I havent posted much here in a while, I plan to be more active.
We got rain today! First descent rain all year. Supposed to get down to the high 30's tonight, it was in high 90's yesterday here too.
I, like many others, appreciate the older Blue box type kits. Been working on these Athearn 55' covered hoppers a couple months off and on.
And as usual, I ended up doing waaay to much to them. When will I ever learn? I looked at the end details and thought hhmm, maybe an air tank here, a triple valve there, and now some piping, well we cant have the bulky walkway got a couple etched kits from Plano, then wow those end grabs sure look clunky after all the other details, then snip and sanded all of them off, then I couldn't find the correct straight grabs (why, why did I start this).
Well after drilling 130, #79 holes on each car, for all the walkway mounts and grab irons, I hand bent the straight grab irons, mounted them and the rest along with the walkway mounts with ACC. Then painted and decaled with Herald King decals. I have not worked very much with those decals, I found them to be robust and just a little thicker than what I was used to, but good decals. I then mixed up some epoxy to glue the walkways, then installed Plano cut bars, Walthers trucks and Reboxx wheels finished the basic models. I am gonna run them a while before I give them a dose of light weathering. Any ways a few images of the Arco hoppers.
Thanks for taking a look.
Tom H
Grand Junction CO