Stuck enough bits together that it’s starting to look like a loco…
Terrible pic, taken in the dark with a phone. Also, definitely a marketing man’s choice of angle - if you can’t see it in this view, it isn’t fitted yet.
Still need to build and fit the cab front, finished detailing the chassis and roof gear and then have a general tidy-up before paint, we’ll have to see how it goes.
J.
Wow Jonathan, Fantastic craftsmanship. It has a very nice demeanor. Looking forward to your finished product.
Jonathan, I couldn’t see from all the parts how you would achieve your drawing, but now that it’s this far along, I see it and I really like it. And I agree, the craftsmanship is very good.
It looks like you’re going to pull this off, and this definitely increases the average quality and character of this year’s build! Way to go!
Thanks.
Have to admit I’m quite pleased with the overall profile, I think it captures the hewn-from-cinderblock styling of late 70’s GE electrics quite well. Next up, an AEM7 on a 10 ft chassis. Or then again, maybe not.
Here’s the results of tonight’s work - getting there, but still a bit drafty in the cab area. One thing that won’t happen in time is lights, on account of me now realising I never ordered the bits. I also bought white paint when I needed cream, but there’s time to swap that.
Apart from the obviously missing front panel and needing to detail the loco’s ‘face’, I also have to do a few things to the chassis to before paint. Even with a possible dispensation for primer, I don’t think I’m going to make it…
J.
Just the thing first your next comic-con
BTW the model is coming along nice, just keep chugging away.
Well, I lost Friday and Saturday to things that came up in real life, didn’t start tpday until 7pm, and it’s 4:15am local time, but the E10Bm made it into primer, even if it isn’t exactly finished. What’s on there is pretty much a guide coat so I can see how I need to fill and file to even up the nose contours. Once those are done, I can add the lights, handrails etc. to the front - all pretty quick stuff - flash them over with primer and go for top coat.
I can’t go any further even if I wanted to work until dawn, the filler and primer are best left to properly harden before being attacked with files and sandpaper again.
From the front…
From the back…
And a GE sales department shot.
The pantograph is the right type, but still a placeholder, I’ve mislaid the damaged one I was going to modify for the loco. More worryingly that means I’ve also mislaid the two foot long loco it’s currently attached to. And the front panel of the bonnet is curved, it just doesn’t show up in the photos, honest.
Budget wise I think I’m OK.
I already had the power truck, S/H wheels for the front truck and damaged pantograph = £0
Styrene sheet and section was all from stock except one length of 3mm L-shape for the grilles = £2
White primer and Cream topcoat were a fiver each = £10
Lights (also not fitted yet) are about £3.50 worth
Total £15.50, call it $25 worth of new bits.
J.
Edited to add lights to the costs after I forgot them in the maths.
That looks great! Its fun to see all the very different designs based on the standard flat car!
End of the Challenge and it’s not done. Everything now is in ‘extra time’.
I finally found the actual damaged Piko pantograph I was planning on using, and it was suffering from a fairly common Piko issue…
First step, fix the damage. Most solvents don’t seem to work that well with Piko plastics, the best I’ve found is EMA plastic weld. But there’s still no surface area in the butt joint that’s needed, it’ll just snap again.
Fortunately, whoever designed this piece left a handy groove in the underside. Cut a piece of 40thou rod to length, flood the groove and then press the rod in place nice and hard so it squishes down. Make sure it’s straight and resist all temptation to fiddle further until set.
Once it’s done, a wipe over with fine grit paper will clean up any edges.
Now it’s back to almost stock, I wanted to change the mounting method. Piko have small self tappers going down through the baseplate into the insulator. Result, three unneeded visible screw heads, one of which is hard to access without breaking something.
That’s another pet hate, so I planned to fix insulators permanently to the pantograph base and run the screws up so that their heads were on the underside of the loco roof. Drilled the existing mounting holes out with a 3/32 bit and then welded in scratch insulators made from #211/223/225/227 evergreen stock.
30 seconds after taking this photo I decided I didn’t like the three point mounting and swapped the single insulator for two more at the corners of that end…
I also chopped out the ends of the long bar of the orignal collector head (the only ones that hadn’t been broken, sigh.). They make no sense to me, being lower than the outer ones, so I cut them off and glued in a couple of lengths of rectangular section across the top. Still doesn’t really look like any prototypical collecting pan I can think of, but it’s not so obviously wrong to my eye.
Finally a bit of paint and there’s the first finished component ready to go on the loco. Changing the mountng from 3 point to 4 means it no longer matches the holes in the loco roof, but they’re on a removeable panel anyway, so it’s no problem to make another.
J.
Keep going man. I love this build so far.
Great looking and creative!
(Just a quick note Jonathan: “Mik”, not Mike, and that was his nickname, real name Allen Bupp)
Regards, Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Great looking and creative!
(Just a quick note Jonathan: “Mik”, not Mike, and that was his nickname, real name Allen Bupp)
Regards, Greg
Thanks.
I could have sworn that when I started the thread it clearly said MIK’s, and that some ‘helpful’ bit of software must have ‘corrected’ it for me - I may have started the thread via my phone, which is new to the world and definitely under the impression it’s smarter than me. I only noticed the mis-spelling/naming after the site had been down and come back up again, tried and found I couldn’t change it myself, and didn’t bother bothering Bob with it.
Devon Sinsley said (elsewhere) :
. . . a chopped channeled narrowed sparky . . .
Does that mean it should have flip paintwork and be used to update the motive power on the California Experience? I don’t think it’s in the $30 budget. Also, is it channeled if the frame rails are still partially showing over the rear truck? I hate to think how much the late Mr Coddington would have charged for a set of custom billet alloy 30" wheels for the thing.
In other news I haven’t had time to do anything to the actual model today.
J.
Devon Sinsley said (elsewhere) :
. . . a chopped channeled narrowed sparky . . .
Does that mean it should have flip paintwork and be used to update the motive power on the California Experience? I don’t think it’s in the $30 budget. Also, is it channeled if the frame rails are still partially showing over the rear truck? I hate to think how much the late Mr Coddington would have charged for a set of custom billet alloy 30" wheels for the thing.
I as thinking it was sort of taking on this look
The billet 30’s would look hot a Chip Foose paint job
Devon Sinsley said:
Devon Sinsley said (elsewhere) :
. . . a chopped channeled narrowed sparky . . .
Does that mean it should have flip paintwork and be used to update the motive power on the California Experience? I don’t think it’s in the $30 budget. Also, is it channeled if the frame rails are still partially showing over the rear truck? I hate to think how much the late Mr Coddington would have charged for a set of custom billet alloy 30" wheels for the thing.
I as thinking it was sort of taking on this look
Maybe, maybe. PRR green with the flip colour being actual black?
After I can’t remember how many alternating layers of bondo and guide coat, I finally got the nose contours smooth enough to do most of the detailing…
(The shop management vigorously deny any suggestion that the whole loco is in fact carved from a block of solidified paint)
Now I’ve got this far, I’m starting to think that the numberboards are a bit on the small size - the marker lines show a 50% increase in X and Y if I cut them out that big. Any comments pro/anti?
J.
I seriously hope you do a flip paint job. I know you have been kidding at this point but I think it would be out of the park if you pull it off.
http://www.specialistpaints.com/products/passion-paint
Just for inspiration
I love it keep it up. This project is really growing on me.
Edit: I am for the larger number boards.
Hmm, food for thought. A dangerously interesting link.
Sorry to disappoint, but present livery plans for the loco still revolve around the can of notquite-white I bought for it.
But you did get me thinking…
As far I understand them, flip paints and the like really ‘work’ via the changing angles between the viewer, item and light source causing the light to reflect of different szie/colour pgment grains, which is why they shift around and look best on broad curves at relatively close ranges. ie Where you get nice big angle changes. And this is a loco that’s almost entirely flat panels spliced together at 90 degree angles.
So the best loco I can think of for the flip treatment is probably a BL2 or GG1, viewed from a scale 20 feet away. Even then the long flat sides aren’t going to do you many favours.
Hmm.
J.
Aw man, an electric, cool! Definitely a project to take notes and save pictures from.
As far I understand them, flip paints and the like really ‘work’ via the changing angles between the viewer, item and light source causing the light to reflect of different szie/colour pgment grains, which is why they shift around and look best on broad curves at relatively close ranges. ie Where you get nice big angle changes. And this is a loco that’s almost entirely flat panels spliced together at 90 degree angles.
So the best loco I can think of for the flip treatment is probably a BL2 or GG1, viewed from a scale 20 feet away. Even then the long flat sides aren’t going to do you many favours.
Hmm.
J.
Yeah you are right about the concept of flip paints as I understand it also. I think your right that it wouldn’t have the best effect on this loco. Maybe I need to build a steam streamliner and do it…Not.
Another update from the GE of diminishing returns… I’m not trying to maintain the end-of-challenge frantic pace, but I also seem to have reached the point where extra hours put in don’t make the visible changes they did. I suppose that happens to all projects at some point.
I’ve enlarged the number boards - now they’re stuck down I’m starting to think the frames are touch clunky, but I can probably help the illustion by painting the inner edges black.
Now I have a question… What’s the best way to do illuminated number boards? They’re not common on NG locos round here, so I’ve not have to do any before. I want white numbers on a black background. The actual illumination is easy, there’s a silver paint lined box behond each board for an LED or grain of wheat bulb, and relatively simple access from the cab. What’s the best way of making the faceplate? Glazing masked with number-shaped gaps, spray it black and a wash of white ink on the back? Or maybe just black paint on 10thou white styrene?
While I was waiting for all that to dry, I redid the roof panels. I had to replace the back one anyway because I changed the pantograph mounting points, and the front one bugged me because it was so dull. Then I “remembered” that to meet the E10B’s entirely ficticious weight and CoG requirements it’d been necessary to use a force ventilated aluminium transformer core. A dig around produced a spare USA trains EMD fan, and by moving the pantograph back about quarter inch, there was just room for it. It’s dark green - probably a C&NW colour or maybe Rio Grande? Rather than risk gumming it up, I left it as is to contrast with the roof - it’s just pushed into a tight hole in the plate.
I’m probably at the stage with this loco where I ought to make a list - next will be couplings and a bit of detail on the headstocks, then cab interior, handrails, paint, glazing,… and whatever else I’ve forgotten.
J.
Looks good, I’m glad you are keeping at it.
John
It does look good! When you started your build, I know it was a truncated engine, but this is what I kept thinking along the way…
