Continuing with the CNW Hopper Fleet project, this rainy Sunday I managed to spend a little time adding some details and fitting mounts for body mounted couplers. Was hoping to get some paint on today but of course ran out of time. It's not a race, so no real reason to push it.
Not being really for or against body mounting, but it seems like a neat thing to do and it isn't difficult. I'm not about to body mount every single car I own, but as long as these are stripped down and apart it seems like as good a time as any. The Atlas Trainman car was easy, it just needed a hole drilled in each end. It may need a shim or two to get the height just right but otherwise it's ready to receive a coupler. The Precision Masters car had an open frame, as did the Intermountain. For the PM car I sliced off a chunk of thick For Sale sign and shaped it to fit the round part where the truck mounting pin goes in. It was cut to length so it fits under the end frame and glued on with styrene glue. The thick sign material looks like it will put the coupler at just the right height. The Intermountain car was similar, but instead of thick For Sale sign I used thin and tucked one end up on top of the bolster and trimmed it to fit flush with the inside of the end frame. This one may need a shim also, but it is pretty close as is.
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Two of the cars needed some additional detail parts. The Micro Trains PS 4427 is going to be numbered in the 170000-170499 series built in 1967. The herald on these cars was painted on a large flat plate welded to the sides of the car, though the exact placement is up for grabs. Some cars in the series seem to have the plate mounted on the first-third ribs and the lube plate below on the second-third and some have the herald plate on the second-fourth ribs and the lube plate on the first-second. My understanding is it was difficult to paint the herald over the ribs so they welded plates on, but these plates were prone to damage and broken welds that would cause them to tear and slide off while the car was moving and later in life they were removed. I used .005 brass for the herald and lube plates and stuck them on with super glue.
The other car that got a little extra attention was the Intermountain car. It received a rib across the top to mimic what the cars in the 174700-174899 series built 1976 received. To make the rib I sliced of a super thin strip of thin For Sale sign and cut it to fit between the 4th ribs from each end. It was glued on with styrene glue. You might notice that the car had this top rib on it when I started the project, for some reason it did not stick and both sides fell off. This time I made sure to scrape down the primer to bare plastic before gluing so it is permanent now. Arguably everything I did tonight should have been done before primer. I'll probably squirt a little primer into a cup and brush on the brass parts so the paint will have something to bite on.
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