I have completed?? assembly of an Accurail Coal Hopper, Series 2500 - a very unsatisfactory kit. The instructions were minimal, and hard to follow. After finally getting the brake assemblies if tried to install the door closing mechanisms. This was a real struggle - the parts are TINY - now good for 81 year old hands. After fiddling around for some 15 - 20 minutes, the part fell to the floor from the tweezers, never to be found - the concluded my effort to install the door closers. Then I went to installing the couplers, but did not want to use those that wee with the kit - rather I wanted to use Kadee No.5s. I went to my Kadee supply, only to find I had none left - thus I did put in the kit coupler (until I can get the Kadees. There is no way one can couple or uncouple using the kit couplers. SO much for my experience with the Accurail hopper - never again. Anyone else have such a problem?
I agree the couplers are the first to go, I do not like the Accumate couplers at all. However small detail parts are the price one pays for scale details in a kit. I for one am very glad that Accurail continues to offer kits and has not completely gone over to expensive r-2-r
Also agree to change couplers and that the little pieces are difficult to manage and I haven’t reached your age of life experiences yet. Do enjoy doing kits though, so give in to a few of the frustrations.
Bought some Proto 2000 tankers a few years back for when I was suppose to be laid up for a week or so. Gad, leaned a lot of new words that can’t be printed here. Also did some constructive learning - buy a set of reamers to make those tiny holes just a little bigger. Buy “Timesaver” kits - have done, but haven’t put one togather yet. hoping they’re a bit easier.
A good pair of self closing tweezers will help holding those little parts. I also have a magnifying lamp thet comes in handy.
Have a friend that loves to do kits, but hands often shake so bad, just getting cars on track is difficult. He just does the best he can, enjoys it, complains a little, but has fun.
Have fun,
Richard
I’ve assembled a few of those hoppers. Some of the small parts are difficult to install. I also like to build Proto 2000, Branchline Blueprint and Intermountain kits. I would be lost without a high intensity light and my optivisor! The original poster may want to shop for the old Athearn blue box kits. Decent detail, easy assembly, and when you run a trainful of them, few will notice the cast on details. Nothing goes on the layout without Kadees!
I built 12 of them and I just left off the off those small door openers
I doubt you can really notice them when running them on the layout
I did swap out the wheels for metal ones and used Kaydee Couplers
I like the kit as well as their boxcars and gondolas
They really look good on the layout with decent detail and very reasonable price and are available data only
BTW I am 75 and know what you mean (
Also in Accurails’s favour is the ability to easily renumber multiple cars.
I too have assembled several 2500 kits and swap wheels and couplers. Now I have an adequate fleet to serve the small coal mine on my layout.
Just leave off the tiny parts, relax and enjoy the hobby. I have a string of 18 of these hoppers and none have those little, tiny door closers. As the train is rolling by you don’t even notice.
Remember, at normal viewing distances, you’re at 50 to 100 scale feet from the train. Too far away to see the details. Your eyes can only take in the big picture.
on the subject of accurail cars.
I have built about 15 of there 3 bay hopper cars and one of the first things I realized was to ignore the instructions they provide and do it they way you think is easiest.
For instance on the cars they want you to secure the weight down with the little tabs on the car end pieces and put the body over. Only problem is the end pieces move as you put the body over and gives nothing but headaches. So what I did was drop the weight in the top of the car body and slid the end pieces in also while its upside down then dropped in the floor piece in and installed it to the car body that way. When you turn the car upright again the weight drops to the bottom, it may be slightly on a angle but it doesn’t matter as you cant see it and there’s really nowhere for it slide around in the car causing any weight issues ( not that I have had anyways ) these cars are relatively inexpensive maybe because there a pain to put together I don’t know, but I like them and once you get a system of building them together it goes pretty quickly.