Tuesday Tip: Installing A-Line #29000 Stirrup, er, SILL Steps

A-Line makes great metal stirrup sill steps which are bullet-proof when installed. Proof is that I used them exclusively on the resin boxcars I built some time back and they've never even thought of breaking. In fact, during my build I often forgot and rested the entire car on just the stirrups steps. No problem.

I need to install the #29000 type (seen in the pic above) on the 1-1/2 door boxcar I'm building and needed to figure out what size drill to use to drill the mounting holes and how far apart to drill such holes.

Since I figured it out, you don't have to. So put this in your toolbox - or even better put a little note in with the stirrups steps wherever you store them:

• Drill two mounting holes per stirrup step using a #75 (.021") drill (I confess I later reamed out these holes with a #74 - .225" - bit to make installation easier)
• Drill the holes .064" apart (as you see in the pic above)
• Place a drop of gap-filling ACC in a cap and dip the stirrups steps into it before inserting them in the holes. Alternatively, you could either rely on a press fit or just apply thin ACC after inserting them.

Once I decide whether this is going to be a CN or a GTW car, I'll finish it up and it'll be ready for the paint & lettering shop!