12-16-2024, 07:58 PM
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.
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.
Check out my "Rainbows in the Gorge" website: http://morristhemoosetm.wixsite.com/rainbows