What are your favorite or most useful Tangent parts?

[lars]

I'm going to place an order for some Tangent parts.  Aside from the usual parts found here, what do you find to be most useful?  I'm sure there's a treasure trove of good parts in their list of parts for cars and cabooses that would be applicable to general freight car modeling, but the amount of parts is rather daunting.  Any suggestions from there that are good to have on hand is greatly appreciated.

[pjm20]

Preformed .008" grabs are nice detail parts I don't need to spend time creating. All of the brake detail parts are great too.

[SOMECALLMETIM]

I have used many of their 30" round roof hatches for projects.

[csxt8400]

I have yet to buy the firecracker antenna's but plan to. I cant say no to trucks, hoses, and cut levers. As mentioned, I also bought a bag of drop grabs.

[Mr. Trainiac]

In terms of unique parts exclusive to Tangent, I'd say the rubber air hoses and roller bearing axle packs are the best. Styrene or delrin MU and brake hoses are a dime a dozen, but Hi-Tech Details may be the only other 'mainstream' brand to do rubberized detail parts.

[drsvelte]

Detail parts from the prominent legacy manufacturers, Detail Associates & Details West, are becoming more and more scarce. Parts from Athearn, Atlas, Intermountain, and Walthers are often only intermittently in stock. Parts from Shapeways are inordinately expensive. Thus, its good to see companies like Tangent and Moloco step forward and begin producing parts that will fill some of those voids.


I started accumulating Tangent parts (Moloco, too) a few years ago. Trucks and wheels for sure. Coupler lift levers. Box car doors. Ladders. Grab irons. Brake appliances. Air hoses. Probably way more than I’ll ever use.


One frustration of mine has been the dearth of boxcar plug doors. Kadee offers a broad range of very nice doors, but they are all of the sliding variety. Accurail offers older style plug doors with molded-on detail. Branchline, McKean and Front Range usually included extra plug doors in their kits, but you need to have or find a kit. Plus, the doors in those kits also had molded-on detail.


The situation has improved recently. DownEast re-released a well-done 9’ Youngstown plug door with separate rod detail at a reasonable price. There are now 10’ and 12’ doors available on Shapeways. But the prices there are a sticking point for me; $30 plus for two doors after shipping!


What I’ve done is to purchase a few of Tangent’s boxcar shells just to harvest the plug doors. The shells are relatively cheap, so this isn’t an expensive proposition. For example, the PRR X58 shell ($5.00) has a nice representation of a Youngstown 10’6” plug door. The doors are pre-drilled for rods and the rods themselves are available in another parts package. A 2x8’ plug door is also available on their Gunderson high cube boxcar shell.


Here’s a photo of two 10’6” doors that I cut out of one shell.

[markfj]

Has anyone used their running boards for a project? I used to use Kadee running boards, but the prices for those have gone too high. It's cheaper to buy a complete car and harvest parts than got through eBay or an online dealer.

There is a hobby shop in PA called Mainline Hobby Supply that runs 10% sales on Tangent parts.

Thanks, Mark