Great stuff guys, I enjoy seeing your modeling effort. I have been working on a few projects myself. First off we have a QA&P GP50M numbered 787. That was modified to take the later dynamic brakes and a safety cab was installed. Decided to a little retro for the paint job along with a new look too. I didnt care for the shade of yellow on the decal, so I takes me a blank piece and painted it up Yellow. I cut out the nose decal and applied, I then used the Frisco font and made up some QA&P decals, I think it looks OK. And now this S2, what a challenge these decals were. Used almost 2 sets of my Oddballs yellow decals, almost out of them now. Its coming along OK. Still got a ways to go on both these locos. But I want to post an update. Thanks for looking.
I spent a few hours putting a project engine back together and ready to ship to a buyer. Good to be working on engines again.
Those look great Tom. Love the Frisco font on the QAP hood. The F unit paint scheme is neat on that. alco looks great as well. What did you use for numbers on the radiator coonskin? Or is it printed with a number?
Tom - I love the work on the Alco S-2. Nice job! Glad you have it. Would be neat to run it with the NW2, though their relative gearing will not mix well. K
Very well done, Steve! Did you use actual masking tape to represent the masking tape, or tissue paper or what? I'll be quiet and stop guessing and will let you describe. Best Regards,
Thanks, I used the yellow frog tape. I laid out an oversized piece and lightly sand some of the tape texture off. Then painted it a generic tan color with cheap acrylics. I was planning on tissue originally but this was simple and looked close enough. Thanks, Steve
Happy Workshop Wednesday, Pretty scant modeling time this week, with work keeping me busy. I did manage to work on decaling a couple of 150XXX series boxcars from the Accurail kits, modding the frames (thanks @gna ) to be straight beams, and adding some brake rigging from Accurail accessory parts. Still need some end decals and brake rods, (also considering changing the stirrups to square) then off for weathering (waaaaay too shiny new here). Speaking of weathering, I worked on this El Paso & Southwestern car a bit more (K-4 Decals set on Accurail undecorated car). The changes are small, but looking a little less like a plastic car. Touch ups were using some pencils I had ordered, some of these AK weathering colors: Which seem nice for adding some details. These are the Black/Gray set and Rust Colors sets, off of Amazon. That's about it. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving if I don't catch you again before then! -Bob T. P.S. Steve (@modeltruckshop ), I saw that Reading car was featured in the MRH mailer. Nice work!
Looking good Bob T. I have used them colored pencils before, you need dull coat for a "tooth". Unless you have really soft "leads" in them pencils. I am sure you will show quality cars in no time. Those straight frames make a big difference (thanks gna). I made a little progress as well this week. A bit of advise, when you modify something it tends to change more than you might have thought possible. The nose handrails on this GP50M are a hybrid of brass and plastic. With the M cab it changed a bunch too, not only the end rails, anticlimber and sill, but I also had to figure where the hand brake would go, as the factory hand brake was in a bazillion pieces now occupying space in the Mesa county land fill. Now, any engineer will tell you, why dont they put the hand brake inside the nose on these safety cab units!! I could have simply suggested this as well, but no, I could not be that wise or simple, I removed a door on the E side rear hood and modified a DW hand brake assy for the hand brake, OK that was settled. Then, well, those Hyatt truck journal boxes would have surely been changed to the no maintenance Timken boxes, OK so now I drill out all the boxes for DW roller bearing castings. Then, here we go again, now how are you gonna mount the lower shock mounts? Then I surgically remove the Hyatt designed lower mounts to accommodate the Timken boxes (why do I do this?), I dont know, but I am told there is medication that can help. Maybe high voltage applied in a precise manner? I tall mount our 5 chime Leslie just ahead of the cooling fans, OK, no modification needed for that, whew. Then I went to mount the basic shell to the frame, yep! that miserable safety cab has changed how the shell sits on the frame, I am a Union guy, but at this point I am wondering why did you use this safety cab? OK so, now I fire up the mill to fix this, and its a simple solution. I then modified the pilots and frame to use the coupler boxes to hold the shell/frame assy together, this was only slightly annoying and not miserable at all. So, with all that done I painted the shell, frame and trucks, do all that paint and decal work. I use maybe 1/2 dozen different decal sheets from Microscale, (and some of my own) on this, I do enjoy putting the high voltage, lube oil check here, engine start switch, engine water fill, fire extinguisher, EOT deadhead rack builder trustee plates and so on decals, it can be graphic heavy. Anyways I give you the power shell/chassis as QA&P 787 GP50M, ready for a final gloss coat, then some glazing, lights and weathering, that will round out the roster at 4 GP50/60 race ponies for the QA&P, TOFC shooter. Any Wayzz Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks Bob. I did not get that email that I can find? Guess they liked ? My modeling week was on Bob’s Baldwin but I figured I will let him see it first. Should go in the mail in couple days. My latest customer work is a couple of the giant Bowser C-630s. Crazy heavy and very nice.
Thanks Steve, looks like you have an interesting project there. Looking FWD to progress or regress images LOL. In 1979 I volunteered for "on train guard duty", to guard our train load of USMC tanks, jeeps artillery and all that from swamp lagoon to Moorehead City, no idea what east coast, RR we were being pulled by, just DODX and Marine Green everywhere. I enjoyed every mile, right up until they parked us in a siding in the middle of nowhere,.... well, then the sun set and like a phoenix type zenith rising from the ashes, the neon sign of a booze store rose behind the trees. Then it wasnt so bad at all, kind of fun, right up till the Sgt Major walked up. Then not so much, after walking the flanks of the military equipment till the sun came up, all was forgiven. But it was cool to sit in the TC cupola of a tank riding on DODX 6 axle flats across those highways. Even though in 1979, some folks didnt think too much of us.
I was able to get some light weathering done to this S2, think I will do a little more. I masked over the windows to keep the weathering and dull coat off them, here are a few progress shots. Getting that chain on was a bear, it even has little tiny hooks (PSC) on the ends of the chain!