For my 7th car I really wanted to build a flat car and i wanted to do it from a kit that used strip wood as I had built a laser cut kit but i hadn’t done anything from strip wood, even my passenger car solid sides to build from it wasn’t all from strip wood. This kit took me 6 hours to build and paint. I know this because I built it whilst demonstrating on the NMRA Scottish Division booth at the Perth Model Railway Show 2017.

Supplied in the kit were comprehensive instructions and scale drawings. The first part of this build was to drill and notch the sides of the flat car.

I made the outer frame of the car with the end sils. I ensure this was square before adding the buffer block and the centre stays and mounting block for the draft box.

Turning the car over i then added the deck, this was simplified by using selotape to hold the planks together and then rolling them down the car length.

Once the deck had dried,  I added the bolsters and the Needle Beams. I then added the truss rods which are made from nylon wire. Next came the brake details and the steps fabricated from brass wire. I also notched the deck and added the stake pockets to the side sill of the flat car. Some of the castings were poor and caused the stake pockets to not be a straight as they could be but this is not as noticable in real life as it is in some of the following images. 

The brake rods were fabricated from some brass wire and secured them to the bolsters with CA. I am sorry there are not more photographs of this build but i was busy talking to the public whilst doing the build.

After fitting the underframe gear I then added the draft box and brake wheel. The trucks are tichy arch bar trucks. The model was finished with a flat black under frame and a box car red body. It was running on a layout at 4pm exactly 6 hours after the show opened.