I have picked up some wooden rolling stock kits at prices you couldn't pass up. Included are kits from Quality Craft Models, Ye Olde Huff 'n Puff, and Labelle Woodworking. I think that all three are still in business, but that Quality Craft is out of the HO market. Although I have built wood structure kits, I have not tried my hand at wood rolling stock. If any of you have any experience running the gamut from adhesives to painting, I would like your input. I know that wooden kits were popular in the distant past, but are any of you still building them?
Quality Craft's 'HO' car kits are part of the Huff N' Puff line. Obviously, if these firms and others still produce wood rolling stock kits, there are people who buy them. Most 19th century through Great War modellers , work in wood. So do some later ones since SS and DS box cars , for example , were running in the 1960s. The Myrltle Avenue El in Brooklyn was scrapped in that era, and was running with open platform wood sheathed mass transit cars when she was cashiered. So I won't belabor the obvious. You can use Goo (rubberoid slow drying) or Ambroid or DUCO from the widely available household cement/contact class (acetone base , quick drying) for assembly. Plastic cements are of no use, and CA doesn't offer any advantages, even when it is one of the forms that works well with wood and porous materials. If you have wood sheathing of a couple of inches long made from scribed siding paint both sides, using non water base paint. Water base works, but the wood absorbs more than petrol based (classic Floquil,Humbrol, marine modelers paint, et al). People like Model Expo , the mail order hobby giant, that is on-line as well,routinely have sales of the latter at nominal prices. You may have to weight down large areas of painted wood , immediately after the surface is no longer tacky to the touch, in order to keep them flat. The liquid in the paint may cause them to curl. Certain high quality freight car sides made of laminated plywood , used by Central Valley , Westwood, and some other no longer in production but great stuff, won't need this. "Jays Trains. com ", which is the website of Jay Cohen, who specializes mainly in craftsman OOP kits sales, will show the range of what is sought by wooden car kit builders. Eastern Car Works makes extensive line of 'HO' side frames for appropriate trucks. BC models, whose owner is ill, apparently is about to sell the most extensive line of 'HO' trucks , back to the people who own the Model Railroad Warehouse. They are on-line and are easy to find. There are several YAHOO groups where wooden rolling stock is a way of life. "Early Rail"; "TOCNG": Fine Scale Miniatures are examples. Virtually all the groups : named for narrow gauged railroads ; dealing with logging ; and or industrial forms of railways ; or set in pre Great War time periods will be of help. Go to the index at the Yahoo Groups homepage, and log into the name of any group that covers these periods, or does these things. "small-layout-design" , which is a Yahoo group, and widely regarded as the best of all of the layout design forums, has many micro-layout specialists. Almost without exception (although the activities covered are all embracing in these small layouts) these folks will be in the era needed by you. Assuming this is helpful and wishing you Good-Luck, I am PJB
PJB, Thank you for your detailed reply. Very helpful! I look forward to trying the first of the kits (I picked up about 7).
