Flat car decking

[Rufus T. Firefly]

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[GreggL]

Don't know if you're still around this forum, but do you have photos of what you ended up doing for your PS4 flats? The deck material they use on the newer cars sucks and I want to replace them.

Still around - just retired two weeks ago and have been too busy for much surfing of the boards. As soon as I saw your message, I grabbed a couple pics. If I can remember how to post images here, I will try to upload them.

The original Lionel PS-4 flat car decks were terrible: the grain ran lengthwise with the car, yet the laser etched planks were properly oriented. Ya' looked at them and just had to just shake your head. At the time, I recall using Kappler lumber that was 3 scale inches thick. If I were to redo it today, I'd sand them as they clearly look a bit thick. Subsequently, I picked up one of Jim Byrnes' drum sanding machines he makes for the model ship building world. Very easy to refashion strip wood into the right sized lumber.

...gregg

[DaveJfr0]

I was able to catch up with Gregg off-forum and it looks like drawing up the artwork to laser-etch replacement decks (for the same reasons Gregg stated) is in my future. Already planning my projects for when I leave my workbench back to the big city life in the upcoming months.

Ironically I found the first run of the PS-4 flats to be perfect, but subsequent ones in the later 2010's from my experience have both a grain issue as well as laser-etch depth...if you do any sort of rough sanding to beat up the wood, you basically take away the individual board etching

[up148]

Good to see this thread resurrected, although I'm embarrassed to state I never did anything with the cars (yet). Retired at the end of 2019, but life has a way of throwing curve balls at you and just starting to get back on the straight and narrow. I have so many models in my queue, I don't know if I'll ever complete them. So, again, glad this thread came up as it reminded me.








BH

[gregj410]

None of the scale lumber sites match the 5.25" width (.05" thickness) that is needed to properly line the decking up with the existing pockets, etc.

Isn’t that roughly 1/8” x 1/16” ? If so and I could be mistaken but with some slight mods to a band saw that doesn’t seem impossible for maybe a wood like poplar to run through. I like the way the bandsaw produces the rough texture too.