I need help with Walthers HO scale Quad hopper

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I’m building lots of cars like this:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-4913

I can use the metal weight or the the center sill (plastic), what do you guys recomend?

Will this car run much better with the metal weight?

2

Hi EL;

Your question does not make sense, possibly a translation issue into Americanized English.

You should follow some sort of standard for wieghting your railroad cars. The NMRA RP is a popular standard (www.nmra.org). For wieghting, shot (as used in shot guns), steel balls, fishing wieghts, automotive wheel balance wieghts, solder, and low melting temperature alloys are common. Keep the added wieght as low as possible. Some have wrapped pieces of solder around the wheelset axles.

I strongly recommend using metal wheels. Measure the axle lengths of your present wheelsets, and replace them with metal wheelsets with similar axle lengths. I have found that P2K axles are about 0.13mm shorter than InterMountain, which are in turn about 0.13mm shorter than Kadee. Branchline wheelsets have about the same axle length as Kadee, but to me are better. NWSL and ReBoxx offer a variety of axle lengths. Atlas has two, the caboose wheelsets have very short axles. Metal wheels add wieght to your cars.

3

I’ve assembled several of the Walthers Quad hoppers using the included metal weights in place of plastic center sill. I cleaned the weights in warm soapy water, dried them and painted them with semi-gloss black. This way they don’t really draw attention to themselves when viewing the model.

I also replaced the plastic wheels with InterMountain metal wheels.

I’m real happy with the weight & appearance of the hoppers.

My $.02 worth.

Mark Gosdin

4

Magnus, I don’t see why it should be an “either-or” question. The only option should be the centre sill…maybe, since I have not seen these, nor the instructions for their assembly…but the weight is not meant to be optional if you want a car that conforms to a weight standard in HO.

Is it possible that the order of assembly is backward? Have you possibly misunderstood exactly where the weight is to be attached? If I form a vision, the weight would be either under the car body, inside the frame (?), or lining the bottom of the hopper with the sill slid down guides on top of it.

Just my take on it.

5

I scanned it for you all to see what I mean.

6

Mark,

What glue did you use to glue the metal weight under the car?

I used latex caulk inside a car I build and that seems to work.

7

I have several of these cars, plus one that still needs to be assembled. I tried both ways. If you are going to run them empty, I recommend replacing the plastic sill with the weights. I run mine with loads for the most part so I didn’t convert all of them.

Rick

8

I didn’t use any glue. What I did was use double sided foam tape to stick the two painted weights together, once I had the two weights lined up I trimmed away the excess tape.

This made the two weights into a single piece that was just ever so slightly wider than the center sill. I pushed the weights into the slot for the center sill. It is a tight fit, but since the foam tape has some give there is more than enough pressure to keep eveything in place without resorting to glue or caulk.

The double sided foam tape I use is a 3M product, and should be available from hardware stores or auto parts stores.

Mark Gosdin

9

I cleaned the metal with soap and water, painted them, and glued them in place with Zap (cyanoacrelate). I’ve added P2K wheels and loads, and they run great!!