can be opened. But the doorwheels are not rolling... |
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The 4m wheelbase boxcar's frame bottom. The construction differs from the newer 5m wheelbase version. |
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The 4m wheelbase boxcars were still equipped with the two-part bearing box, as modelled here. |
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The third MÁV boxcar model, a handbrake version. The superstructure was now built mainly from nickel silver. Only the profiles and etched parts are from brass. |
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The frame bottom view of the handbrake boxcar version. The frame was made from brass. The brake rigging is well visible. |
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This page was updated last time on December 30, 2006
© János Erö
