The project came about because of a peculiarity of mine (one of many). I prefer long rolling stock but no manufacturer has produced a long caboose suitable for my railroad. The project also came about because I had bought two Bachmann Big Hauler sets when they first hit the market and the caboose that comes with the set is a short four-wheeler.

So for a long time those two short cabooses bothered me. Then, one day, I decided to make an eight-wheeler out of the pair. It turned out to be a simpler project than I thought and the completed caboose looks good enough to have received the official Central Georgia GRS Seal of Approval.

Those of the nit-picking fraternity should note that the resulting model is very generic and deliberately retains as much of its Bachmann heritage as I could manage. I wanted to modify as little as possible. That is why I never bothered to improve the grab irons and end rails.

You may complete the entire model with the simplest tools. I have furnished a list along with the few materials you will need.

Now look at the pictures of the four-wheeler and the eight-wheeler. Note that the body features are the same and the windows, cupola, and end platforms are unchanged. The real differences lie in the underframe.

DOWN TO WORK

Let's divide construction into three phases: cabin, roof, and underframe. The idea behind the cabin work was to use all available windows in a realistic arrangement while sacrificing as little length as possible. I decided on a three-and-one window arrangement as the most realistic and planned the cuts to space the three-window group evenly. That required dividing the two original cabins into five sections, as in Figure 1. The drawing omits the roof for clarity. The cabin width and height dimensions remain the same.

Rather than use dimensions in inches when planning cuts for the cabin, I work with "boards" as a unit of length. That is why the plan's dimensional numbers may seem unusual. That method has proved simplest over the course of my many bashing projects.

Before you mark anything for cutting, think of a board as being not only the board itself but also one adjacent groove. In planning cuts, your saw should go either to the groove one side of the board or the other, depending on the situation. The idea is that when you reassemble sections A, B, C, D, and E, there will always be one (and only one) groove between each board.

Figures 2 and 3 show how to cut up two original cabins. I used a razor saw and left a little "meat" on the good side so when I had cleaned and squared the sawed edge with a file, the boards and grooves came out uniform. A word about care: Carpenters and cabinet makers have an old saying, "Measure twice, cut once". It pertains to model building, too.

Later we'll use putty to bring the joints to perfection but it is easier to make all joints as perfect as possible when you cut them. The exception to that will be the roof because we'll have to do a lot of filling there and then cover it all over anyway.

THE CABIN SECTIONS

Use a file to smooth the bottom edge of each cabin section, then align them A through E on a flat surface. Working with each pair in turn, file and work each into perfect alignment, be sure each is square, and make sure the board spacing across each joint is exactly the same.

Bachmann's die work varies a little so you will notice minor differences in the fit at the roof and fascia boards and in the wall thickness. You may clean up those discrepancies when you glue together the sections.

Speaking of that, we are now ready to glue together the five sections. I started doing it by pairs, using a tiny bit of Walthers' Goo to hold them together. I then put together pairs until all five were in one piece. Then, using Plastruct cement, I glued a 1 5/8 by 9 inch piece of .080-inch thick Plastruct reinforcing sheet on the inside of both walls. The reinforcement covers sections A, B, C, D, and half of E. The liquid cement will flow into and firm up the wall joints. Tenax 7R by Hebco is perhaps a better way to bond Bachmann's plastic.

The biggest problem at this stage is the cabin wall thickness, since it varies. I had to force the wall to set by holding the outer side against a flat surface, allowing the inner sides of the different sections to find their own tightness or looseness against the Plastruct sheet. That way the visible side of the cabin is all in the same flat plane. It takes some careful holding, so have patience.

Because section D has such a big roof hole, it wants to crimp and be narrower than section C so I forced in a 1/4-inch square wood spacing bar at the roof line, making the bar just long enough that section D aligns perfectly with C.

Be certain to locate the reinforcing sheet to clear the bottom of the cabin wall by at least a quarter of an inch so the car bottom can still mate with the body. Also allow a 1/16-inch clearance below the window openings so later you can insert real glass. It should reach just below the opening.

Fill all unnecessary grab iron holes with Squadron Green putty, also the top hole on sections A and D. I thought the car looked better without the upper section of the grab iron (as you can in the photos). If you agree, trim each piece and set each it aside. When the putty is hard, score the surface to match the siding and cut grooves.

THE ROOF

If you have problems with the fit at the roof line, now is the time to file and sand each part to a clean fit.

We will use one cupola. It fits in place on section E but notice that cutouts for the other cupola show up in sections A and D. How should you fill them? Go to your wood scrap box, fit some larger pieces into the holes, and glue them in place. I used some old hunks of balsa and secured them with Goo. When the hole is full and the glue has set, sand or file the wood to match the curve of the roof line.

We will no longer need the roofwalk slots in the roof. I found an easy way to fill them. Cut a strip from .100-inch thick Plastruct sheet or use scrap wood and file it to the roof contour.

The roofwalk pieces do fit remarkably well but they need a little modification. Figure 4 shows what to do. Cut the board platform from two roofwalk pieces. Set an uncut piece at each end of the car, then trim the modified pieces to fit to the cupola. Then, with a curved file, round out the underside of each piece to fit the curve of the roof making sure each lines up flat and level. Set the pieces aside for now.

THE UNDERBODY

Figure 5 illustrates the modifications to the floor and frame. Cut one floor exactly in half. With the cabin upside down, mount the two floor halves to the cabin using the clips Bachmann provides. Move the two halves as close to the car's center as the clips will allow, then measure the open space between them. Evenly cut both ends off the second frame piece leaving the resulting center section slightly longer than the gap. With a file, fit the center section between the two halves to make a new, longer floor unit.

Glue together the three sections and add plenty of reinforcement across the joints on the top, inside the raised lip. (The cabin walls fit on the outside.) I had a lot of scrap Plastruct structural pieces in my spare parts box so I used those, but sheet styrene or Plastruct would have done equally well. Do be certain to build the new frame straight and flat. For extra strength, I also added quarter-inch square Plastruct scraps on the underside, inside of the beams.

Now it is decision time. What trucks and couplers will you use? A Talgo (truck mounted) coupler will dictate the exact distance from the car end to locate the truck center. On the other hand, you may locate a body mounted coupler where it looks as though it belongs. After that decision, you should determine how high above the trucks you want the body to sit. That will establish how much of a body bolster you must build. See Figure 6.

It may help if I describe what I did. My standard coupler is the Kadee® 820 and I body mount it. The minimum radius of my track is approximately 4 feet (LGB 1600). I also like my cars to hunker down as low as possible to enhance that narrow gauge look. So I took a pair of Bachmann trucks left over from a 40 foot reefer bashing project (October/November 1993 and December 1993/January 1994 Outdoor Railroader) and found they looked about right when I centered them 1 5/8 inches in from the ends. Refer again to Figure 5. That was a happy coincidence because that distance, with only minor surgery, is also just right to allow the truck swing to clear the steps. I use Gary Raymond's smallest metal wheels and their smaller flanges make it easy to provide space for truck swing.

I always put an .060-inch thick by 1/8-inch diameter styrene plug in each journal hole of all trucks, including Bachmann, to reduce side play between the axles and side frames. I had determined earlier that if a railroad had built a caboose with such an underframe, it would have main beams of the shape in Figure 5.

So we must remove material from the Bachmann frame in the areas where the trucks will go. The level must allow the body to sit as low on the trucks as you want. I hogged the frame down to the dimension in Figure 5 to clear the Bachmann trucks, then hogged out the frame and steps where they interfered with truck swing.

After that, I cut down the center of the frame as in the illustration and removed all traces of the four-wheeler journals and brakes. Finally, I smoothed the entire area and added a .010- by 1/8-inch styrene strip to represent the bottom flange of the new floor beam.

To mount the trucks, I built up the styrene sheets in Figure 6. I like to use 1/4-inch diameter bolts for mounting trucks. I reamed out the hole in the truck bolster, then drilled through the styrene bolster and car body. It would be possible to tap the hole in the car body but I prefer to use a nut. Figure 6 shows how plastic scraps easily hold the nut in place.

That sets the car body at a fixed height so I removed material from each end beam to make a place for the coupler box. Since I have established my own standards for coupler height, further details would be of little benefit to you.

If you like the car down very low and you use truck mounted couplers, you may have to shave some material off the bottom of the end beams. That would improve the model anyway since, in my opinion, the whole thing looks far too massive. For that reason, I took off a little even though it was unnecessary to make the couplers fit. Then it was time to paint.

THE FINISH AND FINAL DETAILING

I sprayed the plastic truck parts with Krylon Ruddy Brown Primer and hand painted the wheels with darkened Floquil Rust. I sprayed the body and cupola interiors with Krylon gray and the exteriors with Ruddy Brown. Wait before painting the roof.

The black part of the Santa Fe emblem bled through the Ruddy Brown Primer. I finally had to sand off the emblem. Maybe if I had sprayed the model with Testor's Dullcote before applying the Krylon Ruddy Brown I could have avoided the problem. Either way, I heavily weathered the model to cut the redness of the Krylon and that pretty well hid what bleed-through remained.

I also sprayed the roofwalks with Krylon Ruddy Brown, the frame and smokejack with Krylon Semi-Flat Black, and the end rails, steps, grab irons, hand rails, ladder, and brake wheel with Floquil Silver. I brush painted the boards of the end platform with Floquil Gray. That paint scheme emulates D&RGW caboose colors from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

When the body paint had dried for an entire week, I cut 400 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper into 7/8-inch wide strips and laid it as roofing. Walthers' Goo holds it down.

I bent the sandpaper up around the cupola as flashing and down and around the roof edges. Remember to roof the cupola, too! Then punch out holes and insert the grab irons. I brush painted Floquil Engine Black to "tar" over the joints. Clear out the smokejack hole and attach it with the screw Bachmann provides. Use Goo to attach the roofwalks.

I lettered the model with custom decals of my own roadname. The car number is in sequence with my only other caboose, the subject of a four part scratchbuilding article in OR back in 1992.

If you have decided to body mount your couplers, use fairly short screws to avoid their protruding through the end platform floor boards. If you break through anyway, shorten them, repair the damage with Squadron Green putty, and no one but you will ever know.

Attach whatever hardware still remains. Then, if you want to weather your model, load up your airbrush. I used Floquil Grimy black to tone down the red in the Ruddy Brown Primer and to mute and blend together the colors on the roof. I followed that with a light dusting of Dullcote.

The last step is to insert real glass in all the windows. In my opinion, only glass looks like glass so I use it whenever possible. Fortunately, the glass available in the smaller scales comes in pieces just big enough for us large scalers. The sheets are 1 by 2 inches (nominal size) and mine came from Sierra Scale Models. Cut the glass a little oversize (you will need a special cutter for such small pieces) and attach each piece to the back side of each window opening with Walthers Goo or epoxy. Use only a tiny amount, string it out very thinly and as far from the opening as the size of the glass will allow. Apply the glue and, with a tweezers, carefully lay the glass on exactly the spot you want, then gently squeeze it down. The idea is to avoid sliding the glass around to position it, and to keep from squeezing so hard the glue oozes into the visible part of the window opening.

Clip the two halves of the car together, insert the ladders, and you're done.

I hope it has dawned on you long before now how creative and how much fun kitbashing may be. Bashing works with products from any manufacturer, whether kit or ready-to-run. With only minor changes, for instance, this project could have used any two cabooses. Why not try something along the lines of what this article suggests and send us a photo we may share with our readers?

Materials

2 each Bachmann bobber caboose
1 pair Bachmann trucks
1 package Window glass
1 package 400 grit sandpaper (wet/dry, dark gray)
1 tube Squadron Green Putty
(Optional)
1 pair Kadee® 820 couplers
4 sets Gary Raymond metal wheels
1 bottle Plastruct Cement, or Tenax 7R
1 each .080-inch thick Plastruct styrene sheet
1 each .100-Inch thick Plastruct sheet
3 feet .010- x 1/8-inch styrene strip (HO scale 2 x 12)
Paints
Floquil
  Silver
  Gray
  Grimy Black
  Rust (darkened)
Testor's
  Dullcote
Krylon
  2116 Scarlet OSHA Safety Red
  1318 Gray Primer
  1613 Semi-Flat Black
  Ruddy Brown Primer

Tools

Razor saw
Hacksaw
Single edge razor blades
Coarse files
Fine files
Machinist's square
Vernier Caliper
Metal ruler
Sandpaper
Tweezers
Pliers
Flat Surface