Pair of BN SD-60M's - What's the next level?

[xcandiottix]

Hi All,

I recently purchased 2 Athearn Genesis SD-60M's with sound off of ebay. I got them on the layout and could not get them to work correctly for anything. As it turns out, the stock DCC board in these do not play well with the NCE system at the club. I therefore upgraded to a Tsunami Soundtraxx TSU-GN1000. Again, I went back to the layout and the locos ran better but still very inconsistently. Apparently, in this production run Athearn painted under the rivet of the conductive plates on the trucks so power pickup was a major issue. I sanded down some of the painted areas and ran wires directly from the decoder to the trucks. Now the locos started running much much better. However, the plastic handrails were in no mood to be handled this much and started popping off or breaking. I ordered Smokey Valley kit 210 (Handrails and Stancion kit for the SD-60M) and have been slowly sanding down, straightening, and cleaning up the stanchions. I ordered a few tubes of .015 phosphor bronze wire (part #1102) from Tichy Train Group for the handrails and am bending them myself. I also ordered surface mount leds (Golden White Mini Surface wired in Ditch configuration part# 22-GW603-WT06-D), 6" headlight lenses (W-235-341), 1.2K-1/8W resistors, and surface mounts with light shield (part# 4-5002-GW-1S) from Ulrich models. I am upgrading to Kadee long shank center set whisker metal couplers (part #146).

I learned that getting the GN1000 decoder was actually a waste because it has a voltage regulator to step down the lightbulb voltage to 1.5v. Since the leds need more voltage than this I have to wire up to the +14v common. If you are using LEDs, you don't gain much with the direct replacement board in my opinion.



I have a couple of questions:

• In the Smokey Valley kit there are 14 black plastic stanchion shaped pieces. What are these for?
• Some of the stanchion tops (the "C" portion) have cracked off. I'm now short a couple of stanchions. Any ideas? I have extra long ones I could cut shorter maybe.
• When I glued in the headlight lens, some of the plastic/paint of the shell melted and gave a couple of lenses a greenish hue. I used Tamiya extra thin cement and used as little as possible. Is there a better way? Can I paint the lens with a stippling of silver to try and fix this?
• The Athearn speaker sits in a screwed together metal "box" on the frame. I'm sure it isn't sealed so the sound quality can be better I'm guessing. Can I fix this or should I replace? If replace, what is recommended?
• I'm modeling this around 1996. Are there any additional details I can add to this unit that fits this time period that Athearn didn't do / didn't do well?
• Any other recommendations or ideas to continue detailing these?

Thanks!

[xcandiottix]

I've started on my first ever brass handrail project. So far I'm really impressed. I'll try to do a write up tomorrow to help anyone else thinking about tackling this. I decided to solder these for extra durability.

[enginseer]

You might want to post this in the "Questions" section for more views.

People are more than willing to help on this forum and check that section frequently.

[xcandiottix]

Thanks enginseer!

[antlorch]

Well first off I am sorry it has taken me so long to answer you but I will see where I can help out.

First off you are headed in the right direction. The handrails look great, I dont know if you are soldering them or gluing them but whatever works for you. Though soldering is a much better and stronger way to do this. I build my first engine 20 years ago with Smokey Valley and soldered them and they are still together today.

Ok if you want to really get into detailing these SD60's or any SD60's for that matter I recommend you buy the Diesel Era EMD's SD60 Series book from Withers Publishing. This book has great reference shots and small write ups for each road that owned them.

I am actually modeling the BN 1991 right now, all left if some painting and weathering and she is complete. I will try and get some shots this afternoon and post on here with a better description of what I did. Give me til this evening when I have more time and I will do you a write up of your questions and explain more. For now here are a couple of shots for you to look at.

Front polit work:


Fuel tank work:


Rear handrail set up with chain:




Later on

[xcandiottix]

Hi Anthony,

Sorry for the late reply back on this. Work has been busy!

I did solder the handrails and I'm really happy I did, the bond seems to be really strong. I'll definitely look into the SD-60 book as I'm sure it will help to identify all of those little obscure details.

I think the detail work in your photos is really great. I especially like what you did with the fuel tank, it really came out good! Are you using a mix of detail parts from the usual detail part companies or do you have to scratch build some of these elements?

Thanks!

[xcandiottix]

I've made it to the other side. Next, front and rears.

[tamaman]

Looks good Keith.

[antlorch]

Keith, again sorry for the delay.

First for the MU plugs I made the brackets out of flat brass sheet cut to the right size and bend to form the bracket, then just glued the DW plug on top.

The parts on the fuel tank are DA,DW, and Cannon with brasss wire for the drain line and the overflow line on the side of the filler.

The chain holder is 0.012" brass wire that I annulled on one end the smashed flat, drilled a hole in for the chain link to go through then bent in a 90 degree right behind the hole. This was glued right in the middle of the stanchion with CA.

I did all my reference from the SD60 book and as many pics as I could find on the internet.