The EBT steel boxcars had a unique shaped grab iron / ladder rung. They had a kink in them to keep the brakeman’s foot from sliding off. See the ladders in this photo:

I made a jig out of brass to manufacture these:

Here’s a handful of rungs I made in about 60 seconds out of alum welding wire:

The steps for using the jig: 1. insert wire into hole, and bend 90 degrees

2. bend wire 90 degrees along whichever side you want

3. bend wire 90 degrees down

Remove and cut.

Pretty slick, Bob. And very nice looking.

What’s the diameter of the wire?

Its 1/16 alum welding wire, but its smaller than 1/16…go figure…

truth in advertising?

Looks about right, though, and its cheap as hell to buy. I have a 3" square box of 36" long pieces, cost me about 30 bucks. Thats enough grabs, trusses, and air lines to last me forever.

Can you give us the dimensions on that jig? I’d like to build one…unless you’re going to include a bunch in the kit

The large tube is 3/8 square, 2 7/16 long, and the smaller is 3/16, length is non-critical.

I drilled a 1/16 hole right next to one side, in the center of the 3/8 tube. Then I soldered the 3/16 tube to the middle of the top, making sure to leave room for the wire. All in all, it took about 5 minutes, and Im no great solderer.

Bob can you post a better picure of the jig i can’t make out how you did it the picture is very dark

I think he should make another one, showing step by step instructions. Then give it to the first guy that orders 6 of the EBT boxcars!

Bob i fixed the brightness on my computer and i can see the jig clearly please disregard my last posting thank you

Here’s a quick-and-dirty experiment to check out the spacing of the grabs. The EBT cars had them spaced every 1’ 6", and the bottom one was 1’ 10" from the bottom.

Looks pretty good to me!

Bob,
YOu have any pictures of this jig anymore? I was looking for it to make one, finally!

I clicked on “View Image” on the first pic, and was shunted to “Dementia.org.” Does that mean anything? Sad that these photos were lost in the Great Hack of 2010.

Jerry, Here’s a picture of mine. IF I remember correctly, I patterned it after Bob’s.

I start by inserting a brass rod in the top middle hole. Then I bend it towards the bottom of the picture. Next, bend it left or right, depending on which way you need it. Then down and it’s finished. The two holes in the front are used to bend different lengths of straight grab irons. Here’s what they looked like before painting…