Chooch flat car and gondola loads

[jon grant]

I picked up a couple of Chooch Enterprises car loads recently. They are pretty good as they come, but they have a thick moulded floor attached which just looks plain wrong on a flat car.

So I think I'll do some work on them, remove the floor, add some ropes instead of the elastic bands and weather them up a bit.

Here they are at the moment, straight out of the packet.

 

Jon

[Ibflattop]

Jon

 If ya have a belt sander you could always sand down the floor of the load to make it look like its sitting flat on the car.      Kevin

[NeO6874]

Other than the rubberbands on the crankshaft (or whatever that is...) in the second and fourth photos, it looks "right" - like the company doing the shipping crated it that way...

[jon grant]

I spent an hour trying to separate the resin base from the load with an exacto saw, got fed up, and 'laid into it' with a whopping big hacksaw instead. That did the trick - and watch out, the dust IS very annoying.

I've also added some plastic strip to represent a carrying palette.

 

Now to add some ropes and chains

Jon

[ukguy]

excelent work as always Jon, those loads do look so much better. Looking forward to seeing them in situ at Sweethome.

The Chooch loads look very appealing to me and 'if' I ever get close to building another layout I will be buying several of their loads, probably to use them as casting masters to further extend my investment.

I've never worked with resin, was it easy to cut through or a PITA, you seem to have done a very clean cut.

Take care,
Karl.

[jon grant]

I've never worked with resin, was it easy to cut through or a PITA, you seem to have done a very clean cut.

 

Karl, it was more than a PITA trying to cut into the resin with an Exacto saw. The hacksaw with a 12" blade with teeth for cutting metal was the right tool for the job. I simply held the base in a vice/vise and 'sawed like the clappers', keeping an eye on the cut.

When I got half way down I flipped the whole thing over and did the same again - nice clean cut.

 

Jon  

   

 

[Loco]

What timing.  I also bought some loads, military, and one of the three "tanks" had a "base".  I asked why and of course no one at the LHS knew.  It really looks bad.  I was just going to toss the odd load into the parts bin.  But now I'll be bring out the power tools.

[jon grant]

I touched up the paintwork, weathered them down a bit, and added some ropes to finish off the car loads.

 

 

It didn't take long for them to see action on Sweethome

Jon

[jon grant]

The other loads on the layout

A nice, easy project that was completed in a couple of evenings.

Jon

[ukguy]

Thanks for the info Jon, great pics now they are on the layout and weathered.

Karl

[Ibflattop]

Jon. Ya did a good job on those Chooch loads.  Send them to the LE&W why dont ya!!!!! ( Hint Hint) 

                                                                                                                       Kevin

[dknelson]

Jon

 If ya have a belt sander you could always sand down the floor of the load to make it look like its sitting flat on the car.      Kevin

While the belt sander would probably do fairly quick work, the resins that Chooch uses put out a strong odor and lots of dust and in this instance I think a saw might be a more controlled option.

There remains the question of why Chooch has these thick bases.  I imagine they make casting easier but this is a lot of additional work to have the load look right.

Dave Nelson

Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

Jon - great looking loads.  I have a bunch of those chooch loads too and wondered about the bases.  Chooch also has a bunch of loads that are not on any kind of a base which look real good.  I particularly like your weathering and rope job!  I bought scale weathered chain on ebay that I use for tying down my flat car loads.