The adding of new parts ....
Water and Fuel Fillers
The water and fuel fillers were added. When this
scan was made the 'scar' left by the removal of the original fuel filler had yet to be
filled and cleaned up. |
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Click here for a detailed
description
The numberboard hatch covers (two each end) were fashioned
from Cannon and Company hood doors. I used HD1002 but others will be suitable as
well. I had to 'sacrifice' only two Cannon doors to make the four hatch covers.
Before fitting the covers (which are a close interference fit inside the apertures
cut as described earlier) I lightly arrised the edges of the apertures to provide a visual
edge to the hatch covers. I'm not sure if that has been quite enough yet and I might
still have to scribe the join lines. I hope not, because I wanted avoid the
risks of a 'wandering scriber'. The shell ends might need a quick squirt with primer
to sort out this issue. |
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Routine additions to shell
- Detail Associates brass nbw details
for grabs noting there is a drop grab above the numberboard hatch on the short hood on the
side opposite to the 'ladder' of grabs and a straight grab in that position on the long
hood. There are no grabs in these positions on the Life Like shell. Due to some distortion in the decals over the nbw castings
under the end stripes I later removed the two affected pairs of nbw castings on each end,
to be fitted again after decals were applied.
- Detail Associates eye bolts to top of
the hoods and a pair on the end of the long hood sides
- Four 36" fans. I used some
'spares' that I judged were wasted hidden away under the winterisation hatches of a Proto
2000 E9.
- Sand hatches as supplied with the
shell.
- Detail Associates air reservoir set -
the four 'torpedo tubes'. I think these were designed to go on the over-width
Athearn shell because the outermost mounting pins would interfere with the top radius
between the hood sides and top and be rather unsightly. I removed these outermost
pins and cleaned up the underside of the outboard tanks. The remaining two pins on
each pair of tanks is perfectly adequate to affix the tank assemblies to the shell.
- 0.7mm (.028") fuse wire as air
lines from the air reservoirs.
- Steam heat air intake - a left over
from the Proto 2000 E9
- Details West Nathan type P-3 horn.
In 'retirement' 5623 wears an M-3, but in service in the 1950s she had a P-3.
- Detail Associates whip antenna (a
secondary antenna - the wagon wheel being the primary one)
- Detail Associates Chicken Wire
Grilles. I looked at replacing the cast plastic grille material with DA etched
chicken wire but felt it look a bit flat and a tad more coarse than the plastic ones.
- Fitted .012" brass wire grabs.
I formed my own because the commercial ones I had on hand had a 'drop' that was
overscale. This is probably not usually an issue, but because of the fitting
of the numberboard hatches I found that grabs would interfere with the (theoretical)
opening of the hatches unless the drop was a scale size.
- Fitted MU stands as supplied with the
P2K kit.
- Fitted fabricated sunshades - built up
from .010" brass strip and .030" x .020" brass angle (filed down from
.040" x .040" brass angle). The reason I made these rather than buying
them was that I was unable to tell from catalogue information just which one to order!
They turned out to be easy enough to make anyway.
- Fitted Detail Associates brass coupler
lift bar brackets and lift bars. And therein
lies a problem that did not surface until
painting. The mounting holes on the pilot beam are too high for the DA brackets
(which have their mounting pins on the bottom edge of the brackets) and this shows up when
it comes time to mask off the Socony Red stripe at the top of the pilot beam. The
stripe is the same width as the depth of the side sills at the ends. Mounting the DA
coupler lift bar brackets in the P2K holes means that the brackets sit too high and
interfere with the masking with the red coming about half way down the brackets instead of
just touching the tops of the brackets. So I had to remove the brackets, patch
up the holes and remount the brackets lower. This is not a criticism of the P2K
pilot beam - just an acknowledgement that when we intermix products of different brands we
need to be alert to different ways they may fit together.
- Fitted Detail Associates brass nbw
detail and .012" brass wire for full width handrail near the top of the face of each
pilot beam. Oops, bad call! 5623 did not have this handrail - probably because it
did not have full footboards. Removed them again!
- Fitted Details West GP9 Passenger
pilots, but only after some modification. Click here for details.
- Turned the steam generator exhaust
from brass and added to the top of the short hood
- Fitted PSC 39058 MU air hoses (used
two sets to get a full complement of hoses)
- Fitted PSC 3150 air brake hoses
- Fitted the P2K drop steps to the tops
of the end platforms
- As can be seen from the photos I
initially filled the original large grooves where the P2K sun shades were intended to be
fitted. I filled with styrene strip and a touch or two of filler. In the painting process I found that the edges of the filling
did show in certain lights. That was a disappointment so I fitted an overlay sheet
of .010" styrene over the whole of the cab roof. Should have done that in the
first place!
Ready
to paint! - click for a collection of
photos of detailed shell
Handrail replacement
I chose to replace the handrails for
two reasons:
(1) I wanted a better scale
appearance than the .022" thickness of the ones that came with the loco, and
(2) I have this quite strong
conviction that nothing looks more like a metal handrail than does metal!
For strength and resilience against
damage during handling the model I chose to use phosphor bronze wire. At a thickness
of 0.4 mm (.015") it looks right to me. I toyed with the idea of using Smokey
Valley stanchions so that I could solder up the whole assemblies but found that the length
of the SV stanchions was not quite compatible with P2K ones and the holes and nbw castings
I had already fitted to the cab.
So I set out to use the original P2K
stanchions and wire rails. I nipped the rails off the P2K stanchions with sprue
nippers and they required no further cleaning up. I drilled the stanchions with a
0.3 mm drill (so they would be a tight fit on the 0.4 mm wire). I had intended to
make up a jig to do this, but Jim Six had written that he had drilled plastic
stanchions 'free hand' with a pin vice so I thought it worth a try. It was easier
than I expected. All it required was a steady hand and (for me, at least) an
Optivisor and the patience not to rush it. I had no failures, which was just
as well because I had no spares! I drilled from both sides to 'meet in the middle' I
did have one or two wander a little but found that they could be straightened up with a
bit of judicious reaming with the same drill bit.
The result of this process is shown
in the photo. All the rails and stanchions are just a push fit until after painting
the model so there will be some straightening up to do when the stanchions are heat sealed
into place. The section of rail in the centre of the end of each end will be snipped out
after final assembly. The moulded chain is not sufficient to ensure strength of the
assembly during handling in the meantime. Oh, and if you spotted that handgrabs number two
and three from the bottom are sticking out too far you are quite right - they are!
They won't be permanently fixed in place until after the paint and decals have been done.
After painting and finishing
The following parts were added after
painting and finishing as described elsewhere:
- Handbrake ratchet - I used the
original P2K one but I'm told there may be a better casting available which may become a
retrofit later
- Glazing - again I used the original
P2K glazing as it was a better fit than I could fabricate from plain sheet and the
surfaces are not obviously flawed
- The original P2K windscreen wipers
- The wagon wheel antenna
- The handrails
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Updated 4 January 2001