The topic, I guess, speaks for itself. I want to open Athearn Passenger cars to put interiors in them. I did 2 so far. They seem to be glued. I had a rough time opening them. Is there an easier way?
Joe C
I am currently working on repainting several old Athearn (BB) heavyweight passenger cars. These have two small tab slots on each side, along the bottom midsection, where the storage boxes are located. The frame has two small plastic tabs that fit into these slots. I used a flat xacto blade (or a small flat blade screwdriver) to pry the tabs away from the car body and lift them clear. Now- these were not glued in any way, so there was no removal issue.
If your cars have glue in this area, I would try using a flat chisel-type xacto blade ot a single-edge razor blade (something with a very thin aspect) to try to gently cut through the glue. If the glued area extends along the car frame, more of this same procedure might required.If the glue is old white glue, this will be easy, but I have had good luck with this procedure with CA glued joints as well.
Hope this helps!
Cedarwoodron
Thanks for the reply but these cars are not Blue Boxes, and there are no tabs. These are RTR’s
Joe C
Some of the Athearn streamlined RTR have a lot of glue between the shell and the bottom frame. Like Cedarwoodron mentioned if your lucky a sharp very thin blade will to the trick.
I bought one off eBay a few weeks ago that was solid glue. After a couple of hours trying every tool I own I ended up cutting the bottom out with a thin Dremel rotary cutoff blade. It made a mess but cleaned up nicely. A rivet counter would toss it because of what the bottom looks like.
I was able to cleanup the shell with a chisel blade and it came out very nice. I rebuilt the bottom frame back to original Athearn specs using sheet styrene so that they fit together perfectly. The car assembled looks better now than it did before the butcher job. Interior done passengers inside good lighting and airbrushed to SP Daylight colors.
This is what I started with.
The picture above shows the frame being rebuilt.
When Athearn started the RTR line, the design was the same as the BB kits. This may have changed over the years. Looking at the Athearn site at HW ‘Retired Models’ that have photos, I still can see the tab on the side at the centerline same as the old BB.
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH78776
I took these photos to detail an interior that I was working on, but they do show the tab on the floor part of the model.
Ok
Your right, they did change the design over the years since you bought your RTR. I took a photo to show that the design did indeed change. Unless I’m missing it, I do not see anything resembling a tab. Even using an a thin blade were it seperates, is still difficult to open.
Joe C
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You have a lightweight car, and I was showing a heavyweight. Maybe someone else has a LW one now we know what type of car you are working on. It would have helped if you have posted the picture up front, then I would not have wasted MY time.
I have a dozen Athearn streamlined cars, some RTR and some Blue Box, none of them have the tabs like the heavyweights. The newer line might have tabs but the older cars do not. None of my RTRs are newer, all are pre mid 90s. The RTRs I have are basically the same casting as the Blue Box but glued together. The one in your picture looks like the same vintage as my observation car and it doesn’t have tabs, it just slips together. It was a Blue Box kit. I use a small dab of Elmer’s Rubber glue to keep the shells from falling off.
All of the RTRs came apart rather easily with an Xacto wide chisel blade except the last one. It was really glued together, after I tore it up and removed the frame it looked like a factory glue job. It was a lot of work to cut it open and restore the bottom frame but it turned out very nice and I would do it again if needed. I think it was worth the effort and it boosted my ability to kitbash a notch.
Mel
Thanks Mel for your input
Joe C
Your welcome Joe, it really wasn’t as bad as I expected so if you need to tear into it and have questions Message me.
Mel
Out of curiouity, where are you guys getting the interiors from? I have a fair number of cars that need interiors, but the cheapest I could find was $15/car, which would near double the price I spent for each car.
My interiors are from my LHS 0.040” sheet Styrene stock, home brew all the way. I bought a couple IHC interiors several years ago and cut them up to make molds for beds, chairs and tables. I use Micro-Mark Casting materials to make my own interiors. One mold has two rows of ten chairs simply for large quantizes for chair cars or just cut into singles as needed.
I bought 1:100 scale people from Turkey on eBay in large quantities. I went with 1:100 because the interior chairs on all interiors are a bit too small for 1:87 figures and inside the cars it’s difficult to tell the difference. Some cars are full and some like the one below just a few. The car below only has lights for the two occupied rooms, I didn’t feel like the unoccupied rooms needed furniture. Only the illuminated areas need detailing.
Making the interior walls is a piece of cake, ¾” wide strip of Styrene with door openings glued to a 1⅛“ strip for the floor.
Cool - thanks for the link and images!