One thing I miss from modeling in the smaller scales is a decent selection of detailing parts. Snowplows, beacons, various horns and antennas. I would take a few of the Prime 8901 beacons, firecracker style antennas and pilot plows right now just to detail my two GP20’s. Making them from scratch as others have done isnt in my modeling skill set. Do others here long to have a decent selection of detail parts available on a consistant basis? Mike

I do. For me they’d mostly be parts appropriate to winding up on industrial sized critters made from HLW Macks.

And I do wonder if the market is large enough to support the investment in time and resources involved in parts production for large scale.

Given that dies for injection molded polystyrene production are pretty pricey it may be 3D printing would be the way to go - need to find out from someone if the layers of a printed plow would be bonded enough to stand up to forces involved in plowing.

Ozark has a few things and a couple of horns, but really need some accurate looking Prime 8911 beacons. Metal base with amber dome cored for a bulb/LED. Used by so many different railroads in the pre ditch light era. I did email Ozark to plug the idea of a couple different beacons to add to their detail line. The Prime beacon and the WC Hayes/Federal Signal Commander bubble gum rotary beacon are two common ones used on older diesels. I have two of the real Prime beacons in my collection, the early model 8901(taller cast alum base), and lower profile spun alum base 8911. Mike

Western Pacific’s large headlight would be useful to me. Hancock air whistles too.

I don’t do diesels much, but I would like some detail parts for my diesel projects. Since I tend to be a scratch-builder/kit-basher, I guess I will be making most of what I need in house.

It would be nice if we had a resource of all the 3D printed large scale detail parts that are available. I have tried searching for some things, but I end up giving up the search before too long.

I have several diesels where if you turn them over in a cradle, you break the horn. A simple, white metal, plug in replacement would be nice rather than trying to making something mount that wasn’t designed to fit there.

Looking at my roster, it looks as though the Aristo FA-1,FB-1/U-25B/RS-3/others? can all use the same plug in horn, even though the details on the originals vary a bit. Would not suprise me if USA did the same.

I’m working up some stuff for a super detailing project on a couple of SD40-2s. I have found that pretty much everything I will need will have to be 3D printed. Once I find the information for the parts, I am drawing them up myself and using my Shapeways account to make them. Some stuff like snow plows i’m not sure about yet, but other pieces will be easy to do and should last thru all but the roughest handling.

Chris

Snow plows can be fashioned from brass sheet stock, but as for other detail parts yes. Burl Rice has a few on shapeways; gladhands, angle cocks, etc but it doesn’t cover the whole spectrum.

If you really want a good detailed beacon, lets talk about designing one to be 3D printed. If you have 2 prototypes we have all we need to 3D design it.

I bought a brass horn casting from Aristocraft back when they were still around. I know its in my parts box, but I haven’t sen it in years, so I don’t remember for sure, but I think its a 5 horn assembly. I wonder if there are any of those castings still around somewhere.

Mike

http://www.usatrains.com/r22100parts.html I would start with them as a base for what you’re after Mike. However I’m no expert on detailing but I’m slowly learning and only it’s only a suggestion.

I also, somewhere, have the engineering drawing and blueprint for the 8911 style Prime beacon light. Was printed on the back of the sales sheet when the beacon was a current production item. Hardest part to print will probably be the translucent dome in amber. The base shouldnt be to hard. I have been trying to find something to simulate a base for the factory Lionel beacon dome that is on the roof of my GP20’s. No luck so far. I will start looking for that sales sheet, scan it into the computer and post it or PM it. The Prime beacon sits on 3 rubber feet to isolate the vibrations from the light. Those would need to be printed as part of the base casting. Mike

David Maynard said:

I bought a brass horn casting from Aristocraft back when they were still around. I know its in my parts box, but I haven’t sen it in years, so I don’t remember for sure, but I think its a 5 horn assembly. I wonder if there are any of those castings still around somewhere.

Probably Nathan K-5s (forward or reversed). They are available from a couple sources.

miniatures by eric and shapeways are good sources

Wow. Things have sure changed. Back in the day (OK, last century) I was in HO and you could buy KITS for locomotives and super detail them with parts. Lots of fun…(OK, kids, get off my lawn!)

Rooster, they dont have the beacon I need. its been done in Z, N and HO scale on Shapeways as a solid casting. Which really doesn’t help with making it a working model. If I can find a spare beacon lens for a Lionel GP20, maybe someone here can do up the base in 3d printing. The factory beacon lense is real close scale wise. But has no base, its just stuck thru the roof. Mike

That’s interesting Dave, pretty much the only brass detail items from aristo are on the really old stuff, that would be an RS-1, but no 5 chime horn there. Can’t remember ever seeing a 5 chime horn on an aristo, but I think the dash 9 has a 3 or 4 chime… but brass?

Greg

Mike Toney said:

Rooster, they dont have the beacon I need.

Mike you asked for more than a beacon in your post ?

Greg Elmassian said:

but I think the dash 9 has a 3 or 4 chime… but brass?

Greg

Yes Greg …ask Joe P. about it

Any idea on what loco? The only one I found with a “complex” horn was the dash 9, but it’s raining and don’t want to go outside to the storage to check…

Greg

Here are the real ones. First picture is the 8911 model, personally removed from BN GP10 #1410 when she was prepared to be repainted on the local short line. The second picture is of the early model 8901 beacon. I got this thru the locomotive shop of the BN in Alliance, Nebraska. I wrote the shop in the early 1990s when BN removed the lights from service and started fitting ditch lights. I never heard back til one day this huge box showed up on my doorstep. I lost the letter from the supervisor that got my letter, but he personaly removed the light from a GE U30C headed for scrapping, put 4 good spot light style bulbs in it and tested the light on 74vdc before he sent it to me. The early version cannot be run on 12vdc, even if the bulbs are swapped out. I ran the light a couple times when I still helped out at the local short line. The 8911 is converted to 12vdc with tractor flood lamp bulbs installed. Mike