Big Blue has inspired some purchases

[TMo]

New day....  new..... challenges....  (my preference instead of the word.... "PROBLEMS").  I still haven't done the touchup painting, so excuse the temporary sloppiness.

Snowplow arrived today.  If you recall, the front pilot of this shell I bought (sometimes you really do get what you pay for...) had endured either heat or a drop that resulted in permanent structural deformation.  It made finding the hole locations for the snowplow even trickier, but installing the plow would permanently obscure the front end damage, so it was imperative that I install the plow (all of the Conrail SD40-2's had one on the front).

   

Installing snowplows is always a bit of a challenge - you're trying to remain prototypical in terms of how high off the rails you want it to run (and still meet the quirks of a model railroad in which there may be much more drastic changes in track pitch than you'd ever encounter on a real railroad line.  You're also trying to locate the insert pins in an area of the pilot that's beefy enough to drill through and accept the snowplow.  You also have to consider the coupler movement and ability to install and remove the coupler once the shell's attached to the chassis.

The pilot on these old Blue Box Athearns allows for pulling the shell off the chassis without removing the coupler assembly, so there's a big portion of the pilot missing in the middle (hence the reinforcements on the inside of the pilot that I had to remove to allow the Intermountain chassis to fit.

Ground off the step on the base of the pilot with my Dremel because I knew the hole for the pin was going to be located right around the top of the step.  I then played around with the coupler pocket and located the hole on the left side pilot by taking a straight pin and establishing a starting point for my pin vise.  

   

The instructions from Details West call for a #55 drill bit (of which I have none).  The closest I had without going over was a #61, which after I drilled the holes I enlarged (by hand) with a Dremel variable diameter reamer bit and test fitting often.

   

Here's the rough draft.  I think once I get the plow painted it'll be easier to ignore the slight slant of the plow away from the engineer's side of the cab.

       

I think I may have a set of MU hoses in the inventory, so I might be able to drill the holes for those tomorrow.  Supposed to also get the decals in the mail in the AM.

[jim currie]

nice save with the plow.
Jim

[tompm]

Good job overcoming a bunch of annoying unrealized issues with this project. You definitely have more patience and creativity than me. By this point I might have chucked the shell against the wall.

[TMo]

It appeals to my inner desire to rescue the mutt - after all, I have my own large supply of imperfections. Doesn't always work out - example 1a is that brass RS2....

[TMo]

Last night I hit the plow with a coat of paint, tonight was number board install night.  Arial 8 point white numbers on a black background and printed onto some CD labels and then sliced to size with my Olfa knife.  I made about 10 of the number selected, and most of them were two attempts per board trying to get the right size of sticker.  Still haven't done my paint touchups.  Decals did come today - might get to them tomorrow night.  Starting to look like something.  As much as I like Alcos, I've also grown to like the angles and furrowed brow of the EMDs of this era.  The big porch SD40's also a pretty cool feature.  I bet the engineers at the time looked at this new Conrail power and thanked their lucky stars after their early struggles trying to keep the old fleets running.

       

[TMo]

Started decals on this unit this evening.  The Conrail "double rail" decal was really hard to put in place on the long side with the railing still in place.  Took me two attempts, but (fortunately) the second time was the charm.  I didn't really want to buy another decal sheet if I didn't have to.  As usual, I pre-coated the model where each decal was intended to go with Micro Set, and then periodically added coats of Micro Sol to get the decal to fold into the plastic crevasses.  You can see the drying Micro Sol laying around the number and "CONRAIL" decals in the photo.

   

In addition to the decals in the photo, I also added the "SD40-2" and "F" decals on this side.  I've also done most of the painting touchups.  Getting closer to getting this unit into circulation on the layout.  I ended up liking this blue a lot better than the original, so I'm actually quite glad to have repainted it.

[Charlie B]

Looking great Todd.  

I have better luck with the decals if I use plain distilled water, that allows me to slide them around to their proper position, then I use a Q tip to suck up the moisture. Then I use a brush and carefully apply the decal solvent in light coats (careful not to move the decal ) and let it do the job. It makes it much easier because the decals soften so easily. A little wrinkle in the decal flattens out as it sets. 

Charlie

[TMo]

Yep, Charlie - I'm also a firm believer in sliding them on with a good amount of water and softening them.  My error was trying to side the whole decal while trying to fit the thing under the railing.  Because it was soft it ended up breaking in a couple of places and got irreparable.  Good "tip" on the Q-tip - I have plenty of those!

Decals are finito - here's a shot of the other side of the beast.

   

I'll probably wait for everything to dry and set up nicely before hitting it with a coat of Dullcote.  Still have to add some LEDs to the lighting harness - hope to get to that tomorrow since I'm off from work.

[TMo]

Did a little trial and error with the lighting harness and got front and rear LED lights installed in the beast and put her together for what I hope is the final time.  I also took Jim's recommendation and lopped off the bottom of the frame-to-chassis lugs leftover from the Athearn Blue Box attachment mechanisms (pin in hole).  The left side number box is not that bright, it's just the glare off of the overhead lighting.  I love the Intermountain drivetrain - smooth as silk.  This is the first representative of new Conrail power in the gorge.  Merry Christmas to all - this one's been a bit of a present to myself.

   

[jim currie]

looks great and I think it still looks better without the mounting lugs.
Jim

[tompm]

Sweet. Great job!

[TMo]

This hopper may look familiar for one important reason - it was inspired by one of Charlie Bowyer's photos in his "Rail Cars and details of the late 70's", where he remarked that a former Reading hopper had been renumbered without reporting marks....  Since I had three of these hoppers, I thought I'd do one up...  New numbers courtesy a Conrail caboose decal set, added the Kartrak decal, added some rust to the body to mimic Charlie's photo.

Rail Cars and details of the late 1970's

   

[Charlie B]

Todd, 

     I am glad you can use some of those pictures. I wish I had done more cars but film was at the low end of the priorities with 4 young kids. 
I should get busy and just post more photos of cars. 

Charlie

[TMo]

Charlie - I can only imagine your wife rolling her eyes every week when rolls of film went in for developing.  I'm so glad that she let you have your hobby - I can't imagine how I'd be modeling some of this stuff without vintage photos and your willingness to share your collection.  With digital cameras now, there's so little thought about how many pictures we take and how carefully we prepare to take one, but back in the old Kodak days, film and especially development wasn't cheap.

Got this kit in the mail yesterday along with a set of instructions from Sierra Scale Models.  It'll be a little bit before I get to civilization again, but I think powerlines should at least run up the completed Berwick Street in White Haven.  24 poles in the kit, so that should set me up nicely.  I may need a few more transformers, but I think I've seen some ideas for those in one of my old magazines.

   

[TMo]

You may remember the Intermountain chassis/Athearn Blue Box dummy shell kludged SD40-2 I successfully put together a few months ago is this thread.  I wasn't satisfied with the lighting of the front number boards on that unit - the LED I put in for the front headlight was overpowering the clear boards and pushing light around the edges of the black stickers with white numbers on them pasted to the front of the boards.

Decided to paint the backside of the number boards to tone down the light through them.  In order to do that, I pulled the shell off of the loco and had to remove my light boxes around the front headlight in order to get paint on the back side of those boards.  Cautiously, I painted them white first....  Still too much light around the edges, so a second coat was with black paint.  Seemed to dim those boards right up.  Refastened the LED and the light box, put Humpty Dumpty back together, and wha lha...  Much happier.