Another D&H blue glass hopper

As was mentioned in my post a few weeks ago about weathering a pair of D&H blue recycled glass hoppers, my wife saw my models and wanted one with blue glass. I had been meaning to buy a third car anyways but was going to put extra crushed green glass in it. However, my wife's interest in the project persuaded me to pick up some blue glass tube beads and use them instead. But what car to use? I didn't want another Walther's car because they were prototypically wrong. The Atlas car was better, but it was part of a limited edition set and I didn't want to fork out $25+. So, I turned to the lowly LifeLike model, which actually wasn't too bad.

First off, it isn't a rare car by any means but most sellers want $15 or so for it. I can't see paying that much for a 1970s-era train set car with truck mounted couplers, fuzzy yellow graphics, and crude details like stirrups. I usually checked local train shows for one to be buried in the discount boxes but hadn't found it yet. My wife's urging to get another model forced this to the top of the "want" list and I got a pretty decent deal on Ebay. Upon arrival, I disassembled it and took stock of what I had to do. First, I used a knife to clean up excess flash around the stirrup steps and in between the bays on the underside.

Then, I built up styrene pads under the end sloping areas which would let me body mount Kadee couplers. I realized that I had no hope of reusing the LifeLike trucks even with their couplers removed because they were too flimsy. Instead, I substituted a pair of Athearn freight car trucks that I liberated from a surplus 40' boxcar. I don't know if they are appropriate for this car, but considering the overall "prototype fidelity" of the project I deemed them good enough. The pads I built up were carefully checked for truck swivel clearance, and once the trucks were set I then further adjusted everything so the couplers would end up at the correct height.

The pads don't look terribly realistic from certain angles. But when they were painted flat black, and then later a dark blue to match the car body color (made from combining blue and black paint on the fly) they receded into the darkness. Next, the trucks were drybrushed with brown and black paint to represent rust and grime. The wheels were also painted to kill their metallic sheen. The real cars didn't appear to get very dirty, but the model I was using had fuzzy yellow graphics and the molded blue body color was unpainted blue plastic and mottled in appearance. So, I had to heavily weather it to hide those issues. After that was done, the car didn't look half bad.

An false load base was installed but this time I just used flat styrene, painted blue to match the car. I didn't make any mounds with caulk, as I was going to mound the glass itself into the shape I wanted. That would actually give me better control on the final appearance of the glass. The blue glass was bashed up and sifted to remove dust, and then I secured it with more of my homemade matte medium solution. Once dried, I was pretty pleased with the car. I showed it to my wife, but she thought that I had been a bit too stingy with the load. So, the rest of the blue beads were crushed up and onto the car they went in a big mound. Then she was happy too!