Weathering some Fox Valley FMC 5283 boxcars

[amato1969]

A few of you asked for some details in the weekend update thread.  These are nice cars, but the ends require some work to get a nice ride height.

Here is a closeup of my homemade "Hydracushion" draft gear, and a spacer of about .040" to lower the coupler to the proper height.  Evergreen 3/16" H-column is just right for the Accumate; I cut away the bottom to make a "U", and secured everything with a .015" lid:



To better match the proto, I swapped in Micro-Trains trucks, which required me to file off the raised bolster pad.  I also filed a notch in the boxcar end to accommodate the coupler box:



I used the original coupler screw to mount the extended box, and also glued on an improvised air hose (a piece of stranded wire bent to shape):





Weathering started with erasing some of the yellow lettering, then a brushed fade of white oil paint (sealed with Tamiya flat).  I then laid down some dark umber craft washes and dust pigments to tie it together.  I tried to leave some of the data to look patched like the real thing:





  Frank

[Mark5]

Thanks Frank, again nice work. Gotta bookmark this for when I get around to fixing my Fox Valley boxers. 

[amato1969]

Thanks @Mark5 , I'm happy to give back; this site has so many talented contributors. 

Speaking of which, @Ed Kapuscinski has a thread somewhere that covers these cars w/o extended couplers.  Or maybe it's on his web site???

  Frank

[cjm413]

Thanks Frank, again nice work. Gotta bookmark this for when I get around to fixing my Fox Valley boxers. 

If you are lowering any PS 5344's, there's no need to notch the ends like on the FMC 5283 since the bottom of the ends pretty much lines up with the bottom of the underframe*

*FVM's underframes on the later releases with the MTL 1015's (or 1015 clones?) are slightly different from the early releases with truck-mounted couplers.   These have a shim molded in place to lower the coupler height rather than by lowering the ride height of the car to get the coupler height correct (in addition to eliminating some of the excess height above the rails)

For the couplers, I used Accumate couplers in Accumate coupler boxes without the lid, but with a 1-72 washer on the coupler post to reduce the excess vertical clearance on the inside of the coupler box that results from omitting the lid.