I love Walther’s passenger cars, I really do. I think the price is reasonable for the level of detail, paint, and running qualities.
But it always drives me up a wall to put the grab irons in the 1/80th holes. I always end up sending 5, 6 pieces flying to parts unknown, to invoke a long search process, from which one always winds up missing.
Then I have to call walthers, feeling a bit like a dufus, and ask for a replacement grab iron. While they have always been very generous and accomodating, it doesn’t make much sense for us to call walthers for one or two grab irons worth .1 cent when it cost 42 cents to mail it.
Wouldn’t it make much more sense to just package a number of replacement grabs for maybe 10 cents, and thereby save customers grief, and Walthers postage?
Those grab irons are the reason I no longer buy any Walthers car or engine. Arthritis just doesn’t like drilling the holes and inserting those grabs. Used to do it, no more.
By the title, I was thinking it was just another whining thread about modeler installable grab irons on Walther cars. But i totally agree with you, they need to provide spare grab irons, especially the ones that are installed on the corners of the cars and have to be cut because they can’t go as deep into the body of a car side. I have to agree with you that Walthers cars are really nice and I would buy them in the future.
However, I stayed away from their 20th century NYC. Overpriced and slim on features. After looking at all the detail on Rapido passenger cars: silver trim around windows, curtains, multi-color interior with fully modeled chairs rather than Walther’s generic chair profiles. Then you add Rapido features such as installed grab irons, detailed under body and included lighting - my bar of expectations have been raised and I’m just waiting on Rapido to release cars for the roads I’m interested. The one thing I wish Rapido would improve is to pick the power from the rails for the lighting and for pit sake why can’t manufactures put a small capacitor on their lighting kit so that lights don’t flicker?
The point is valid and why a supplier does not include several spares, especially when the cost is so incremental. Now that they are installing the grabs on some of their cars, maybe the point is moot. But still, losses occur in handling operating, so a few extras might still be a good idea.
Thanks for the Micro link. That looks like a good idea.
i used to shoot grab irons and such out in to space with regularity. i eventually found the cause of my problem. cheap tweezers. i picked up a quality set of them and threw the old tools in the trash. a small part still gets away occasionally buy nothing like when i was trying to install them with the bargain tools. (ask a jeweler or watch maker if you can still find one)
you can easily make your own grab irons and steps from wire if you have a decent pair of tapered needle nose pliers. (flatten the wire with a hammer for steps) use the corner of an index card to mask under the part when you touch up the paint.
kind of funny how the manufacturers push their almost completed stuff on us. they do all the easy parts of assembly and then tell you what a big favor they have done for you. the p2k time saver kits come to mind. a lot of the work that was already done was the easy part and it was often not up to my standards (child and prison labor no doubt) so i had to undo before i could redo and that saved no time at all.
I installed the grab irons on one of my Walthers cars. It took a lot of work, but afterwards, it wasn’t that noticable so I just leave them off the other cars. I figure it’s not worth all of the trouble.
Of the Walthers Super Chief cars I have applied the grabs to, there is a positive visual difference when being viewed next to one I haven’t as yet added the grabs. But drilling #80 holes is maddening
I sat and drilled #80 handrail holes all day long (in zinc boilers) for Bowser years ago–and went many hours between each drill breakage.
BUT
We had special drill jigs designed to hold each boiler and Tapfree drill lubricant (1-1-1 Trichloroethane–stuff you should not touch, but we had our hands in it).
I am unable at age 41 to drill the same #80 size holes in flat plastic with a pin vice without breaking drills and significant frustration.
If it doesn’t come with grab irons installed, I don’t buy it.
I did already buy the first Walthers Union Pacific sleeper release with the grab irons installed.
Now if they just put the light units in, too. (The “correct” light unit for the Santa Fe heavyweight coach does not fit the car–between that and the grab iron issues, I had stopped purchasing any Walthers passenger cars).
However, the new Walthers UP sleeper is gorgeous–but may look odd matched up with the MTH lighted Daylight coaches I have coming.
I’ll start out by saying that none of my Walthers passenger cars have grab irons installed–they’re just too much of a hassle for me, and whatever plastic they’re using just eats up drill bits like crazy (which is odd, because I can use the same # drill bits to install details on metal or brass with no problem).
With that out of the way, I’d say yes–I think that Walthers might think of providing extras in their grab-iron packages, especially those that are going to be difficult to install in the first place.
I remember years back when installing grab irons on the old Athearn/Menzies steel freight-car kits, there were always spares, in case one of them went flying off into Outer Space while being installed.
Not just passenger cars (have 0), but cabooses too.
I bought a BN-painted CB&Q wood caboose and had to intall the grabs. the most frustrating were the ones around the top of the coupla. Threading in a grab iron through the eyelet of 4 seperate lift rings was crazy, not to mention the broken drill bits.
That and there were no spare grabirons or lift rings, just the 8 lift rings the kit required. I had to go back to them twice for them…