Cooling off

A bit of work on some TRC kits to add detail. Roy Howarth suggested bumpers for the ice hatches, as he had already added to his TRC31183 & ABC31320. He also pointed out the handles for opening the hatches, to be fabricated from 0.5mm diameter enamelled copper wire. Roy has a great supply of this (and other sizes), which he uses for hand rails etc. Some may think that copper is more easily bent out of shape than brass - which is true, but of course it can also be more easily corrected!

Drilling the ends of the TRCs for grab irons .

Hatches marked out by eye for the handle positions.

One set of hatch bumpers installed, the other has positions marked out by reference to Roy's ABC31320

Fitting bumpers.

The 0.5mm diameter holes have been drilled for hatch handles and roof grab irons.

First lot of roof grab irons installed.

Buffers fitted. Will probably need to change the Kadee #5s into #26s

First one "finished".

 

The next step will be to fill gaps in the corners, as well as a couple of sink marks in the sides. I suspect I bought these kits as "seconds", as the mouldings have a number of defects, including the sink marks. The roofs appear to be short-shots as they are quite thin, especially at the ends.

The ladders need some work to extend the stiles diagonally onto the car ends. After that, I'll see what can be done to the underfloor area.