I thought I would post this since I was working on it last night.
To first start off, you will need a GP35 from Kato, Athearn, or Bachman. Then you will need a nondynamic brake grid and the following tools.
1. A small saw, either a jewelers saw or some other fine saw.
2. An xacto knife.
3. A true sander or some other type of sanding tool for making straight edges with plastic. Also should have a couple of files.
4. Super glue.... When do you not need this.
5. Some type of ruler for modeling to make straight cuts.
6. modeling puddy, sandable primer, and some plastic.
So here we go. You want to make sure you have a model that doesn't have a lot of decals stuck to it like this pennsy GP. An Undecorated model works best.
Here is the GP35 made by athearn. The Kato model should be about the same when taking off the fans and Dynamic brakes. Both are made to pop off. The Bachman may take a little more work since I have not had one before.
First you need to take off the Dynamic brake grid and all the cooling fans. Also make sure the shell is seperate from the body. Also make sure the handrails on the sides and the back are removed so no damage is done to them while you work.
Then take your jewelers saw, or other fine saw and cut the cooling fan grid out of the dynamic brake portion. All you should have left is the grid and the fan. Make sure to give yourself a little leeway when cutting out the grid so that you can sand it to a perfect edge. You will also want to round the edges of the grid since on the prototype it is not a perfect edge. Make sure not to round the edges where the sections of the nondynamic brake pieces will be glued into place.
Here you can see the nondynamic brake set that came from an Athearn GP. Here you will need to cut this up so you can add it to the dynamic brake grid section. You can see that the back of the nondynamic section has been cut off at the stack and then sanded down to match the dynamic brake grid. Once you are done cutting make sure the piece fits tight against the grid and make sure when you add to back onto the GP35 that the end of the grid lines up with the middle of the fourth side door from the cab.
Then once the first section fits then you need to cut the second portion of the end of the dynamic grid. First cut out the section between the stacks on the nondynamic brake portion. Once it is cut out sand it down to size and make sure it fits between the dynamic grid and the shell. Once all three pieces fit on the shell, take them off the shell and glue them together. once they are glued together make sure they fit on the shell and it should look like the above shot.
The next step is to cover up that small middle fan at the back of the shell. Take a piece of 40 thousands plastic and cut it to fit the middle hole. Make sure the fit is snug or it could become a hasle to glue into place. Once glued, use some modeling puddy, or other form of puddy to cover the plastic and any openings that may show through the opening.
Here the modeling puddy is applied. After waiting about 10 minutes to dry, then you sand it down to a smooth surface. If there are any noticable crevices in the puddy after sanding, do the process over with the puddy until it looks smooth.
After it looks smooth, hit it with some sandable primer. This shows any imperfections that you may have missed. It will also highlight areas that you may have missed in the sanding process. Make sure these imperfections are gone. Possibly repeat this process several times until it is smooth and no imperfections can be seen.
It should look like this when both of those steps are finished.
The next step is to add the hatches on the side of the locomotive between the first cooling fan and the dynamic grid. Both side will,have the same hatches so make to sets.
Take a strip of 40 thousants plastic that will fit between the grid and the cooling fan. Make sure it doesn't go over the top or cover any of the doors when glued into place.
Above you see two piece of plastic. One is about half the lengh of the other. The smaller piece of plastic is 15 thousants thick. This will be placed on one end of the larger strip to make it look like a hatch. Once both are glued into place you can add some other details like the hinges.
The last step for this part is to add the cover on the side of the shell that covers the air tank. This is a 40 thousants piece of plastic cut to fit the area. If done right it should not hit the gas tank of the locomotive. But you should still see a small portion of the tank stick out near the front of the gas tank.
Once these steps are complete you are that much closed to haveing a SOO Line or Twin Cities & Western GP30C locomotive.
The second part will come later tonight when I finish adding the rest of the parts.
This locomotive will resemble the TC&W GP30C #4300. So there will be a couple of parts on it that are not present on the SOO line loco.
Enjoy!
Happy railroading
James
I want to make sure this stays around for awhile. I want people to see this. Has anyone else tries doing this before?
Mechanical Department "No no that's fine shove that 20 pound set all around the yard... those shoes aren't hell and a half to change..."
The Missabe Road: Safety First
Ya sure, I should have all the details finished tonight and then it should be ready for paint and running. We will have to set up a time. BTW how did you do after the grandma's marathon train? Get any sleep?
MilwaukeeRoad wrote:Great job James. Too bad you couldn't do this for a MILW locomotive..
Ya I did build the SD10 out of an old SD7. And it looks pretty good too!!
SD10 # 561 is sitting getting it's daily inspectio report finished.
snagletooth wrote:Really? I Love SD10's. Anybody got a link to that?
Sure, just take a look at the link in my sig. It leads you to a huge collection of Milwaukee Road pics including a couple of the SD10s.
My Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/JR7582 My Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcfan/
snagletooth wrote:THX, CMSTPP. The models looks really nice, and I've bookmarked the site so I can rummage thru it later.
Well, you should have some fun with that site as it gave a couple of hours of enjoyment looking through all of those great photos. I am getting a better camera here in just a few days and then I will get some good pics of my fleet of Milwaukee Road locos. It should be pretty good.
CMSTPP wrote: MilwaukeeRoad wrote:Great job James. Too bad you couldn't do this for a MILW locomotive..Ya I did build the SD10 out of an old SD7. And it looks pretty good too!!SD10 # 561 is sitting getting it's daily inspectio report finished.Happy railroadingJames
I wish I could build one..I'm not that handy. I want some more pictures of your great layout, James. I need some MILW inspiration!
Some more inspiration eh... Well I think I can do that but it won't be until tonight. I will PM you the pics. But it won't be until after 6:30 or so. So be ready.
CMSTPP wrote: Some more inspiration eh... Well I think I can do that but it won't be until tonight. I will PM you the pics. But it won't be until after 6:30 or so. So be ready.Happy railroadingJames
PM me some photos too. I always love looking at other peoples layouts. I also like looking at Scratched locos, or kitbashed.
Sure, I will send some to you too. I should beable to get them to you by 6:45 tonight.
And I should beable to finish it tonight too. So I should have pics on tonight or tomorrow depending on what time I finish. Glad you liked the site. It was so much stuff I couldn't believe it.