I have recantly acquired at an antique store of all places a Quality Craft all door boxcar kit all the parts look like they are there, white metal ,wire ,and basswood.am looking forward to building a real craftsman style kit but there are no instructions or painting directions.have already checked out spookshows site so i know roughly how it is supposed to look.does anyone know where i can download instructions for this kit? any help will be greatly appreciated.
All-Door Box Car I have the instrutctions and can scan them and send them to you. Plese send me an email at igoldberg1@embarqmail.com and I will get them to you. Ira Goldberg
I did one of these back in the 70's as my very first craftsman kits. It's still one of my favorite cars. Good news: The stand-off details - particularly the ladders, end details, grabs, rails, and door mechanism, make the work worthwhile. Castings are very good. Bad news: You simply can't put enough work into getting the basswood smooth and sealed. I'd be seriously tempted to replace the basswood with styrene cut to the same dimensions to get the steel surface on the roof and sides. The worst part to get super-smooth is the roof. It's the first car behind the power in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CqkkxeYL6I I put MEDIUM extended trucks on it and it worked out great, just the right spacing. Floquil "Weyerhauser Green" despite the label, was the WRONG COLOR. I have a full series of color shots of one of these cars taken back in the 1970s if anybody needs it, of course I found it after I did the model.
There was also another variation of the all door boxcar that was a shop built by the McCloud Ry. They took an all door boxcar built by Thrall and took the doors off and made them a standard boxcar. Although I have never seen pics of one, I have heard there were quite a bit of them roaming the rails. I am sure they have all been cut up by now though.