SD40/ SD 45 Details.

[KBCpresident]

On my Kramerton Boise Central Railroad, I roster two SD 45s and Two SD 40-2s. I would like to detail them (Add grab irons, lift rings, etc.) But I don't know which parts to use, or how to figure out where to put them. Can anyone tell me where lift rings, and other details were located on the 40-2/45s. Thanks!

[Railphotog]

See my answer to your previous similar question.

 

 

[R. T. POTEET]

On my Kramerton Boise Central Railroad, I roster two SD 45s and Two SD 40-2s. I would like to detail them (Add grab irons, lift rings, etc.) But I don't know which parts to use, or how to figure out where to put them. Can anyone tell me where lift rings, and other details were located on the 40-2/45s. Thanks!

Most plastic locomotive shells have these referenced detail parts cast on. I commend your desire to add three dimensions to your models; even in N-Scale a superdetailed model stands out in a crowd of non-superdetailed locomotives.

Adding detail parts is usually a simple matter of shaving off the cast-on ones and, unless you are modeling from a prototype which may have relocated certain things, adding a new part in its stead. I don't know whether you have a current catalog from Walthers but if you don't you need to get one - their 2009 issue is due out before the end of this month; its got umpteen-hundred and sixty-seven pages of superdetail parts in it.

You have to decide how much superdetailing is right for you. I once knew a modeler who was dissatisfied with the access doors on an XYZ Models model so he completely replaced these access doors with aftermarket details. That is farther than I and most modelers I know would go unless I was trying to create a contest-quality model. Allen McClellan was an advocate of "just enough"; his (model) railroad was part of a national railroad environment and that is where his interests lay and that is what he modeled. He did a minimum of superdetailing. Superdetailing is not readily apparent on a locomotive that is moving; you do have that group of individuals, however, who pace a moving (model) locomotive and exclaim things like "your airhorns are mounted three and a half inches too far forward on that model!" That's four one hundredths of an inch!; ignore those people.