athearn southern pacific F7

[tornado64]

CAME ALONG THIS CHEAP WITH ANOTHER LOCO ,  so giving it a go as a restoration / simple detail ( some scratch building )



ovious first jobs are to save the glazing unit so it will be sanded ,buffed and pollished to remove glue dammage  then body seam mouldings will be sanded from the cab centre





 

[m a y o r 79]

Looks like a nice project. Have you considered the American Model Builders window kit? Its laser cut to fit the Athearn shell and it will fix the incorrect window profile that the blue box has. Well worth the price, and it makes a huge difference.

Heres the Walthers part number : 152-229

[tornado64]

thanks for the heads up mike !! maybe on a later build as i have quite a few projects on the go this is just a quick tart up to make it reasonable looking but at a budget my intended budget is £00.00 or as close to as possible

[tornado64]

the window unit has been sanded , buffed and polished , along with sanding off the seam line , filing off rough edges on headlight , buffing and polishing the headlight , fitting horns and filing the rears as they look to be flat at the rear on the real thing , scribed in nose door gap





i'm pretty sure the godawful bulb will be going  to be replaced by LEDs  and fibre optics  but as this is supposed to be a zero funds build it will be salvaged from things baught for other projects



rear door glass is made from humbrol clear fix



as are the side windows  the method is to dip a coctail stick into the clear fix put cocktail stick with clear fix on through the window opening  stir in a circuler motion around window edges until a film is formed  at the same time as removing the cocktail stick

like so !! 

the result is reasonably convincing windows in a very quick time

[Deleted]

Looking good so far. I'd often wondered how good or bad these old athearn F units were?

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[sgoti]

Apr 28, 2013 17:22:35 GMT -5 @thesd80macbeast said:

Looking good so far. I'd often wondered how good or bad these old athearn F units were?

Try this:

www.trainlife.com/articles/680/modeling-the-warbonnets

[tornado64]

silver paint toutched up a little although i'm not going to be going tidy for this build  as pretty much all the photo's i have seen of this livery  the paint is worn out and battered so it will be heavily weathered

 

[tornado64]

i have decided on some better window units , although as it is a cheap build the option is a cheap flushglaze alternative



also i have decided to buy a needed handrail jig as i will be  scratchbuilding my own handrails from brass wire  so pricing there is to the tools and supplies area rather than to this individual project

[tornado64]

flushglazing installed and some practice at scratchbuilding handrails it is a first attempt so it is a steep learning curve but looks are so far going in the right direction at least even if a little scruffily

[Deleted]

Those nose grabs are looking good though I can eee on of your cab door long handrail s is too long but good first effort.

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[tornado64]

yeah not perfect and something that hopefully will get sorted as we go along as it is a work in progress , still getting used to using the jigs and drilling

[pacbelt]

Considering you're MAKING those grabs from brass stock, that's quite good indeed!! I may give that a try as well!

[tornado64]

these locos in this colour scheme in all the photos i have seen look terrificly run down  ( an effect i am trying to create )  at first i didn't check my refrences  and lightly wet and dried the orange areas off to give a worn through paint look  to later discover it was actualy surface dirt  so now in progress of repainting them on , also my carpal tunnel syndrome gets worse by the year  so loss of feeling caused a few drll slips on the area ahead of the windscreens when drilling for the grab iorns  so filler is the only way to go so now waiting to wet and dry before  giving another coat of silver

[pacbelt]

The flush windshields look great! Also, the grab irons look significantly better than in previous photos.
It's really taking shape!

[Deleted]

Coming along nicely!

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[m a y o r 79]

I agree even making the windows flush makes an improvement over the stock athearn ones. Cant wait to see the rest of the progress.

[tornado64]

trying to achieve the battered look of these units that seems to have been normal painted and started to weather the trucks added front door handrails  and begun weathering body

 

[CP_8530]

Quite beat-up looking, looks like it's coming along well.

[Deleted]

Looking good.

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