Katzhagen - Archive - April 2009 #2
A duplication
of a center buffer car's buffers is a must more or less in case it is meant to run in a double-buffer car consist. After the conversion of some depressed-center freight cars I ran out of spare buffers for converting the car shown below. A friendly garden railroad fan helped me out with home-baked moulds of a LGB double buffer beam...
Deburred and filed...
... abraded and varnished
After treating the raw pieces, the next step was to deprive the car of its center buffers. First using a saw and a file, then abrasive paper and finally some polish.
The condition to be redressed...
Cut reworked with a grit of up to 8000, finished with acrylic polish.
2.5mm holes were applied in suitable places to the chassis and to the buffers. After cutting M3-threads into these bores, a threaded tree rod was cut into pieces of a suitable length to connect the buffers to the chassis.
Cloned buffers
A radiused and a flat buffer disk
In addition to the buffers' duplication some minor changes were applied to the car's lettering. Related details concerning dimensions and weights can be found in the picture on the right above, logos of the railroad company and the car's permanent tenant in the picture below:
DB and Schenker as additional letterings
Retrofitted for use with standard gauge trains
