Janus Hammerhead
HO Scale 62' Bulkhead Flat Car
These polyurethane flat car bodies are very easy to assemble. You have to supply you're own couplers, trucks, screws, washers and weights. I've used a variety of roller bearing trucks and both 33" and 36" wheelsets. You use washers to adjust the height of the trucks in order to line up the couplers with your height guage.
There is no beam down the center so there is a ton of room for adding weight. It's pretty cool that you can weigh them down without having to put a load on top.
I used my Cricut Explore to make some wood decks out of thin bass wood I picked up at Hobby Lobby for $3. One piece of wood can make at least 2 decks.
I had no trouble negotiating 22" radius curves on my test track and the cars stayed together through all the grade changes I have.
It took me around 10 minutes to wet sand 1 body by hand and about 5 minutes when I used my Central Machinery 43533 slow speed grinder I got at Harbor Freight. I also used the disc sanding configuration on my Zhouyu 6 in 1 Machine and that worked really well. Probably the best configuration of that machine to date, but I haven't used the lathe yet.
Polyurethane makes a super fine dust and seems to be quite static. Even when wet sanding the dust eventually dried and blew around the room a bit. Definitely wear a dust mask with this project.
I tried both bondo and tamiya putty and they worked great. Once cured, super easy to sand. the bondo has the advantage in that it cures so fast. It's totally possible to do several of these cars and put on the first coat of paint within an hour.
When you want a lot of flat cars real fast, these work. They aren't even remotely close to being super realistic, but even a few details can make them appear impressive from a short distance. In groups, they look pretty good.
Here's the ebay pix:
