{"id":4092,"date":"2025-04-20T16:04:36","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T23:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/?p=4092"},"modified":"2025-06-04T16:13:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T23:13:58","slug":"building-a-nason-boxcab-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/?p=4092","title":{"rendered":"Building a Nason Boxcab, part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Back last summer I posted an overview article on the Nason boxcab, <\/a>showing a built up example and a nearly complete kit. Since then I’ve decided to start building the kit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some puzzling about prototypes also pointed me to building it to resemble as much as I can an early GE boxcab Diesel. For more on those, there is a very handy Wikipedia article here<\/a>. In short they were produced in several variations between 1928 and 1930, and was the general type of locomotive Nason wanted to imitate (although it was actually a model of a GE New Haven EY-3 electric with altered roof details — among other issues the drive is completely wrong for the GE Diesels).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love “blue box” Athearn drives, they convert well to OO gauge, and I found a good switcher drive to modify for this engine. The next step then was to build the body. The built up model I have had been soldered together, and that seemed like the way to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wired, not clamped<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I tried to clamp the parts together, but they always ended up out of square. I finally opted to wire the parts together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Backing up a step, my other main hobby is working on French horns. For soldering them I normally wire parts together with 19 gauge annealed steel wire, which is what you see in the photo. I was able to get it nice and tight with the body nice and square. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This close up shows one of the joints after soldering. I used a torch, lead-free solder, and liquid flux like I would use on a French horn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going forward, I’m hoping to use only my resistance soldering unit, the one I used for most of the soldering on the etched brass switcher a few years ago<\/a>. I’ll post again as things go forward. Right now the big thing that will stall me maybe for a while is I have no roof and will need to fabricate that. For now, I think I’ll rework the drive soon, and maybe that will generate enough project momentum to do the roof sooner rather than later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading the series on building a boxcab <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back last summer I posted an overview article on the Nason boxcab, showing a built up example and a nearly complete kit. Since then I’ve<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nason"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/americanootoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Boxcab-3.jpg?fit=1807%2C1015&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4092"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4128,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092\/revisions\/4128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}