Unknown hopper

[cnrglen]

I picked this up at a hoby shop a few months back:

   

I'ts missing a number of parts. Grabs, couplers and covers, bottom doors, brake gear. I'd like to know it's origins so I can track down the missing pieces. It looks sort of Tichy but they didn't make a composite  hopper.

[tompm]

If the under frame is metal I am going to guess it is a MDC/Roundhouse kit, possibly a Bev-Bel version.

[JaBear]

I would have said Athearn, with different trucks and steel wheels but your hopper has one more board on the side and holes for the ladders, so I would have been wrong!
Cheers, the Bear.

[jim currie]

this might be it if it's a metal frame Varney1950HopperCarPg2.jpg (564×782) (hoseeker.net) the trucks look like proto so it could also be a pk2 war emergency hopper if its a 34 ft long one .
Jim

[cnrglen]

Yes I think we have a winner. I'm trying to find the missing parts but as it's a long discontinued kit I'll either have to scratch the parts or adapt other car parts for it.

[jim currie]

Yes I think we have a winner. I'm trying to find the missing parts but as it's a long discontinued kit I'll either have to scratch the parts or adapt other car parts for it.

think i have a instruction for a pk2 war hopper will look tomorrow , that would give you a idea what the missing parts look like.
Jim

[cnrglen]

Thanks but I already found the instructions on HOseeker's page. I'm pretty sure I can fabricate the missing parts. The real challenge will be the bottom drop doors.

[jim currie]

Thanks but I already found the instructions on HOseeker's page. I'm pretty sure I can fabricate the missing parts. The real challenge will be the bottom drop doors.

if you got the instructions. did that kit come with 2 different style of doors? if that's the case i have the extra doors i would give to you.
Jim

[cnrglen]

I had not realized there were two different doors until I re-checked the intructions. If you have them I would gladly accept you generosity.

[cnrglen]

After Jim pointed out that the kits come with two different set of doors, I found this in the local hobby shop:

   

And yes it does have two seperate types of doors

   

It has both wine doors and enterprise mechanism doors. Am I correct to assume the enterprise doors are more of an automatic system than the wine doors or are they just different designs doing the same thing?

   

I also noticed that they are both 50 Ton war emergency hoppers, the Southern is the rebuilt with steel sides and the ex-AT&SF car is the original composite car. No matter, I'm planning on repainting them and sending them to MOW service as ballast and clean-up cars.

[cnrglen]

I spent the day working on the two hoppers. Last night I soaked both of them in Iso Alcohol to strip the paint. Today I started to assemble them. It appears as though both cars are the 'timesaver' models that have the underframes, weights and some of the brake gear assembled at the factory. They clain that you can have one of these assembled in under an hour.
Well, that if they have all their parts. I assumed (read: didn't check the box properly) that the one I bought last week would be all there. Unfortunetly all of the grab iron castings were missing. That meant I had to spend a couple hours custom bending and installing wire grabs on both model, not just one.
   

These hoppers have a crazy amount of grabs, probably close to thirty each. I did get a bit lucky as the end drop grabs could be substituted for Tichy ones, but the rest all had to be fabricated.

   

Then I installed the brake gear and train air line onto the black model. Using that as a guide, I fabricated the same parts on the brown one. I had hoped to get these models finished to the point of spraying primer onto them, but the extra fabrication took some time.

[jim currie]

good save on the composite hopper. one question is that a yankey type pin vice in the second from last photo?
Jim

[cnrglen]

Thanks Jim. Thanks to you I figured out the door problem.
The tool you see:
   

Is Micro Mark's Micro 'Yankee' hand drill. I use it on all my grab iron replacing projects.
 Micro Hand Drill, steel chuck holds bits from #61 to #80, drill wood, plastic, thin brass quickly, for delicate drilling (micromark.com)

I completed the models up to painting this morning:

   

I finished off the door and door mechanisms on the bottom.

   

And added the brake gear to the 'b' ends. I used a brake set from detail associates that worked for the brown car, including the platform.

   

I then added the interior gussests on both cars. The gray one came from a Tichy kit and fit quite well.
I just washed them with some soap and water along with two other projects and I'll paint the primer coat when they dry.

[cnrglen]

Painting!

Over the past couple days I fired up the airbrush(s) and primered and painted the four cars. I had an old Athearn BB hopper that I had primed a couple months ago and the boxcar is the top of an Aztek track cleaner car that I bought second hand and striped, detailed and repainted.

   

While I was at it I airbrushed the trucks for the three hoppers in boxcar red as well. 

   

Decaling will comence shortly. I like how there is very little waiting between primer, paint, and decals when using acrylic paints

[cnrglen]

Well, I ws going to do the decaling but I found that the hopper decals that I had didn't really work with these composite hoppers. So I found some cheap ones online and they are on their way. In the meantime, I decaled the Boxcar:
   

I chose a dry transfer set for a car that was built in 1947 when CN briefly changed it's slogan from 'Serves all Canada' to 'Canada's largest Railway'. I guess that didn't really stick because they changed it back a year or so later. 

   

I also took the oppertunity to weather the trucks for all four cars. I airbushed the trucks and wheelsets with grimey black, followed by a bit of rust.

     

The Athearn hopper is also waiting for decals but since it's just a blue-box, there's no real hurry.
Whiule I'm waiting for the decals, I'm going to work on some layout projects