# Changing the period of Tyco operating hoppers



## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I've been looking around the web for ideas on making the Tyco operating hoppers fit in better to an early-1900's theme, and wanted to see what others thought (I'm learning as I go, so bear with me)...

The easiest changes would be replacing the trucks with archbar style trucks, shaving off the current brake wheel structure and adding a full-length vertical brake shaft with a wound chain.

As I was looking around, I happened on a discussion on this forum which presented an idea I really like... He added side panels which do a good job of hiding the clamshell doors while recreating the lines of the old-style hoppers. With the addition of some manual dump wheels on the side, I think this would be a good representation of steel-sided hoppers from that period? The original pictures weren't too clear, so I made my own mock-up from an online image, and I really like the difference it makes in the appearance of the car.









_(Original source can be found here)_

I'll also be adding metal stirrups and ladder rungs to the cars. I just wish it were as easy to model the real changes as it was to create this image.


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## cole226 (Feb 8, 2013)

TRICKY:smilie_daumenpos::smilie_daumenpos:


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

That looks great. I have three of the B&M Mantua era ones. They track nice due to the extra weight down low.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Just be careful that you don't spend a lot of time and effort trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

CTValleyRR said:


> Just be careful that you don't spend a lot of time and effort trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.


Honestly this is exactly the reason why I'm getting back into trains again. I want to learn the modeling skills to make the cars look great, and I have a special interest in these Tyco unloaders. And it's just so much fun to take some of the cheapest crap you can find and turn it into something special. I have no trouble making the physical changes to the cars, but the weathering techniques are an art form that will take me some time to learn. Adding that extra dimension of making these cars appear from a different era is just icing on the cake...

I've found a bit of discussion about how a hopper should look from the early 1900's, and of course I have to stick with the steel styles because I'm certainly not going to make these Tycos look like a wooden hopper, but I haven't found many reference pictures. This one did stand out though (and looks like it was brand new at the time)









I think the hardest part of adding these drop-sides will be extending the ribbing and adding appropriate rivets. I'll have to read up on techniques to do that.


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## GN.2-6-8-0 (Jan 10, 2013)

Actually the rivets will be rather easy thanks to acher rivet decals, while they May be just slightly oversize they make child's play of the way you used to have to do the job! 
These decals actually have the raised appearance of real rivets.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

So you can put them down and paint over them? Interesting! I thought it was going to be some process like dabbing a bit of glue with a toothpick


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## alcoman (Nov 4, 2009)

Could you cut up the side panels from another car to make the extensions? Looks like you could get about 4 sets from one car.

I happen to have one of the Tyco hoppers sitting here and the rib spacing exactly matches an Athearn blue box 34' hopper. Life Like sold a train set quality 34' hopper (made from the Varney dies) that you could probably find cheap. The Varney and Life Like cars are packed away so I can't check them tonight, but I would not be surprised if all 4 cars are from the same original tooling.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

It's possible that another car could be cut up. The section I need would be 1/4" wide at the most. But I'm thinking this could be laid down pretty easily with a coule strips of plastic... one about 5/64" wide (and thin as possible), then the actual rib at about 1/32" square. I'm sure once I had the technique down I could whip them out pretty quick -- assuming I can find the raw pieces to build it with.


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

The Varny / Life like ones are actually slightly shorter, I have three of them. The Athearn are close. I have a Roundhouse that is vary close also.


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## GN.2-6-8-0 (Jan 10, 2013)

Shdwdrgn said:


> So you can put them down and paint over them? Interesting! I thought it was going to be some process like dabbing a bit of glue with a toothpick



Yes,they go on like a regular decal and you just paiint over them ....check them out at Micro-Mark they run $16.95 a set,bit pricey but concidering the alternative worth the price!


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Thought I would share a little progress on my first experimental body. I've been playing with replacing all the grabirons, but definitely need to go to a smaller wire next time -- the ladder rung holes are taking so much out of the corner posts that the glue is the only thing holding them together.

However what I really wanted to share was my experiments with weathering. I got in the Tichy archbar trucks, so I'm playing with the paint colors. Since I've been driving beside a train on my way home from work over the past few weeks, I've had time to look at their trucks. I thought a earth brown was a pretty close match to the overall tone of the rust, then I used a burnt sienna to try and highlight some areas of newer rust. This evening I picked up a 'thunder gray' to try and add some streaks of splattered mud.










The actual color is only very slightly less reddish than the picture suggests. I like the brown color, and I'm really happy with the light brushes of gray, but I think the sienna blends too much with the brown and acts more as an overall lightener rather than a highlighter. I also got a bottle of burnt orange tonight but I haven't tried it out yet.

Still a lot more to learn about weathering, but overall I like the results I'm getting already. One of these days I'll finish the car body modifications and can start experimenting with weathering that.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Still testing ideas on the first car, but I tried doing the drop sides today. Unfortunately the styrene I found in only .040" and the sides of the car are .050, so my alignment wasn't quite right and you can see the ledge where I added the new piece... I'll have to work on my technique for alignment and smoothing the results. On the other hand I was pretty happy with how the rubbing turned out the first time. I made this by putting down a piece of .010x.080, and the a piece of .030x.030. Of course there are no rivets but you can't tell unless you're doing close-up pictures anyway. So here's a close-up picture... 









It's really hard to see the results with such contrasting colors, but I haven't gotten my air brush setback up yet, so I just did a quick wash with a brush and some lamp black acrylic. This seems to highlight the seam between pieces, making it obvious that I can't do the rest this way.









If I can't find some .050-thick material, then I'll make a clamp to keep the pieces flush to the outside of the car while gluing. My biggest concern was that this piece would be fragile, but the glue appears to have created a proper weld. After I set the edges together, I brushed another coat across the front and back side of the seam so the glue could soak into any remaining open gaps. I let it set up for about 5 minutes before working with it, and so far haven't seen any sign that the joint will break.

My other concern was that the thin edge of the styrene would be obvious and give away the illusion, however with the dark color and being so low to the ground, it looks perfectly natural and you have to really look close to see the clamshell doors around the edges of this new piece. I'm still not certain about how low I went... This piece of styrene was 1/4" wide but I'm thinking 3/16" might be more appropriate?

One accidental discovery here... I brushed the black on quickly over the original silver, and wasn't concerned about brush strokes being visible. The results actually gives the side of the car a bit of weathered look, like it has recently seen some wear that left bare steel showing. I imagine this technique could also work well with an undercoat of a rust color, or even varying stripes of different rust colors and silver, so that the final brush strokes showing through the black would appear as various periods of wear?










That's the great thing about experimenting with technique... sometimes the accidents are more interesting than the intended results.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I have a little better picture comparing the original and rebuilt cars to each other. One of the things I was looking into is that I thought I would need to add an .020" shim to put the kadee couplers at the right height. However after comparing the cars, I realized the the new trucks are actually *raising* the entire car by that amount. I think the original Tyco trucks may have been undercut to offset the height, however now I need to decide if I want to modify the Tichy trucks to compensate, or just add shims under the couplers?

I adjusted the height of the drop-down panels to 3/16" and it has a lot better 'feel' to it. This picture is almost straight-on to the side of the cars, while the picture above is more appropriate to how you would see the car when looking down at the track. The 1/4" width almost looked like it was dragging on the rail.

I also added the stirrups and the vertical brake wheel, although they don't show very well from this angle. I still need to finish converting the rest of the grabirons and make a loop for the bottom of the brake wheel shaft.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Height problem solved... I ground down the trucks a little with a dremmel. The height of the cars is pretty much identical now and the measurement for the coupler location is just right. Now I just have to get a 2-56 tap to mount the coupler boxes.


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