I never knew Athearn made BB kits that came with wire grabs and detail parts that had to be applied. How did I miss this? Wow!

Gary;

I acquired two of these Athearn kits a few years ago. One a Golden Triangle (GTRA) IPD box and the other an NS. I've never assembled the NS - saving it for a rainy (snowy) day I guess (also wrong for my modeling era). They go together pretty well, but take some time. Then you are faced with trying to match the paint on the wire grab irons with the correct matching paint. Since both of the cars I have are your basic box car red - isn't a big problem. Other than that - they are pretty nice. Just not your typical Athearn BB/Roundhouse shake the box kits.

And speaking of "not shake the box kits", I've got a beautiful InterMountain cylindrical covered hopper that I've never attempted to assemble. All the grab irons and details must be separately applied and they are very delicate plastic parts! Maybe one day, I'll assemble that one, but with wire grab irons instead of the plastic. Used to think nothing about tackling a kit like this one, but now days get too nervous and shaky just looking at it!

FCIN Wrote:Gary;
And speaking of "not shake the box kits", I've got a beautiful InterMountain cylindrical covered hopper that I've never attempted to assemble. All the grab irons and details must be separately applied and they are very delicate plastic parts! Maybe one day, I'll assemble that one, but with wire grab irons instead of the plastic. Used to think nothing about tackling a kit like this one, but now days get too nervous and shaky just looking at it!

Sounds like the Proto 2000 tank car kits. The first one I attempted got put away on a shelf in frustration. SOme time later, I went and bought another one, and I finally figured out the tricks. It too has scale size grabs on plastic sprues the size of an aqueduct tunnel, so even when you DO manage to clip the aprt off without breakign it, it tends to fly into parts unknown. My secret weapon with those is a single edge razor blade - and keeping a handed cupped over the area so it if does fly it bounces off my hand and onto the cutting mat. I also found that a little out of order assembly, compared to the instructions, makes things a LOT easier.

--Randy

Those Proto 8000 gal. tanks are a pain. I assembled one with wire grabs in place of the broken/high velocity escape/otherwise missing ones. When the "Timesaver" version came along, the full-assembly-required kits went to the bottom of the pile.

Andrew

The Proto tankcars are nicely proportioned, except for those plastic grabirons, which are too thick, and the price, which was pretty steep when these kits were first released.
I bought a couple "used" ones, both of which where the previous owner appeared to have given-up on assembly. After stripping the excess glue and the factory paint, I added the plastic grabs. This is an easier task if you accept the fact that they need to be replaced with wire ones - restrain each one as you cut it from the sprue, and don't worry about it if the grab breaks on the part that would normally be the hand-hold - you need only the nbw parts and the mounting pins, which serve to plug the oversize holes in the tank and frame. Use solvent-type cement to affix them, allow to dry fully (24 hours minimum), then use a sharp blade to slice off the unneeded parts. Drill with a #79 bit, then add wire replacement grabs - I like to use a spacer to put them at the proper distance from the tank, then bend-over the "legs" which protrude into the body shell. A drop of ca, applied from the inside, will secure them. If the model is already assembled, preventing access to the interior, you can still add the wire replacements, although you'll be unable to bend the "legs". In this situation, I put a small amount of liquid-type ca onto a sheet of glass (my usual work surface), then use the tip of an X-Acto #11 blade to apply a minute amount of it to the point where the wire enters the plastic body - capillary action will draw it into the joint, leaving little or no trace on the surface of the model. The advantage of the blade tip over a pin or needle is the ability to control the amount of ca that's initially picked up - usually, a pin picks up too little to be effective or too much, all of which is drawn to the joint upon contact, resulting in a blob on the surface.
The full-length plastic handrails are often warped, too, and I replace them using .015" music wire, and either home-made stanchions or, like the one pictured below, spare ones left over from an Athearn Mikado.
After the initial flurry of acceptance of these kits, many languished on the shelves at the LHS,a lot of modellers apparently scared off by their experiences. Eventually, the kits were marked down, especially after the r-t-r versions were released and I was able to gather enough for my layout's needs at a reasonable cost.
Here's one of the re-worked cars, with lettering from C-D-S:


Even older cars, like this 50+ year old Varney tank car, can be improved by replacing the moulded-on grabs and other details with more finely-scaled free-standing parts:


Wayne

Athearn made several 5344 boxcar kits in the late 90s that came with wire grabs and stirrups sadly these wasn't to successful sellers and may have (at that time) showed the slow demise of the BB car kit.

Don't know when I'll get around to building these. I just saw them on the net for a good price, figured I would put them in my "future" stock.

I'm loving that Varney tanker, doctorwayne!

I have one or two of them in a box of old cars that I keep around just to remind me from whence I came, model building skill-wise. Your nicely turned out version has me thinking about resurrection!

Maybe I'll dig them out and see about "bringing them back" sometime in 2011 ... like say ... April 24th!

Sometimes I wish I could pack up all my rollingstock, send it to Canada, and have it come back to me 2 weeks later with wire grabs and stirrups, brake details, and mild weathering.

FCIN Wrote:And speaking of "not shake the box kits", I've got a beautiful InterMountain cylindrical covered hopper that I've never attempted to assemble. All the grab irons and details must be separately applied and they are very delicate plastic parts! Maybe one day, I'll assemble that one, but with wire grab irons instead of the plastic. Used to think nothing about tackling a kit like this one, but now days get too nervous and shaky just looking at it!

I have one of those as well, and i can never seem to get started. it is intimidating!

Even though those cars are from Intermountain, the plastic grabs are probably too thick. If you follow the procedure which I outlined a couple of posts earlier, you'll find that it removes the worry of breaking those delicate plastic parts.
While Intermountain and Red Caboose offer some otherwise nicely rendered kits (and r-t-r), all the ones which I've seen suffer from this same malady. Just because they're capable of creating exquisite die work for the body and underframe doesn't mean that the same technique is the best choice for grab irons and sill steps and I routinely replace these items with metal parts. If I were paying full price for such kits, I'd be less than pleased.








Wayne

Gary S Wrote:Sometimes I wish I could pack up all my rollingstock, send it to Canada, and have it come back to me 2 weeks later with wire grabs and stirrups, brake details, and mild weathering.

I have often thought the same thing!

Gary S Wrote:Sometimes I wish I could pack up all my rollingstock, send it to Canada, and have it come back to me 2 weeks later with wire grabs and stirrups, brake details, and mild weathering.

Ditto.

Isn't there a nice flexy plastic that they could do fine parts in? 30-some years ago, when I was in N, Kadee/MicroTrains had beautiful little stirrup steps for their cars, better than anything in HO at the time. So can't we get grab irons that will bend and not break?

BR60103 Wrote:Isn't there a nice flexy plastic that they could do fine parts in? 30-some years ago, when I was in N, Kadee/MicroTrains had beautiful little stirrup steps for their cars, better than anything in HO at the time. So can't we get grab irons that will bend and not break?

Stirrup steps molded from Delrin or Celcon are available for HO cars from Tichy Train Group. Brass stirrup steps and grab irons are both available from Tichy Train Group and from A-Line and have been for many years. I'm looking into replacing the oversize stirrup steps on a lot of my older cars at some point in the future and if I get really bored, replacing grab irons too. But that's one of those very time consuming projects.

Might as well go with brass grab irons instead of ones molded from Delrin or Celcon as both would have to be secured with CA.