When was your last Athearn kit?

[doctorwayne]

I have a bunch that are still not built in the box. I'm experimenting to see if I can find a way to make a couple of ice reefers I have into something closer to scale and less toy like. If not, I will probably be pretty much destroying them in the attempt. The biggest problem with the reefers, of course, is the totally out of scale hinges for the ice hatches. The box cars and such I will probably go ahead and build eventually, and just replace doors and door tracks with something closer to scale.

While my Athearn reefers have been sold off, I lessened the visual impact of those over-size hinges by first shaving-off those huge "bumps" on the roof, then "plating-over" the resulting holes with .010" styrene - this applies both to the hatch hinges and the one for the latch/support bar. I also sliced off the projections on the hatch hinges that fit into those bumps, leaving the rest of the projecting hinge casting intact. After installing the hatches, I used strip styrene of a width similar to that of the remaining hinge projections on the hatches to build-up (atop the patch previously installed over the hole) until the hinge projections were fully supported. For the latches, I simply bent brass wire (.020", I think) at a right angle, then drilled a hole in the patch over the hole for the original hinge, and inserted one end of the wire, trimming the other end to suit. If you want the hatches in the "ventilator" position, adjust the angle of the bend in the wire accordingly, and cement everything in place.

While these aren't very detailed, they're certainly a lot less conspicuous than the original set-up, and look much better under normal layout viewing conditions. Here are some pictures:












I'd actually forgotten about those cars in the first four pictures :oops: - I still have them, so if you need a roof view, let me know and I'll take one.

Wayne