Seattle & North Coast F7A #101

[Christopher]

I'm almost to the finish line on the SNCT F7A I'm building out of a Highliners Shell and Athearn Chassis. The shell has been detailed to replicate the prototype as closely as possible (see here: www.trainweb.org/snch&ts/newphotos/dieselphoto101.html) and the chassis (thanks to Brian's (dtinut) mill) has been modified along the same lines as Dave Hussey's Santa Fe F Units (see here: www.pbase.com/dh30973/funit_shots). Here are some photo's:











There's still some more work to do, I need to install the winterization hatch and fix the Hi Tech MU hoses so that they don't stick straight out, then of course paint, the drive, and electronics, but so far I'm pretty happy with it.

- Chris

[icghogger]

Way to Go, Chris, Excellent Job, especially on the frame! BTW, who makes the oil cooler?

(I gotta admit, the "air hoses on Viagra" is an unexpected touch ;D)

[dtinut]

Looks awesome Chris... Thanks for posting in progress photos of your work.
Will be nice when you finish the model.

Brian

[RunningExtra]

WOW....stunning work Chris, that is an excellent job of recreating the prototype in model form!!

[Randy Earle]

Very nice Chris, what's the polka dots from?

[rdg5310]

Real nice job on that F-unit. I like the frame work, you captured the fish belly look of the frame real nice. I love those Highliner shells, they give you allot of options and allow you to add on tons of detailing without mutilating the shell.

[sarge]

Apr 9, 2009 15:46:49 GMT -5 @laughinghippie said:

Hey, maybe Chris or Dave could be convinced to do a clinic on building an F-unit underframe like this?

Whaddaya think?

I would be interested in that! I want to do some F9s for my Rio Grande Zephyr eventually

[Christopher]

The cooling coils are by DW with mounting brackets made out of styrene rod. I had originally thought that the brackets included with the DW part were incorrect for my prototype, so I tried to replicate the sort of mounting system the Walthers F7's use, only to discover later that the DW part was correct after all... oh well, it would be too difficult to fix now.

Building the frame is actually incredibly easy once the Athearn chassis is milled, but you do need to contact Hi-Tech in order to get the correct parts, as they aren't advertised. It took my about two evenings to cut and assemble the styrene.

The "polka dots" are from paint I must have gotten on my hands while determining the mounting location for the cooling coils, and was a good reminder for me as to why I don't detail pre-painted models :-)

The P:87 wheels are from the P:87 Stores and are a drop in replacement. They look good, I would like to narrow the truck so that it was to scale as well, however I think the gearbox is some sort of ABS or other plastic that doesn't sound like fun to mess with, so I probably won't. I already made concessions on a couple of details to allow for truck swing anyway.

Dave's PBase site illustrates the process for doing this project really well, and I wouldn't have been able to do this without his photo's. I'll be posting a full description of the process I used on my blog as soon as I get a chance.

The SNCT had two more of these locomotives, both slightly different from this one which I'll be working on after I finish this one. When I do I'll try to take enough photo's to do a clinic of some sort that can be posted here.

Thanks for all the comments. I attached the winterization hatch tonight, and am going to add a couple of fuel tank site guages I hadn't noticed before, then it should be just about ready for the New England RPM meet. Next fall when the weather is nice I'll add paint, decals and weathering.

- Chris

[Christopher]

The brackets Hi-Tech has advertised are shortened so that you do not have to mill .08" off the bottom of the chassis. If you do the full frame as I did, you have to get the scale brackets which Hi-Tech doesn't seem to advertise, or didn't when I was trying to find them. If you look at these two photo's you should be able to get an idea of the difference:

Shortened brackets - www.pbase.com/dh30973/image/25390932

Scale brackets - www.pbase.com/dh30973/image/25982120

Like I said, I contacted them by e-mail to get the parts, I'm not sure why they don't show them on their website.

The etched SS cross braces were also included with the brackets, you can't really see them too well in the photo's I posted, but they look really nice, and saved a lot of time as I otherwise would have had to cut them out of styrene.

The battery boxes/air tank and the fuel tank (if it's appropriate for your prototype) are fine, they'll work no matter how you do your frame. Since I needed a standard size fuel tank, I just filled in the gaps in the Athearn tank.

The only dimension that is really important is the .08" that needs to be milled off of the bottom of the athearn chassis, however I drew up a diagram in Adobe Illustrator milepost15.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/f7a-milling-sketch.pdf that should give anyone doing the cutting all the information they need. You should note though, that it's not exactly to scale and there are a couple of slight errors, however it works well as a reference. Brian may have more insight as I believe he's done a few of these.

- Chris

[cannon]

Apr 9, 2009 15:46:49 GMT -5 @laughinghippie said:

Hey, maybe Chris or Dave could be convinced to do a clinic on building an F-unit underframe like this?

Whaddaya think?

I have done a conventional clinic on those Santa Fe F units, and will be presenting it next Saturday at the Santa Fe Mini-Meet at the La Posada in Winslow, AZ.
The clinic was originally put together in 2003, back when the models were built, and the Hi-Tech parts were created from my designs.

Jimmy (Hi-Tech) has modified several of the parts from the original first ones, including changing the battery boxes to add the etched bottoms and making the etched brackets Chris used. Mine were some molded parts he cut.

As for the different length hangers, we figured not many folks would go the whole route and have a mill to remove the .080 from the chassis, that is why I came up with the shortened version, that can be used if you have a hack saw and a large flat file.

Dave Hussey
Cannon and Company
www.cannonandco.net

[finef9]

Great work! It always does me good to see an decked out F unit model. What type of glue do you use for those parts to adhere to plastic? Every time I use super glue, it leaves a mess around the part. anyway good work!

JC.

[Christopher]

As far as adhesive goes, I've kind of been learning as I go along :-) I've butchered my share of models and some areas on this one are not as clean as I would like, that's ok though, the next one will be better.

For all the small plastic - metal details I used Zap-A-Gap CA, CA+ and Slo-Zap. Mission models www.missionmodels.com sells a package of "Precision Glue Tips" which are essentially blunt hypodermic needles (ie: not illegal) that fit directly on the Zap-A-Gap bottles and are very good at distributing miniscule amounts of adhesive.

For larger surfaces, such as the styrene frame and the metal Athearn chassis, I use Barge cement thinned with MEK. I apply this to both surfaces, allow to dry slightly and then press both pieces firmly together. I generally brush this stuff on, but for smaller areas, I sometimes use the plastic syringes available at the Proto87 Stores www.proto87.com, which you can attach the Mission Models Precision Glue Tips to as well.

The glue tips can actually last quite awhile if you keep them clean, I do this by filling a syringe with 100% Pure Acetone if using CA or straight MEK if using the Barge + MEK mixture and then forcing it through the "dirty" tip once or twice. Just make sure to rinse everything thoroughly as the Acetone and MEK will eat away at the plastic and rubber parts on the tips and syringes.

- Chris

[superfleet93]

Chris,

Excellent work! I have been wondering about milling my own chassis for my CF7's if I ever get to them. Thanks for the tips though, they will come in handy later on. Now...off to get ready to go to Winsolow!

Perry