Thanks Wayne, even with the screwed up decal I’m quite “chuffed”, now I’ve got to learn how to “weather.”
Part 3. (or how to inflict more suffering upon your fellow forum members).
In the November 1995 Model Railroader there was an article, “Maine Central Covered Hoppers” by Allan N. Houghton, in which he described how he kit bashed two different series of Maine Central covered hoppers using the MDC covered hoppers as starting point. Now I while I’m not interested in Maine Central as such, the 10 square hatch series built in 1940 -42 caught my eye as something different.
Paint stripping. As Isopropyl alcohol is used in manufacture of illicit drugs, it is very hard, here down-under, to purchase in large amounts, so I use methylated spirits with, as you can see, at times somewhat indifferent results. Both cars were purchased 2nd hand assembled and I think that one had been sprayed with some type of matt clear.
Mr. Houghton had used Detail Associates square hatches which had been showing on the Bowser site, at which time I managed to get an approximation of their size. Now when the local hobby shop, an hours trip each way, doesn’t carry much in the way of even freight car kits, (they’re not good sellers), getting detail parts is problematic, freight out of the States can cost more than the item required, and having scratch built the hatches in my two previous kit bashes I decided to do it again, though this time I cheated by using Tichy hinges and grab irons.
As per the article I cut out the triangle out of the sides, fabricated the extra ribs from sheet styrene, added the roof sheet, thinned and fitted the roof walk the same as my GERN car and added the hatches.
A Cautionary Tale!!. As the roofs were already glued in place I used lead bird shot to bring the cars up to the recommended NMRA weight using the same adhesive I’d used many times before. Now I had read before that using certain adhesives to attach weights to cars could cause warping to the plastic carbody but had dismissed it as “how sad, too bad, I’m alright Jack, I know what I’m doing”, so it should come as no surprise that “pride comes before a fall” and the first car developed a soft and soggy bottom. As a consequence, and after having figuratively kicked myself several times, I decided that I should have listened to those who knew better and so used caulk to attach the lead shot to the second car. After about a week the plastic hardened up again and as the metal under frame does all the work I got away with it though the warping is obvious with close scrutiny. All Luck, NO skill. :oops:
With the hatches on things were looking pretty good (apart from a soft and soggy bottom) BUT this is where doctorwaynes “slippery slope” came into play again as I was starting to become unhappy about the lack of a latching mechanism. A prototype photo that I found of one of the later series of Maine Central square hatch covered hoppers was not really clear on how the hatches were latched, so after looking at my small collection of various covered hoppers by different model manufacturers, I decided that Bowsers RTR H30 with its 10 hatches and associated latching mechanism looked that it would suit these cars. So after much muttering inter-dispersed with outbursts of loud “muttering” ( Her-in-doors is very forgiving) and using some HO scale 2x4 styrene strip and .014” wire, I came up with this.
To be continued,
Cheers, the Bear.
Part 3. (or how to inflict more suffering upon your fellow forum members).
In the November 1995 Model Railroader there was an article, “Maine Central Covered Hoppers” by Allan N. Houghton, in which he described how he kit bashed two different series of Maine Central covered hoppers using the MDC covered hoppers as starting point. Now I while I’m not interested in Maine Central as such, the 10 square hatch series built in 1940 -42 caught my eye as something different.
Paint stripping. As Isopropyl alcohol is used in manufacture of illicit drugs, it is very hard, here down-under, to purchase in large amounts, so I use methylated spirits with, as you can see, at times somewhat indifferent results. Both cars were purchased 2nd hand assembled and I think that one had been sprayed with some type of matt clear.
Mr. Houghton had used Detail Associates square hatches which had been showing on the Bowser site, at which time I managed to get an approximation of their size. Now when the local hobby shop, an hours trip each way, doesn’t carry much in the way of even freight car kits, (they’re not good sellers), getting detail parts is problematic, freight out of the States can cost more than the item required, and having scratch built the hatches in my two previous kit bashes I decided to do it again, though this time I cheated by using Tichy hinges and grab irons.
As per the article I cut out the triangle out of the sides, fabricated the extra ribs from sheet styrene, added the roof sheet, thinned and fitted the roof walk the same as my GERN car and added the hatches.
A Cautionary Tale!!. As the roofs were already glued in place I used lead bird shot to bring the cars up to the recommended NMRA weight using the same adhesive I’d used many times before. Now I had read before that using certain adhesives to attach weights to cars could cause warping to the plastic carbody but had dismissed it as “how sad, too bad, I’m alright Jack, I know what I’m doing”, so it should come as no surprise that “pride comes before a fall” and the first car developed a soft and soggy bottom. As a consequence, and after having figuratively kicked myself several times, I decided that I should have listened to those who knew better and so used caulk to attach the lead shot to the second car. After about a week the plastic hardened up again and as the metal under frame does all the work I got away with it though the warping is obvious with close scrutiny. All Luck, NO skill. :oops:
With the hatches on things were looking pretty good (apart from a soft and soggy bottom) BUT this is where doctorwaynes “slippery slope” came into play again as I was starting to become unhappy about the lack of a latching mechanism. A prototype photo that I found of one of the later series of Maine Central square hatch covered hoppers was not really clear on how the hatches were latched, so after looking at my small collection of various covered hoppers by different model manufacturers, I decided that Bowsers RTR H30 with its 10 hatches and associated latching mechanism looked that it would suit these cars. So after much muttering inter-dispersed with outbursts of loud “muttering” ( Her-in-doors is very forgiving) and using some HO scale 2x4 styrene strip and .014” wire, I came up with this.
To be continued,
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."