The Space HOpper has landed!

Son of Space Hopper

I was looking for a little change of pace and decided to go ahead and see about making a Space Hopper. All the necessary materials have been staring at me all winter long, so I thought, enough is enough, I've had enough with the staring :-)

The hopper is an HO scale ACF 2970 Covered Hopper by Athern that I picked up last year on the resale table at a local hobby shop. It was a little beat up, but I figured that added to its character. Although, I did do a little prep work on it.

Body preparations done and awaiting decals

The first task was to grind off the molded on tank reinforcements where the decals would go. I wanted a smooth surface, and and didn't want any details that might prevent the decals from properly conforming. Sanding sticks were used to smooth the surface. Once clean and flat, some clear acrylic floor polish was painted on to produce a shiny surface to improve decal adhesion. To finish off, the under carriage was painted a sloppy black mix to de-emphasize its detail so it wouldn't visually compete with the decals.

Decal sheet after spraying with clear fixative

I took my reference photos (this one and this one) and using trial-and-error adjusted them to fit my hopper using Apple's Photo, Preview, and Keynote. If you look closely at the photos, and compare them against the finished model, you can see I took a few liberties during sizing.

Once that was done I printed the images on a sheet of white decal paper designed for inkjet printers. After the ink had dried for 24 hours, I sprayed the sheet with some Testors clear gloss sealer to fix the pictures. Once that too had dried for 24 hours I cut out the decals. There was a little fiddling and trimming that needed to be done to each one to improve the fit before they were applied.

Space Hopper

I used Microscale's Micro Set and Micro Sol to apply the decals, following the directions on the bottles. It worked out fairly well, although the top and bottom edges of each decal crinkled while drying. However, the edges are flat, so that part is good. Those rough edges don't appear on the prototype, but they actually look alright on the model. I'll do a little bit of additional weathering and finish up with a flat sealant. I'm hesitating on the sealant as I recently had a problem with my flat spray sealants causing decals to peel and paint to craze. Other than that, it's done.

Calling HO occupants of interplanetary space hoppers: It's here!