Swap Meet Report and Follow Up

Greetings All,

Saturday May 27th 1:1 Scale Engineer Ed and I attended a swap meet hosted by our local hobby shop, Trainmaster Models of Buford GA. Readers may remember my goal of obtaining some cheapie coal hoppers to repaint and letter for the Penn Central as part of a joint project with 1:1 PC Ralph and Engineer Ed. Things didn't turn out exactly as planned but I did come home with ten coal hoppers! But none for the joint project. Let me explain;

I purchased these eleven kits from a swap meet vendor for $40.00. Those counting at home will hopefully come to the same $3.64 cost per kit as I did. 

The six Stewart kits included 3 built P&LE hoppers with Kadee couplers and 3 NYC hoppers still new in the box. Price: $20.00

The four Bower hopper kits are all new in the box.

 And this N5C New York Region caboose that is already built.
These five were $20.00

With all the hopper cars painted nicely in road names that could be considered home road in my basement and with different road numbers for each car there is no way I will repaint them.

So let's take a look at some of the building process for these kits;

I tackled the Stewart kits first as they looked easier to build. Here they are at Terminal Yard.

The three P&LE cars at Terminal Yard. Prior to building and putting them into service I washed all six and painted their metal weights, frame and trucks flat black.

A Bowser PRR H21A kit ready to go

Prior to building I washed all the cars in soapy water like I did with the Stewart cars.

And set them out to dry here. Note the Bowser kits also come with plastic coal loads.

The cars get some sunlight from the Patti-O. Now would be a good time to paint the waits outside.  

Where's the weights?!

AHA! they were under a cardboard insert

The holes were a little rough so I filed them down prior to spray painting.

Six brown and two black should do he trick

All components drying nicely. Next installment I'll focus on the building of the cars.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Thanks for reading!

And don't forget the Virtual Ops are under way!

Check PC Ralph's Blog entries!

http://kingsportdivision.blogspot.com/2017/05/pccm-35-back-to-virtual-ops.html

http://kingsportdivision.blogspot.com/2017/05/pccm-35b-yard-work-preparing-cut-for-wv.html