F&C covered hopper kits.

[Anonymous]

Hey all;

I've been looking at F&C's line of PRR covered hoppers that they offer in resin.
I'd like to know:

How hard are these particular kits to build? I built a resin caboose made by Pacific Mountain, that was a joy. And I built an F&C B&O flatcar that was okay. The assembly went rather smoothly, but the instructions weren't the best I've run across.

How is F&C for customer service, in case I need replacement parts?

Thanks all.
Alvie.

[Anonymous]

I've got one of the F&C CN Slabside kits. Excellent instructions by resin standards(Overall decent but not exemplary), good castings, not an easy kit. It's an order of magnitude more complicated than anything I've built before (I've built several Kaslo kits, flatcars & boxcars).

[orsonroy]

I consider resin covered hopper kits to be the most difficult kits in the medium, mostly due to all the fussy parts that must be adjusted for proper fit and alignment. I've built one F&C Seley hopper which was a pain, but which came out beautifully. A covered hopper should be only a little more difficult.

F&C's customer support is good, as far as it goes. They'll gladly replace any part, and if available, will offer construction suggestions. But...their directions are horrible. You'll be doing yourself a big favor if you dig up some good prototype photos, look at a prototype (if possible) and by joining the STMFC Yahoogroup, digging through the archives, and asking them for help. I'm waiting for the "Essential Freight Cars" series to feature the Pennsy covered hoppers before I tackle them (or better yet, wait for Bowser to release them in plastic!)

[Anonymous]

Hi Ray;

I must admit I do like that last suggestion a lot. Even though the covered hoppers are rather proprietary, Bowser may do them anyway.

I saw a brass model of an H32 already finished, its a thought...

Thanks all for the advice, I think I'd only like to build one of each, an H30 and an H32.

Alvie.

[darth9x9]

I bought four of their kits (B&O hopper, 3 Conrail H30/H32s) at the June train show here in Timonium, MD. The lady told me to start with their hopper since I have never built one before. I went back to my table and read the directions on one of the H30s and a paragraph just ended with no punctuation and it didn't continue on the other side. I went back to her and she said the missing text was 'behind' the picture. She hand wrote the missing text on my sheet. I am not looking forward to putting these together.

[Anonymous]

I did find another alternative. Westerfield makes a PRR GLE covered hopper. I've never built a Westerfield kit, but I have heard that their resin kits are quite good. I may consider it.

Alvie.

[orsonroy]

Alvie,

The problem with most resin kits isn't in the actual kits. Westerfield, Sunshine, F&C, Sylvan and others all have nice castings, and the resins they use are all about the same to work with. Rather, it's the paper material that's different. F&C's instructions are the absolute worst of the bunch. They thankfully include a picture of the finished kit, as well as a general plan, which you can use to figure out the car. Westerfield instructions have a great history of the car, and a very wordy set of assembly instructions, but they lack illustration. Thankfully, they've included most of the assembly steps on their website. Sunshine actually has the best instructions, with a great history and lots of clear photos.

Getting to know how real freight cars were assembled helps a LOT in the construction of resin kits. Spend some time looking at cars in museums, reading the posts from the STMFC Yahoo Group, and generall paying attention usually helps me more than reading the instructions. With a few clear photos of the prototype and a general understanding of the parts, I can assemble just about any freight car kit.

I actually have more F&C kits than all other resin kit manufacturers put together, mostly because F&C's can be had for less than $20, if you look around. I've picked up over 30 from Ebay and 20 at shows directly from F&C, for a total average price of $16.50 or so.