Just looking for an Opinion....

[doctorwayne]

Unfortuneately, I just realized that those NJ DOT units might be beyond my capability. They were rebuilt by the Paducah shops not long after NJ DOT acquired them. During this process, they removed the front door, and replaced the "paneling" with plane sheet metal. Though I already knew I would have to fill in and sand down the port holes, I hadn't realized that i'd also need to remove all the panel strips as well.

It's difficult to tell from the photo, but I assume you're referring to the batten strips between body panels. Did they remove only the vertical ones or the horizontal ones, too? It seems an odd thing to do - replacing one or two damaged panels would seem easier than re-doing the whole side of the carbody. :?
Filling in the lines around the nose door is done fairly easily with body putty - the grabirons shouldn't be in place for painting anyway. Fill and sand, and repeat as necessary.

I'm not sure if there is a safe way to do this on the model without being very VERY careful. It seems like it could be a difficult proposition to scrape all of that off and then polish it. Its certainly one of those things that, Once you begin, you can't turn back!

If you need to remove only the vertical battens, careful work with a #17 blade (sharpen it often as you work) will do the trick. Removing the long one at the belt line is more work, obviously, but it involves only the area between the doors and to the rear of the unit. A block of wood inside the body shell will keep the sides from bowing as you work and it's possible to do this so that no filling and only minimal sanding is required. Take your time, and don't work on it for too long in a single sitting. To avoid gouging the areas alongside the battens, use a cut-off disc in your Dremel to slightly round the corners of the blade.
Another option is to remove the offending areas and replace them with a new, one-piece replacement made from sheet styrene. This method could be tricky if the belt line batten is involved, though, as you'd be replacing the entire area between the sill batten and the one beneath the grillwork. In that case, it might be easier to remove the entire area between the doors and the one between the middle door and the back end, from below the grillwork right down to, and including, the bottom rivet strip. With these cut-out pieces laying flat on your workbench, it would be relatively simple to cut the sill batten strips free, then re-attach them to the new styrene side panels.

This panel replacement was done on a smaller scale, as I needed only to relocate the vertical batten strips and add sand fill hatches.


Wayne

[Fluesheet]

I went with the EL patch (4014). I've always like that paint scheme.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

It's difficult to tell from the photo, but I assume you're referring to the batten strips between body panels. Did they remove only the vertical ones or the horizontal ones, too? It seems an odd thing to do - replacing one or two damaged panels would seem easier than re-doing the whole side of the carbody. :?

All batten strips were removed. I think this is an Aesthetic move, as nearly every NJ DOT E8 is modified this way.

I can only find two of the 19 former Conrail E8As that appear to have retained the Batten strips (#4248 with "NJ DOT #1, and #4257 in "NJ DOT #2"). Both of these units still have a sealed nose door though, but as you've said, it shouldn't be any trouble.

#4248 in 1982. The small "New Jersey" shaped logo was applied sometime during the summer of 1980. No one makes a decal of this, but its "in the future" so its not necessary. You can see this unit has maintained its Batten strips-



#4253 survives today in its NJ DOT paint scheme. You can see the totally smooth sides here.

If you need to remove only the vertical battens, careful work with a #17 blade (sharpen it often as you work) will do the trick. Removing the long one at the belt line is more work, obviously, but it involves only the area between the doors and to the rear of the unit. A block of wood inside the body shell will keep the sides from bowing as you work and it's possible to do this so that no filling and only minimal sanding is required. Take your time, and don't work on it for too long in a single sitting. To avoid gouging the areas alongside the battens, use a cut-off disc in your Dremel to slightly round the corners of the blade.
Another option is to remove the offending areas and replace them with a new, one-piece replacement made from sheet styrene. This method could be tricky if the belt line batten is involved, though, as you'd be replacing the entire area between the sill batten and the one beneath the grillwork. In that case, it might be easier to remove the entire area between the doors and the one between the middle door and the back end, from below the grillwork right down to, and including, the bottom rivet strip. With these cut-out pieces laying flat on your workbench, it would be relatively simple to cut the sill batten strips free, then re-attach them to the new styrene side panels.

This panel replacement was done on a smaller scale, as I needed only to relocate the vertical batten strips and add sand fill hatches.

Wayne

I almost want to go for it, just to say that I did. If i pulled off the smooth sided E8, I would definitely be proud of it. On the other hand, I have two NJ DOT options, perhaps it would be safer to stick to whatever risks the model less.

I had considered just sanding the whole side down between the doors, and then cutting thin sheet styrene to match, but this seemed tricky to get perfect. I'm thinking shaving it down with a sharp knife then polishing with fine grit sandpaper would do the best job if I choose to go that route.

I went with the EL patch (4014). I've always like that paint scheme.

4014 - a classy paint scheme which looked good on EL units and on DL&W ones before that.

I'm almost certainly going to do Conrail #4014 next. The only reason I'm going with the NJ DOT one first is because it is a rarely modeled unit. In fact, it turns out the 4014 would be pretty easy to do, since all the stripes, numbers and logos are available in decal form (which means I only need to paint the body color and roof). In fact, I'll need those decal sheets to do the NJ DOT one anyway (the NJ DOT paint being based on the EL paint).

As soon as i can bring in another E8A (only have one secured now), I'll start 4014.

these paint schemes look like they go well together.

[Southern Tuxedo]

Wait! Hold on….I want to change my vote to the Southern Railway E8.

Oh, that’s not an option, darn.

Mark

[Tyson Rayles]

That was my first choice too Mark!

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Wait! Hold on….I want to change my vote to the Southern Railway E8.

Oh, that’s not an option, darn.

Mark

That was my first choice too Mark!

If I ever had the disposable income where I could afford to collect this stuff, I'd definitely do one of the Southern units. Its a shame they arrived literally at the "cut off" date I set to help me reign in unnecessary purchases. A Southern E8 on NJ transit would be very easy, I'd only have to plug one pair of windows, and find some of the different roof and fuel tank details. I could probably even use an existing Southern E8, rather than having to repaint the whole thing from scratch!