Here, I've built up the box (sans roof) and started gluing styrene z-braces and angle pieces on to the sides and ends.

The frame was built up earlier using styrene I beam shapes

The wood end pieces were cut to fit against the acrylic ends.

I wanted to add a lot to my current fleet, so I ordered enough acrylic from Bob to build six boxcars.

I ended up building them assembly line fashion.

When you're building 6 cars, there's more than a few grab irons to bend.

The EBT style cars have bent angle grab irons, so I built a jig to ease the process.  

I used some brass pieces soldered together, then drilled the appropriate holes.

This jig allows me to easily bend both right and left hand grabs, as well as 3 different lengths of straight ones.

The ones at the ends of the car are mirror images of the ones on the sides

In a surprisingly short time, I bent over 180 of these from brass rod.

I used .040” brass rod for all of my grab irons.  

Later, I realized out that I needed 4 more for each car - for the grab irons mounted on the roof.

The jig made construction surprisingly easy.

Next, I drilled holes for the various grab irons and glued them into place using CA cement (super glue).

This picture shows one type of bent grab iron, and the three different size of the straight grab irons.