I also feel that Walthers tan interiors are way too boring. It is step backward from their heavyweights that they were making just couple of years ago. Thouse cars had multi-color interior and installed grab irons at almost half the price they are now asking with tan interior 20st limited car with no grab irons installed.
However, I've tried to take the sides off on one of the cars, starting with the top row of tabs. I ended up releasing half, braking a couple off, and unable to release the rest - that's just on one side. I decided effort wasn't worth my time and chance of destroying perfectly good car, so I snapped the side back in. I do populate the car with many people. It ads life and dynamics to the interior and with lighting looks simply awesome.
One thing about lighting is Walthers electricity pick up is horrible. It relies on the weight of the cars to rest on the protruding bolt attached to the tracks - very unreliable. Then they have metal tabs pressing on the connection on the lighting board - also unreliable as tabs loose their pressure - they should have made some kind of locking connector for the inside. Finally, the bulbs used by walthers are incandescent, considering how hard it is to remove the roof without causing damage to the outside or roof tab - I don't even think about what happens when lamps burn out from all the flickering and all my work will be in vein.
As far as installing grab irons - for me Slow Jet glue works the best, as it allows me to align grab irons freely for longer period after the install. My advise for the gluing itself is this:
If you removed the roof, apply the glue from the inside to the holes with inserted grab irons - trust me it will hold - that's how Walthers applies theirs. For the many places where you can't get there from inside, get a small needle. Get a small amount of glue onto the tip of a needle and carefully insert into the drilled hole - allow glue to slide into the hole, either by gravity or by twisting the needle inside the hole. Then insert the grab iron - this will result in the least glue spillage, and if done correctly can actually have no glue on the outside while providing super strong fit of the iron.
One of these days I need to post youtube video.
Good luck
If you can get the roof off, the sides and ends snap out of the tan core. Just a series of tabs holding things together, 5-6 on the top and bottom of the sides. Much easier to work on a flat piece of plastic on the workbench. On the one I did, pressing the grab in flush to the back ended up with pretty much the right spacing away from the body. Probably a thin or medium viscosity CA would work, wouldn't want a thick gap-filling formula for this use.
Most Pullman-built cars had stainless grabs. This only helps on the Super Dome. The rest need to get painted. Just a regular brush should work.
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
JPDThis insides are not painted, just tan. I know I have read descriptions of the decor for the Hiawatha cars so it would be possible to identify the colors of the interior, but I would think it would be tedious to paint them.
I wouldn't say painting the interiors of Walthers passenger cars tedious. Just remove the roof and sides, take your time when doing it, and use toothpicks and small brushes. The results are well worth it in my opinion.
Now I just need to add a few passengers to each car as well as a conductor/porter or two, a couple waiters in the diner, and a couple cooks in the kitchen of the diner.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
This is an interior shot of a Hiawatha lounge car:
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
I bought a set of Rivarossi passenger cars a few months back. (Well, I'm not lucky enough to have a wife who would buy them for me, even though she also attended Michigan State.) These aren't as elegant as the Hiawathas, but they're nice enough. Mine, too, have buyer-installed grabs. I haven't put them on yet.
I did, however, paint the interiors when I installed the lighting kits. I thought the lights were a must, and once I made that decision I found the interiors far too drab, done as they were in cheap yellow plastic. So, I set about hand-painting them with acrylic craft paint. It took an hour or so per car, although I typically only applied one color at a time, so the project spread out over several days. This was not a hard job, and by the end I was actually enjoying putting a bit of silver on each armrest. I bought some passengers, too, to complete the interiors.
About this time, I picked up a cheap lamp, one of those circular flourescent ones with the magnifying lens in the center. At this point in life, I'm using bifocals all day, and with them details are sharp. However, I've found that my detail work is much easier using the magnifying lamp. In particular, painting small parts has become much more precise, and attaching grabs and the like is easier, too.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Whatever you do , do not let that wife of yours escape.
Agree with the cradle idea, I used dense foam scraps from a mountan project. Ditto on the oversized bit. One thing I have found with the Walther's grab irons is that too often the ends are not formed at 90 degrees to the width so a tweak with needle nose pliers helps (otherwise they they tend to not match the dimpled guides you used to locate the hole).
I use CA as I found ant solvent based plastic cement such as Tenax did not bond to the metal. I dip the grab end into the glue tube nozzle and it it leaves only a thin film that does not bunch up at the hole surface.
But in my opinion, on cars of the quality and price point such as Walther's Hiawatha, you shouldn't have to install grabs. Which is why I quit buying their passenger cars till they join Rapido and BLI in selling cars with the grabs installed.
I painted the interiors of my Walthers Superliners. It wasn't too bad. The only thing was that I worked on one car at a time. The lounge car was the hardest one to paint.
Will
Thanks for the tips.
And you can rest assured that I treat my wife really well given how she indulges me. We both have grandparents that worked for the railroad and she has an interest in railroading too. So I do not bore her too much. (In fact, in college at Michigan State University, she use to help restore the 1225 steam locomotive.)
are the insides of the hiawatha cars painted or tan like the walthers cars?
My preference for gluing would be Tenax7R as C/A tend to be thick and gets messy. I would first either invest in or make a car cradle out of foam. so as not to damage any of the cars. Over drilling is a good idea but may not be necessary I would try dry fitting one first. The spacer jig is a good idea as well but do the instructions tell you to drill a blind hole or a through hole? If they tell you to drill a blind hole lets say .050 then just mark the drillbit with a small piece of tape after you put it in the pin vice so you know how deep to drill.
Also I find it an absolute mush several good pair of tweezers in this case the kind you have to squeeze to release type not sure what the correct name is nor do I really car. The less you have to do when working with small parts the better in my book.If you do opt to use the Tenax7R you place the grab rail in position ans then with a micro glue brush take a tiny bit of Tenax on touch it to the grab rail right where it meets the car body. It will wick into the hole by capillary action and I have found that if you do get a small amount on the painted surface it's far less noticeable then C/A.
As far as the decals ng goes sorry I have a hard enough time with my fat thumbs doing the rest of the stuff. I find I am forced to use stuff like fine line tape to make a reference line so I know where to place the bottom of the decal and at one end. Think way back to the days of when they first taught you how to write in school when you were a wee lad. The teachers made us write our name on the line repeatedly so we would write straight. Must be something to it because I still right as straight as an arrow jsut don't ask me to draw a straight line........lol.
There have been several post here on applying decal and a lot of good methods have been posted. I like to use Micro Sol and Micro Set from Microscale but before you do I would suggest practicing on some cheap cars until you confident in working with it.
Lastly take that woman out to dinner any woman who would buy you that set of cars is a keep in my book. Good luck with that set their really sharp.
First off, thank you for posting what thickness the grab irons need to be set at and which drill bits work best. I have been needing to do that.
You might not want to paint the grabs. Here is a link of a restored car that has them just stainless steel color. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=867577 Many railroads left them the stainless steel color for many reasons. The main reason was that the paint would wear off eventually and it wasn't necessary to have to repaint them.
For the gluing part, you should be able to use a medium viscosity CA.
Good luck.
Any glues or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I would hate to botch this job as I re-enter the hobby. (In fact, I am going to do several other minor projects to gain some skills and confidence before attempting the work on these passenger cars.)
Thanks,