Milwaukee Road EMD SD10 Build

[Deleted]

Time to finally do a Milwaukee Road EMD SD10. I have the raw material now lets get this done and ready for paint in a week.

The Milwaukee Road liked its six axle SD7's and SD9's. They featured a single fuel tank and the six axles resulted in a locomotive that was extremely favorable to branch lines which had become one with nature. They also made good transfer units.

The SD10 fleet were mostly rebuilt SD7's. Four were rebuilt from SD9's. They could be found from Chicago to Seattle working the branch lines.



The base model is a Proto 2000 undecorated SD7. Changes will include chopping the nose, rebuilding the cab face, lopping off one fuel tank, the Horst paper air filter, plow and other do-dad's.

[princessofthecape]

Really eager to see how this turns out!

[bdhicks]

I remember seeing these back in Minnesota. Along with the ex-CNW chop-nose SD9s they made up the bulk of the DME's fleet when they were starting up.

[gtws00]

That's one of the Engines on my to do list. Please post pictures and tips as you build.

Thanks for posting

George

[pltbrnch]

I did the 559 and 553 starting with prepainted Proto SD7's. Was able to keep the original orange paint from the factory painted SD7's through the whole rebuild process, seemed about the right shade of orange for the repainted SD10's. Followed the article in Model Railroader, Oct 2008 to do mine.....

pltbrnch

Attachments:

[mlehman]

Jim,
What was the timeframe for the SD10 rebuilds? I was wondering if they came before or after the SDL39 were ordered, as there's certainly a family resemblance. The concepts and design philosophy seem very similar.

[peoriaman]

Mar 13, 2014 21:24:23 GMT -8 pltbrnch said:

I did the 559 and 553 starting with prepainted Proto SD7's. Was able to keep the original orange paint from the factory painted SD7's ...

LOL I built one about ten years ago, and painted it DM&E. I thoroughly changed its DNA since it started as a factory-painted C&NW unit and I stripped it and painted it as an ex-Milwaukee SD10.

[wsor]

The SD10 were rebuilt in 1974-75, after the SDL39s and the RSC2.5 rebuilds. Probably cheaper to rebuild what was already suited for poor track than to commission new lightweight units.

[mlehman]

Mike,
Thanks, I kind of thought that might have been the case. The MILW may have been poor, but they at least knew they could build a good thing when the saw it after they no longer could afford new. Kind of sad that things turned bad financially for the MILW or there might have been a lot more SDL39s floating around -- and that much better chance someone will do them in plastic someday.

[Deleted]

The Proto model has the dual fuel and or water and fuel tanks. The Milwaukee Road's SD7's and SD9's were built with a single fuel tank to reduce the weight per axle. When rebuilt into SD10's they retained the single fuel tank and had the air reservoirs changed from their vertical as built orientation to being mounted horizontally.

First step is to cut off the forward fuel tank from the chassis.



The Proto SD7 model features an Athearn blue box style of coupler attachment. We are going to body mount the couplers. So first you cut off the coupler tongue on the chassis. After you've cut the tongue, you notch back the chassis to give clearance to the new coupler box mounting pad.



When you cut off the one fuel tank your motor is now only held in place by two of the motor mounts. Using strip styrene you line the frame to cradle the motor. These styrene blocks prevent the motor from twisting.




You will need to cut half of the rubber motor mounts away.



Now its time for some plumbing on the air reservoirs. You remove the factory piping since it is for the reservoirs in their factory vertical position. You drill out the ends of the tanks and using 0.012" brass wire hand bend to represent the piping for their horizontal mounting. The wires are soldered for strength.






Using some strip styrene you CA these to the bottom of the chassis to allow the mounting of air reservoirs.


You need to notch out the front tank to clear the bottom of the motor.




Now it is time for the brackets for the re-rail frogs. They are bent out of brass flat bar. In the early years the SD10's carried re-rail frogs. In later years they carried spare knuckles.

[Deleted]

Time for body and fender......

Let's chop a nose. You will be removing a scale 3'6" from the high short hood. I measure out a piece of masking tape affix this to the nose. I then draw lines along the top and bottom of the tape with my drafting pencil. The drafting pencil is used because it produces an extremely fine line which you can't get with a regular lead pencil.



One chopped nose.





To fill the hole and get the center windows and number boards. You use the center windows and number board assembly from a Cannon & Co. EMD Dash Two cab kit.

The edges of the number boards extend above the roof line of the first generation rounded cab roof. Milwaukee Road used some filets. We'll use some 0.020" strip styrene which is cut into triangles to match the prototype and glued into place.

The horn, radio antenna and rotary beacon are also added to the cab roof.







Now its time to do the long hood door modifications to clear the Horst air filter. I had the non-dynamic brake clip removed and carefully removed the material that will be under the Horst filter. I used some strip styrene and glued it into the opening on both sides. To model the lowered hinges and knuckle buster door handles, I used etched brass EMD door handles of knuckle busters from Plano Models. The hinges are spares I had left over from the SD18 build. These are also Plano products.



The completed Horst being tested in its location.








During the rebuilding the Milwaukee Road added two more exhaust stacks to raise the total to four. The extra exhaust stacks are Detail Associates number 2402.




I replace the delrin rear ladders with Plano products. The Plano kit is made of phosphorus bronze. I solder the rungs into the sides of the ladder for strength. The Plano product looks 100% better than the delrin ladders from Proto.

[Deleted]

Steps and such.....

The Milwaukee Road modified the steps during rebuilding to make them more crew friendly. The SD7's had a very vertical climb as built. Milwaukee stacked the steps to be more like GP30 and later step wells.

The as built steps on the P2K model.





I used and modified an etched brass step kit from Plano for SD24's. SD24's, 9's and 7's are all first generation cousins.






Time to add the "sheet metal" extension to the rear pilot. I cut it out of some sheet styrene and used strip styrene on the back to mount the extension.



I scratch built my cut bars to match the prototype. I used 0.012" brass wire and hand bent it.




The front of the unit got a snow plow during rebuilding.  I mounted the plow and scratch built the cut bars. You'll also notice the white block where the drop step would be located. Milwaukee Road didn't have drop steps on the SD10's. I filled the void of the P2K model with some styrene block.



The body mounted coupler pad is made out of six 1/4" squares from Evergreen. They are trimmed 3/32" to clear the chassis. Once the block has dried and is firmly attached to the body, I map out the location of the screw hole on the Kadee box and mark it. I then drill out the pad with a number 50 drill bit. The hole is then tapped with 2-56 threads.

[stevef45]

your pics of the tanks and piping give me hope to do the piping on my nj transit build.

[mlehman]

Mar 25, 2014 21:58:26 GMT -8 stevef45 said:

your pics of the tanks and piping give me hope to do the piping on my nj transit build.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that work on the frame to get down to the single tank will be useful for others. Awesome work, Jim.

[nebrzephyr]

Jim...nice job on the "mods". Just curious.....what did you use to modify the chassis, removing the second fuel tank?

Bob

[cf7]

Lookin' good, Jim! I've never thought of adding the steps; just haven't noticed that before.

[Deleted]

Mar 26, 2014 5:39:46 GMT -8 nebrzephyr said:

Jim...nice job on the "mods". Just curious.....what did you use to modify the chassis, removing the second fuel tank?

Bob

Hack saw and a very large bastard file.

[Deleted]

Some where we are at photos or ready for paint. Many parts are not applied or not tied down for painting purposes.

[onequiknova]

Wow Jim. You really banged this one out. Nice work.

[peoriaman]

Good catch on the revised steps. I missed that when I built mine.

[tankcarsrule]

Mighty fine modeling Jim. I love the unusual engines and freight cars.

Regards, Bobby

[nebrzephyr]

Mar 26, 2014 5:44:31 GMT -8 @babalooey said:

Hack saw and a very large bastard file.

Thanks. It looks very good, if you hadn't said "how", I would have guessed it was "milled". Bob

[Deleted]

Its finished.

[onequiknova]

That thing came out sweet.

[Deleted]

Apr 18, 2014 19:46:23 GMT -8 onequiknova said:

That thing came out sweet.

Sprout wishes to thank the Master.

[mrsocal]

Very nice loco.

[buffalobill]

Jim: Another excellent finished locomotive. I wish I could get just one finished. It is definitely Milwaukee.
Bill

[gtws00]

Very nice. Paint looks great. What brand of paint did you use?

George T

[TBird1958]

Great project, it came out beautiful Jim!

Some of you guys really raise the bar high - it's appreciated.