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…
J,
I have no experience in lighting number boards so this is a suggestion with no idea if it would work. Get some white (not clear) decal paper and then use a black back ground and white letters (white letters don’t print, the ink is just omitted). If your not familiar with this process you use a text box in MS Word make the fill color black and the font color white. I think the white paper would be thin enough to show light through. Adhere that to clear plastic such as the stupid impossible to open plastic everything comes in these days. Another suggestion would be to use clear decal paper and black background, print white letters and then adhere that to something like a plastic milk carton plastic ( the portion that isn’t bumpy) or some other thin semi transparent white plastic. Testors makes both white and clear decal paper in small quantities.
OK that’s all I have.
A back brush or the like with a clear acrylic handle; or, those little clealr acrylic folding stands for picture frames would be a long-time subbly of clear acrylic blocks to cut out for numberboards.
Sand visible surface frosted, or paint white, then clear coat, and decal to suit - and you have a numberboard.
Can even drill back for press-fit of two 3mm white LED pirated from Christmas lightst to lokk like the 2 bulbs some times used for numberboard illumination.
Even knowing you want to stay with just the one rattle can for paint, green fan has me thinking haere’s an idea, why not, like Pacific Electric did, paint center band down roof of a drak color which would hide wire grease drippings and the like against the white body paint.
Here, for illustration www.pacificelectric.org/pacific-electric/western-district/5021-at-brand-and-glendale/
“Pacific Electric/MCL PCC no. 5021 pauses for passengers at Brand Boulevard and Glendale Avenue in 1954. Robert T. McVay Photo”
Only requirements are an anfernoon of masking, and one can of paint.
Jonathan J said:
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?
Jonathan,
On my BL2 build I had success with .010 plastic sheet.I pressed vinyl numbers in place and then colored the board with permanent marker. I peeled away the numbers when finished. This left the hazy black of the colored glass in place. These were back lit with an LED and I put a piece of clear plastic over them.
Dave and Forrest,
Together your guys’ ideas are great. You can get .010 clear plastic at Hobby Lobby for a song. It made to go over art work to protect it. I have a life time supply of it for like four bucks. Or the fore mentioned clear HDPE that everything is packaged in. Sand that to foggy then go to Micheal’s and get some suitable scrap book letters for a buck or two and a black sharpie.
Great idea.
Thanks for all the various options on numberboards. I’ll start out with the ones I’ve got the bits in hand for. I like the idea of sanding the lamp side the white styrene, that’s neat.
On the paint job front, there seems to be some determination in this forum to have the loco painted as hotrod or a spaceship. Plans here still haven’t changed, the main colour is still cream, but it’s not the only one. Overall idea is to copy the Deseret Western livery complete with black window surround and then continue the side stripes down the coach set. I might redice the coloured stripes from 3 down to 2, haven’t decided that yet.
(and now I go back to the pic, I find my memory was wrong, and number are white on black. But they’re also in a different place to mine, so I’ll have a play and see what looks best.)
On the top of the loco the equipment bay roof panels are already silver and I’ll probably paint the inside of the pantograph well dark grey. The cab roof will stay cream but probably ultimately wind up weathered to represent a loco that spends half its time at the back of push-pull set.
J
Sounds like oyu have a plan, can’t wait to see it pan out. I will give up on the hot rod and and allow you to paint it the color scheme of your choosing… ( maybe a ghost flame… up by the vent).
Devon Sinsley said:
Sounds like oyu have a plan, can’t wait to see it pan out. I will give up on the hot rod and and allow you to paint it the color scheme of your choosing… ( maybe a ghost flame… up by the vent).
Of course, when this happens in Russia, it’s just a sign of correct starting procedure.
Somewhere there’s a video of half a Russian electrci twin unit - probably an VL80 - properly on fire and being pushed away to burn out, but I can’t find it at the moment.
J.
Love it !
I will gladly send you “Free” Amtrak livery striping if you wish
hey J,
Now I learned something new today. I had no idea they had Top Fuel Nitro Methane burning locomotives. See there is a plausible prototype for a hot rod loco. You have to love flame shooting from the exhaust.
Now seriously what would cause two locos to go up in flames at once. That second video has two of them on fire.
David Russell said:
Love it !
I will gladly send you “Free” Amtrak livery striping if you wish
Be careful what you wish/volunteer for… The E10Bm doesn’t seem to have fully scratched the required itch and I suspect a 1/29 amtrak E60 is still going to happen some time in the future. I’ve had the bones of an Aristo SD45 lined up as power for a while, and at the moment I don’t have a better plan for the blocks.
I’m also rather taken with the current effort’s NG look, and I’m getting seriously tempted by the idea of building an approximately double length twin cab E20B version as a more generally useful loco. I was wondering about trying to justify an amtrak-ish livery for it, but then I found this picture of a Williams O gauge B-B version in tuscan red…
J.
Devon Sinsley said:
hey J,
Now I learned something new today. I had no idea they had Top Fuel Nitro Methane burning locomotives. See there is a plausible prototype for a hot rod loco. You have to love flame shooting from the exhaust.
Now seriously what would cause two locos to go up in flames at once. That second video has two of them on fire.
They’re TE10’s of some variety if my Soviet diesel ID skills aren’t failing me. Honestly, that’s fairly normal cold start behaviour in anything approaching sub-zero temperatures. Powered by copies of the FM vertically opposed diesel, and somewhat notorious for oil/fuel carryover into the exhaust. They can do clag too if you ask nicely…
Another mildly pointless youtube video
Clagg2 - a royal command performance
Clagg3 - Best Ensemble Performance
The Norfolk & Western would probably have reprimanded a fireman whose steam loco produced an exhaust like that. In Soviet Russia, train smokes you, etc. etc.
In that third video, the first 20 or so cars are refridgerator/freezer vans. Anyone partial to smoked meat? Special offer on petroleum flavour, sorry we’re fresh out of oak and honey smoked.
I’d better find time to do something to the loco, this thread is starting to drift…
J.
Updates…We need an update
Gee, I don’t think any of those locos in the videos are tier 3 compliant.
And to think, designers spent a lot of time and effort, to keep the old wood burning steam locomotives from shooting that much fire out of their stacks.
Devon Sinsley said:
Updates…We need an update
You do, you do. I mentioned couplers before as being a problem - the two trucks basically take all the real estate under the body. Best idea I had was to fit just the loops of hook and loop couplers and rely on the other vehicle’s hook. Well it’s been two weeks and I think I’ve tried every type of glue/solvent on a every manufacturer’s version in the coupler. No dice. And no room for a mechanical fixing either. So I’ve been making my own loops out of black styrene that I know will stick on. Hopefully they’ll be strong enough. Pics to follow. J.
What about fabricating out of wire and connect the couplers under the loco. Small buffer plates on the prow to prevent pull through should give you pulling power. Make the unused coupler the stop.
In this friendly contest we help each other.
John
John Caughey said:
What about fabricating out of wire and connect the couplers under the loco. Small buffer plates on the prow to prevent pull through should give you pulling power. Make the unused coupler the stop.
In this friendly contest we help each other.
John
Thanks for the suggestion but I’m not sure wire would work in this case - there’s not a lot to mount it to on the HLW block (the sideframes are only costmetic, held on by one self taper and not going to take any real load), and the front and rear beam come down to less than 1/4 inch rail level, so there isn’t much real estate to go under in.
I was fairly happy with my original idea of having just an LGB style loop for the other vehicle’s hook to engage, just going gently up the wall trying to find one I could glue on.
Photo below is a view of the chassis from underneath with the trucks set for lgb R1 - there really isn’t much room under there, though if you take the side frames off it’ll easily go down under a foot radius.
Anyway, I’ve finished making my own coupling and ‘detailed’ the rear bean around it, here’s the results.
That was actually a bit of a pain to do, so I’ll leave doing the front one for a day or so in the hope of making it a bit neater.
J.
It may be a pain, but it sure looks good.
Hmm, wonder if one of HLW’s snap-in loops from their Mack locos could have been bolted on from the back with something like 2-56 flathead bolts and the nuts on the outside?
Forrest Scott Wood said:
It may be a pain, but it sure looks good.
Hmm, wonder if one of HLW’s snap-in loops from their Mack locos could have been bolted on from the back with something like 2-56 flathead bolts and the nuts on the outside?
Cheers.
The HLW mack loco coupling is one I didn’t have available to hand, but I was able to try gluing one of their standard types, with a view to cutting the tail off if it worked. Some kind of mechanical fixing would actually have been my prefered fix - potentially stronger and more easily swapped down the road without damaging the paint - but there really isn’t room. The rail-scraping headstock/snowplow is 40thou styrene, selectively reinforced with another layer of 40thou behind it. On R1 curves, the outside truck sideframe touches it - I need to file down the reinforcement there - and the clearance between the wheel flange and the back is about 20-25thou on flat track. And the wheel flange comes out right where you’d want to bolt though into a coupling.
What I’ve done seems to work OK, and will probably stand the strain of the loads the locos will be asked to haul, so I’m not inclined to mess about to much.
J.