The Proto stock cars do look better with wire grabs, but the cast-in mounting holes for the kit's plastic ones need to be filled first, as the holes for the plastic grabs are much bigger than needed for wire ones.I use styrene rod from Evergreen to fill the existing holes, then, when the plugs are well-hardened, slice off any excess and drill them to accept Tichy .012" wire grabs. You can also bend your own using .012" phosphor bronze wire, also available from Tichy.
Here's a kit that I found on the "used" table at a LHS. It was in an unmarked plastic bag, with no instructions and no trucks or couplers. According the store's owner, it was a pre-production sample, and I couldn't resist the dollar or two price tag.
Other than the extra time needed for filling and drilling, the wire grabs are much easier with which to work than the supplied plastic ones, and that holds true for all Proto2000 kits, especially the tank cars, and for the Proto1000 Dominion/Fowler boxcars.However, the r-t-r Fowler cars, like their prototypes, have grabirons of a non-standard size, and you'll need to make your own. Each car has 36 grabirons (72 holes-worth - 78 if you also add the corner grabs on the roofwalk)...
...and I have, so far, done a dozen of them...
Don't worry too much about matching paint on the steps and grabirons, either - with a little weathering, any difference will be unnoticeable. Remember, too, that if a railroad received an off-line car with damaged grabirons or sill steps, it was obligated to repair (and repaint) them, so their paint might not necessarily match the original. The owning road would receive a bill for the materials and the work done.
Wayne
rrinkerDo a whole bunch of those Accurail kits before trying the P2K kit. Unless it's the Timesaver type, there are very delicate individual grabs to cut off the sprues (sprue cutters are far too big - I use a single edge razor blade for this) and glue in place.
The sprue nipper I have so far has allowed me to cut all P2K fine parts off as the have a sharp tip. No razor blade necessary.
Even if you do get the car assembled without breaking any, they are quite delicate and easily damaged in normal handling of the car. --Randy
--Randy
That is for darn sure. I assembled a couple P2k kit last spring and broke stirrups even while handling to glue the on. They break very easily.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I have all sorts of sprue nippers, but not the tweezer kind, and all of them are too big to nip off P2K grabs without breaking half of them. And since you can;t exactly sand flash off them.. a razor blade and magnifier let me slice them off precisely. After I started using the razor blade, I only ever lost one - even with my hand over the soon to part grab, it still managed to fly off onto the floor somewhere and was gone.
Wayne - the P2K tank ares, of all the P2K kits I've done, are the ones I DIDN'T have problems with the grabs - after the first one which I initially gave up on in frustration. After I returned to it and completed it, I did like a half dozen of them an got the process down pretty well - mostly by not exactly following the instructions. I put some of the tank grabs on before assembling the rank - and drill the holes all the way through so I can glue them fromt he inside, then put the tank together. I do another step or two out of order as well as I found it make the assembly go easier. Been a while since I've done any - I think it's the tank saddles. My way may result in a slight gap you'd only see if you pick the car up and turn it over - but no one but me is going to be doing that. I still have about a half dozen in the unbuilt kit inventory, but besides actually getting a layout under way, my next rolling stock project it to finish my home-built covered hoppers for cement traffic - and that means more Accurail 55 ton USRA hoppers which are the starting point, prototype and model.
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
The only Accurail kits I have are flatcars for piggyback trailers. They are a lot nicer than the old Athearn Blue Box kits. I use an Xacto knife to cut the parts off of the spur. That and a small screwdriver is all I needed. For glue I use Medium Zap a Gap CA (super glue). I squeeze a drop of glue out onto the end of the bottle neck and then touch the part to the drop of glue so I use less than a drop. I used the stock trucks and wheels and they are fine. I used Kadee #5 couplers. This was before #148 came out. A little weathering always helps the car's black colored trucks from disappearing. I also add a little rust, dust and dirt. Also grease on the fifth wheels and some tire makers on the flat bed.