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Post by ChessieFan1978 on Oct 4, 2020 6:26:55 GMT -8
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Post by timvanmersbergen on Oct 4, 2020 7:00:45 GMT -8
 This week I finished up a rebuild of a Proto U30B. I never liked their rendition of the orange. The sudden demise of the original Proto drive gave me the push I needed to rebuild and repaint it. Started by disassembling the model and removing the lettering from the orange parts. I added IC specific detail such as moving the horn location, the grab over the door, radio antenna, and hood side bell. Then I masked off the white parts and repainted with Model Master International orange to match the rest of the fleet. After re-assembling the shell I put it on a slightly modified Atlas U23B drive, using the better detailed Proto fuel and air tanks. Unlike the gear-ratio-of-the-month era Protos, it is now much happier running with the GP40s and Genesis GP9s that make up most of the fleet. Weathering is for a two year old but cantankerous and unloved unit. I attempted to duplicate an oil leak out of the prime mover doors which seemed a very common affliction to the early U-boats. What was something of an outcast, also-ran unit on my roster has now become a favorite with a lot of character. Tim VanMersbergen |
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Post by TBird1958 on Oct 4, 2020 8:51:02 GMT -8
Just some simple projects this week. Finished weathering this NACC car, it's all done with Abteilung 502 oil washes, really fun to work with. I have pics of this car enroute on the D&RGW so this was a fun addition to the fleet.  Adding some detail to a Walthers All Door car, new end platforms and steps that I bent from stainless fret stock.  |
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Post by fr8kar on Oct 4, 2020 10:45:34 GMT -8
The stars aligned and I got a bit of time off work. Since I had much of what I needed on hand to at least get started, I stripped and cut and spliced most of the way to a model of MKT 329, a GP38AC they picked up from Illinois Central in the mid 80s. The lion's share of the work is in the dynamic brake hatch, which required slicing and dicing two hatches to approximate the hatch on the prototype. The rest of the work was a walk in the park, just removing and replacing elements with Cannon parts. I could have replaced the nose, subbase and sight glass radiator door, but I decided to save those parts for other projects. That meant I had to use some styrene strip on the subbase to get the cab close to even with the long hood roofline. The sight glass is an oval of styrene sheet that I drilled through and carved to look like a gasket after attaching it to the radiator door. I have a few more details in the mail so hopefully the next time I find some time I can paint this thing. Here it is in progress:     |
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Post by loco8107 on Oct 4, 2020 11:25:23 GMT -8
The stars aligned and I got a bit of time off work. Since I had much of what I needed on hand to at least get started, I stripped and cut and spliced most of the way to a model of MKT 329, a GP38AC they picked up from Illinois Central in the mid 80s. The lion's share of the work is in the dynamic brake hatch, which required slicing and dicing two hatches to approximate the hatch on the prototype. The rest of the work was a walk in the park, just removing and replacing elements with Cannon parts. I could have replaced the nose, subbase and sight glass radiator door, but I decided to save those parts for other projects. That meant I had to use some styrene strip on the subbase to get the cab close to even with the long hood roofline. The sight glass is an oval of styrene sheet that I drilled through and carved to look like a gasket after attaching it to the radiator door. I have a few more details in the mail so hopefully the next time I find some time I can paint this thing. Here it is in progress: VERY nicely done so far! I’m guessing that’s an Atlas unit and styrene for the numberboards? Will the boards still light up- or not intended to? |
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Post by loco8107 on Oct 4, 2020 11:28:33 GMT -8
It looks like styrene too under the cab? I know Cannon cabs are just a little short for the Altas shell. I didn’t know the Cannon nose would work. Still looks great. Can’t wait to see it done. The GP38 is my favorite loco.
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Post by GP40P-2 on Oct 4, 2020 11:41:48 GMT -8
The stars aligned and I got a bit of time off work. Since I had much of what I needed on hand to at least get started, I stripped and cut and spliced most of the way to a model of MKT 329, a GP38AC they picked up from Illinois Central in the mid 80s. The lion's share of the work is in the dynamic brake hatch, which required slicing and dicing two hatches to approximate the hatch on the prototype. The rest of the work was a walk in the park, just removing and replacing elements with Cannon parts. I could have replaced the nose, subbase and sight glass radiator door, but I decided to save those parts for other projects. That meant I had to use some styrene strip on the subbase to get the cab close to even with the long hood roofline. The sight glass is an oval of styrene sheet that I drilled through and carved to look like a gasket after attaching it to the radiator door. I have a few more details in the mail so hopefully the next time I find some time I can paint this thing. Here it is in progress: VERY nicely done so far! I’m guessing that’s an Atlas unit and styrene for the numberboards? Will the boards still light up- or not intended to? I was going to guess an Athearn bluebox GP38-2 shell? Atlas or Athearn, either way, it goes to show that there is still life in those things given a a bit of TLC and some add on parts. |
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Post by loco8107 on Oct 4, 2020 12:14:23 GMT -8
VERY nicely done so far! I’m guessing that’s an Atlas unit and styrene for the numberboards? Will the boards still light up- or not intended to? I was going to guess an Athearn bluebox GP38-2 shell? Atlas or Athearn, either way, it goes to show that there is still life in those things given a a bit of TLC and some add on parts. Rad fans too far apart to be Athearn. Plus the treads. |
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Post by fr8kar on Oct 4, 2020 17:06:27 GMT -8
It is an Atlas GP38. There is an issue with the height of the subbase and the cab on these. The two together seem to come out right, but the subbase is too short in height and the cab too tall. I added the styrene strip to the bottom of the cab to get the top of the cab to (almost) line up with the top of the long hood. I thought I'd try to file in the flat spot for the light on the nose and if it didn't work out I'd just build up a Cannon nose. I was happy with it after a few passes with the file. The fit between the nose and subbase is perfect so I kept it. The only Athearn part I considered using was the dynamic hatch, but I didn't have a spare. One thing I learned about the hatch (after gluing it in place, of course) is the taper at the rear of these GP38ACs is sharper than the GP38 or GP38-2. It bears a lot of similarity to the rear taper on a 1980+ SD40-2, where the entire dynamic grid and fan section is shifted slightly aft to accommodate the exhaust silencer. This became apparent when I tried to install the etched dynamic hatch doors and found there wasn't enough room along the length of the model for them to fit. My compromise solution was to leave the hatch glued in place and trim a thin center section out of the etched doors. Here's a comparison between the pre-80 taper and 1980+ taper on an Athearn SD40-2:   If I were to do it again, I would probably draw up and print a new hatch rather than cut and splice one since all that cutting still didn't yield the correct hatch. I don't light up my number boards, so I just use styrene in the Cannon cabs and long hoods. I can't tell if they are lit up on the prototype during the day, so I can't see any reason to install lights in there if I'm not going to do night operations. Only one locomotive per consist should have number lights on so it annoys me to see number lights on more than one. For example, that the number lights are tied to sound on in the ScaleTrains SD40-2 drives me nuts. I can't stand direction-dependent headlights, either. With few exceptions I remove whatever is installed in most models and I install my own headlights made from LEDs and 1.5mm fiber optic rod. They are quite bright and look much better than having too dim headlights and overly bright number lights lit up as a single unit. I kept the molded number boards in the rear but I sawed off the light section and left room to install fiber optic lights. |
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Post by sd40dash2 on Oct 4, 2020 17:15:36 GMT -8
I don't fully understand the presence of a sight glass on a non-dash 2. Please explain.
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Post by fr8kar on Oct 4, 2020 17:32:53 GMT -8
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Post by 690 on Oct 4, 2020 17:36:14 GMT -8
As I recall, it was a non-standard option until the Dash 2 line came out, whereupon it became standard. |
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Post by thunderhawk on Oct 4, 2020 18:32:26 GMT -8
If I were to do it again, I would probably draw up and print a new hatch rather than cut and splice one since all that cutting still didn't yield the correct hatch. I don't light up my number boards, so I just use styrene in the Cannon cabs and long hoods. I can't tell if they are lit up on the prototype during the day, so I can't see any reason to install lights in there if I'm not going to do night operations. Only one locomotive per consist should have number lights on so it annoys me to see number lights on more than one. For example, that the number lights are tied to sound on in the ScaleTrains SD40-2 drives me nuts. I can't stand direction-dependent headlights, either. With few exceptions I remove whatever is installed in most models and I install my own headlights made from LEDs and 1.5mm fiber optic rod. They are quite bright and look much better than having too dim headlights and overly bright number lights lit up as a single unit. I kept the molded number boards in the rear but I sawed off the light section and left room to install fiber optic lights. I concur. I hate lit up number boards on models for the reasons you mentioned along with the fact they always seem to have light leaks around the edges. Do not look prototypical at all. If I remember correctly the prototype uses 25w (maybe 10w? Been a while since I changed one) bulbs so it's not like the things are bright even at night. (Until the LED's on newer power) Definitely not visibly lit in daylight. |
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Southern Airslide by Matthew Fisher, on Flickr
Southern Airslide by Matthew Fisher, on Flickr
Southern 4180cf Airslide by Matthew Fisher, on Flickr
