First floor out of the mold

I ran out of my primary rubber while making the mold for this. I had just enough material in all the right places for the mold to be usable. For subsequent parts (platform end sills, platform decking, needle beams, and car bolsters), I'll be forced to use a more expensive platinum cure rubber which I have on hand.

The first casting out of the mold is a scale 7" thick and has a little trouble where I inadvertently damaged the flooring in a couple places. This was because I wasn't very careful despite the fact that the part hadn't yet fully cured. Because of the size of this mold, I need to modify my casting set up, and then I ought to be able to get it down to my desired 6.5" thickness.



My present research is into the most probably WABCo products used on the Oahu Railway cars from 1889 until the end. I'm using trade journals, WABCo catalogs (1886, 1890, 1900), John H. White Jr's books, and Car Builders Dictionaries (1879, 1888, 1895, 1906). I'm counting on my Oahu Railway friend Jeff to provide enough information on the brakes under #2 for me to identify them (they look to me like the Quick Action air brakes due to the shape of the triple valve and lack of multiple air tanks). I'm expecting 8" cylinders.