Missabe's Caboose C182 from Walthers 30' Wood Caboose
(Throughout the narrative are related thumbnail pix. Click any
to see a larger view)
This project starts from Walthers thirty-foot 3-window offset
cupola wood caboose. Mine was lettered Great
Northern as I originally intended to use it in its GN scheme. But I happened across Missabe caboose 182 and it
looked a lot like the Walthers kit. Too close,
in fact. I decided the Walthers kit was about
to become C182.
Although the kit looks close, it has the wrong end platforms, wrong
window spacing, the cupola sits too high and isn’t close enough to the end of the
car, the chimney is in the wrong place and it is missing the characteristic steel channel
side sills.
It seemed easy to address everything but the windows and the
position of the cupola. I decided those were
“good enough”. If I moved the cupola
back, I had to modify the interior, and I just don’t like moving windows around on
wood siding – too hard to remove the lines of the splices.
I disassembled the car, and started by lowering the cupola in
its existing place on the roof. Beginning with
the sides of the cupola, I cut off all the plastic below the thin trim that runs along the
entire side just below the windows. I rough
cut just below this trim, then filed the remaining plastic until it was smooth against the
bottom of this trim piece. Then I notched the
cupola ends in even with the new side bottom. The
notch indents just enough to clear the hole in the roof.
I used trial-and-error to get it to fit.
The lower cupola required that I trim off part of the interior
cupola seats as well. It is just the seat
“backs” that need to be removed. I
cut them off, and then filed them smooth with a file.
Hint: It’s a LOT easier to do this now, rather than after the car is
being assembled, as I did!
Next, I pulled the chimney out of the roof, and carved off the
“flashing” that is cast into the roof. I
scrapped the flashing and chimney base until all was flush with the roof boards. I then used a very thin file to re-form the grooves
between the boards that were under the flashing. With
a light enough touch, I found it was smooth enough when done to avoid the use of body
filler.
To apply the steel channel side sills, I had to cut off a
portion of each cross bearer of the underframe. They
reached out to the edge of the car side, and I had to make room for the channel. I also had to trim off the ribs under the car body
to clear the channels. I also removed the tool
box from the underside. It had to be lowered
after the channel was in place.
I cut two pieces of 0.100” styrene channel to fit
lengthwise on the car between the end steps. I
cut each end at an angle to match the photo of C182, and then glued them to the shortened
cross bearers.
I drilled a hole in the roof for the new placement of the
chimney, on the long roof, on the other side of the car from where it had been, and in
between the second and third windows. It
corresponds with an empty place on the Walthers interior, but it appears from the photo
that it should go between the first and second windows.
Because the prototype had the second window closer to the third and the
Walthers kits doesn’t, the placement of the chimney based on the prototype windows
doesn’t work as well on the model.
The prototype had light guy wires holding the chimney in place.
They ran from half way up the pipe to the sides of the car, not forward-backward as
provided in the Walthers model. I drilled a
very small hole through the chimney half way up. I
drilled two holes in the roof, one very near the outside edge of the roof, the other
almost at the walkway, both on the same board “groove” as the chimney. I glued the chimney in place, then threaded a
single strand of wire from stranded #12 wire through the holes, trying the wire together
on the underside of the roof.
I cut new lettering boards so characteristic of Missabe
cabooses from .020 x .080 strip styrene. The
letter board reaches half way into the end platform opening.
However, it begins a gentle upward curve at the edge of the car body, giving
a nice scrolling look.
I cut all the details off the end sills, including the brake
wheel stand, ladder and railings. I filed the
remaining sills smooth and glued them to each end.
Now it was time to paint the caboose. I painted the cupola, letter boards and body
exterior with Poly Scale Signal Yellow – a great orangish-yellow that looks very
Missabe. When dry, I masked the body and
painted the underside of it, the underframe, caboose roof and cupola roof Grimy Black.
Since my caboose was originally painted for the Great Northern,
the interior walls of the body were also very red. I
hand painted the interior walls Model Masters Light Gray, trying not to get paint in the
window openings. I left the cast interior as
it is.
I then drilled out all the little holes for hand grabs as
specified in the instructions. I also drilled
new holes for new end sill railings and brake wheel at each end. Standing on the track and facing the caboose, this
car had an inverted U shaped railing on the left side and on the right, the railing was an
inverted L, attaching to the ladder. It had a
brake wheel shaft just to the left of the center sill.
Now it was time for reassembly.
I snapped the windows back in. I
put the underframe to the body, installed the weight and interior and screwed all together
with the three screws provided. I re-glued the
stove to its new position to match the stove pipe. I
put the main roof in place, then added the cupola. It
was then that I found that the interior stuck up too far on the lowered cupola, but YOU
won’t have that problem at this step! I
glued the letter boards on, carefully applying liquid cement. In one spot, the cement dissolved through to the
old red paint. Needed a touch-up with a small
brush.
I applied old Athearn caboose ladders, stamped metal items, by
trial and error to fit the roof slope and adhere to the end sills. I notched a bit of the top flange of the end sills
to accommodate the ladder sides. When the fit
was good, I super glued them in place. I also
bend some steel wire to make new end rails. This
was also trial-and-error.
As of this writing, I haven’t applied the Walthers wire
hand grabs nor decaled the caboose. You can
see it as far as it is. I will post an updated
photo when done.
| 
