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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 3:35:44 GMT -5
A little late posting over here. I've been working on this unit for a few weeks and started a narrative over at ProtoModeler, but I am posting here to get more feedback as well. This is my very first build and kind of a big undertaking for my first one ever, if you want to look at it that way. Maybe I should've started with something easier, haha! This will be CSX C30-7 # 7088. The 7088 was a frequent visitor to my area and I saw it often as a kid. When I was really young, the C30-7s were in coal service and it wasn't uncommon to see two or three C30-7s on a big coal train. They would also often be mixed with SD40-2s and SD50s. Later in their lives, they were regulated to ballast and work train service, and I saw the 7088 many more times in its 'second service life'. The CSX 7088 was built as SCL 7088 in November 1981 and delivered in Family Lines paint. After retirement in 2006, the 7088 was sold to a railroad in Brazil, and by looking at pictures of it today, you almost can't tell it was ever a Family Lines/CSX unit. All of the unique characteristics, such as the low headlight, GSC truck sideframes, etc have been removed and replaced, but at least it's still running. I am choosing to model the 7088 in about 1998, after the addition of ditchlights, and when it was painted in the CSX YN2 paint. At that time, it still had its RS5T-RRO horn. Not being satisfied with the tooling of the old Atlas C30-7 model, or the way the nose looks on the BLI model, I am 'kitbashing' this unit using a small portion of the Atlas C30-7 shell, and 95% of an Atlas B30-7 shell which is newer and has better tooling. Since the B30-7 and C30-7 share a common body (the C30-7 is just longer), it is possible to cut the shells of both units and splice them together. The C30-7 has an extra area ahead of the main generator cab for the dynamic brake intakes and resistor grids. This is the only area that needs to be added to the B30-7 shell to achieve a proper C30-7 carbody. Here is the Atlas B30-7 hood, stripped and cut ahead of the main generator area. You can see that the radiator top on the B30-7 is removable (!!!) This will save me tons of time instead of having to cut out the molded-on radiator mess of the C30-7 and attempt to give it 'see-through-depth'. I could probably do that, but it would be tons of work, and with my not so much experience, could end up in disaster, so I'm glad the B30-7 had more detail. Since I am just starting to model, I am trying to model 'smarter' and not harder. The C30-7 dynamic brake and main generator area in the process of being cut. This is looking at the hood from the engineer's side. The dynamic area is really the only area that needs added to the B30-7 shell to make it a C30-7. B30-7 Cab with Details West RS5T-RRO horn and Pyle headlight added, and the mars light and class light blanking plates. The brass plates are from BLMA in their 'Removed Headlight Covers' brass sets. Now that BLMA has been purchased by Atlas, it is really really hard to find these plates. I bought three or four of them in hopes that they will hold me over for a while until either more come available or more are produced. First hood seam. The left, lighter color hood is from the C30-7, and everything on the right is from the B30-7. -- Nick O'Dell
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 3:44:50 GMT -5
C30-7 hood seam #2 with Hi-Tech details exhaust stack. This is the middle size of the three stacks they make and is correct for mid/late production C30-7s, with the late model C30-7s and C36-7s having the even bigger exhaust silencers similar to what Dash-9s have. Long nose end. I'm not satisfied with the stock Atlas headlight so I think I will add another DW, even though they are a pain in the ass to drill out without bending them (!!!) Beginning work on the radiators. The stainless steel mesh was measured and cut to be laid in the radiator section of the unit to represent the radiator cores. I purchased the sheet from McMaster Carr and it is listed as "Corrosion-Resistant Stainless Steel Woven Wire Cloth 120x120 Mesh, .0037" Wire Diameter, 12"x12" Sheet, 85385T103" and retails for $6.47 US. McMaster has SO MUCH STUFF and a lot of it has unique features that have you trying to decide if you want that 304 Stainless steel or 316 or...etc when really you just want some generic stainless mesh. I love McMaster though because of their selection of stuff, not only for modeling, but real-life big projects. I had an idea of what size to get based off of some posts I saw on this site once upon a time where somebody made their own radiator screens for GEs. Here is the finished result on the radiators. The top radiator section has tabs that pop into the shell. Instead of using the tabs and screwing up my radiator core sheet (or cutting holes in the sheet so the tabs will go in it), I just cut the tabs off of the radiator. It is a perfect drop fit and doesn't move around once it is installed. When I am completely finished with the engine, I might put some small drops of CA to seal it. -- Nick O'Dell
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 3:47:54 GMT -5
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 3:52:29 GMT -5
Here is the progress on the trucks. In order to get the correct sideframes, I purchased C40-8 trucks directly from Atlas. My goal is to make these look the best of any C30-7 trucks currently out there, and the stock Atlas sideframe just wasn't cutting it. To my knowledge, other than brass Overland engines, nobody has produced a 100% Rockwell GSC sideframe casting for C30-7s that had the exposed roller bearings and actually looked good. The Atlas detail was decent, but the DW roller bearings look better. I drilled them out and installed the DW parts, then drilled the two little holes in the side frame as the Atlas holes were too small but gave an excellent pilot hole to start with. The snubber on the center axle is from the Atlas B30-7 donor locomotive and is correct. I drilled the journal on this axle from the rear, sanded the front, and installed a roller bearing. On the prototype, you can see the roller bearing through the little hole in the journal box cover. Then, after removing the terrible Atlas center snubber detail from the C40-8 truck, I installed the B30-7 snubber. The brake cylinder and piping (plastic) is from a donor BLI C30-7 that I had. They fit pretty well, but I may modify them. Sand brackets from DW were installed. Does anybody know what size wire insulation to use on these to replicate the sand hose? In early 2000, CSX gutted a C30-7 as they were in the process of retiring them, and painted it in Marshall University colors to display around Huntington, WV where the university and a major CSX locomotive shop are located. The engine sits outside of the Division headquarters (although CSX just announced recently that they are disbanding the division because of the coal decline and moving the management and territory assignments to other divisions). Luckily, I can visit the locomotive any time and take detail pictures. Hopefully it doesn't leave when the division transition is complete this summer. Here are the trucks on that unit. The sand brackets were removed for some reason. I guess because it's not a locomotive anymore and maybe the shop needed them for another unit. Progress on the steps. These are brass A-Line steps. Probably not my best work, but these steps really aren't the best. As locomotives age, the steps get all dented and banged up, so it shouldn't look too terrible. I added the pilot 'buffer bar' which is .040 styrene rod. The step light was a pain in the ass to mount in the location where it is, and it is a Cannon step light. I angled the step light a little more than the prototype so that it would have a place to be glued on the pilot and not the step itself. Here is a prototype photo of the steps.
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 3:54:39 GMT -5
I have decided that I am going to try my hand at making my own custom decals for all of the CSX locomotives that I paint. Having grown up around and studied CSX extensively my whole life, I have come to have very little tolerance for CSX HO models. I am very dissatisfied with the CSX Microscale decals, as the CSX logo is not drawn correctly. I have contacted Microscale and given them the artwork that I spent quite a bit of time drawing and making sure was 100% correct and I cannot get a response out of them. In addition, there were little changes in the logo designs over the years that probably are not apparent to most modelers or most people in general. As the railroad changed vendors for stencils and artwork, the designs changed slightly too. For instance, the early CSX YN2 "Lubalin Graph" nose logo that the Waycross, GA shop used for years and the Huntington, WV shop only used for a short time (bottom). The standard CSX logo is on top. Because of my dissatisfaction with the decals commercially available for CSX engines, I have decided to make my own. I have the artwork and have already drawn it from photographs and I know that it is 100% correct. I am good with Photoshop and Illustrator and have made the artwork a VECTOR, meaning that it is not pixelated and can be enlarged to be as big as your house if you wanted it to be or as small as a nose logo on a model.... and because it is a vector and not a raster file, it will look good and have nice sharp edges instead of pixels. The photos I have posted are in JPEG format so they are rasterized (pixels) but in my imaging software, they are vectors and have smooth, solid lines. I have read a bunch of literature on making your own decals at home, and it doesn't seem too hard. It looks really easy actually, and because I already have the artwork drawn, all I have to do is make it the correct color, size it and measure on my model, print on decal paper, and apply. It is one of my biggest pet peeves ever to see a model where the paint and the decal are not the same color when they are supposed to be. By making my own decals, I can ensure the paint matches the decal 100% since I can adjust the color of the decal to match the paint. I also decided that I would make my own decals for almost everything on the locomotives using artwork that I created. Cab numbers, builders plates, warning stickers, etc. I have such discretion when it comes to CSX models that I really can't trust people to make decals for me because I don't know 100% what I am getting. Another little known fact is that GE did their own artwork for the CSX logo. The curve in the middle of the 'S' has a slight deformity in it. This GE artwork was applied to EVERY locomotive that GE painted for CSX from the first order of C40-8s CSX took delivery of in 1989 in the stealth paint, to ES44AC GEVO locomotives. When they started doing the boxcar logo, the artwork changed. NS had similar artwork issues on some of their older GE units, painted by GE Erie. You can see the CSX GE logo artwork I have drawn below as well as a prototype photo from CSXT 269 (AC4400CW built in 1996).
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 4:02:06 GMT -5
I finally got all of the truck work finished, although I'm not sure if I will have room to run wire insulation for the sand hoses because of the sill/pilot being so close to the trucks. Not a whole lot of clearance, and if I do run them, it will probably bend and break the sand brackets off. On real locomotives, the sand hose often touches areas that it's not necessarily supposed to... like the bell on C40-8s and C40-8Ws and front pilots, lift rings, etc. Not sure how much of an issue it will be on the model, but I will try it. Here is one of the rear trucks for the 7088 with the center journal cover removed. I used to hate seeing them with the center journal cover removed. On CSX, toward the later years, many of them had the journal cover removed on the rear trucks. Some on all of the trucks, some just having the rear ones removed, and some the front. I have no idea why. If I would guess, I would say it happened when the unit was written up for lateral motion, as probably all older GE units are at some point in their lives, and the snubber/shock assembly back there was replaced. Many of the 4-axle units that rode on the FB-2 truck also had these journal covers removed. I loved the look of the journal covers they were delivered with. When the units had these covers removed and got new shocks, it is of note that the new shock absorber has a slightly different attachment to the journal on the truck. Instead of messing up my two remaining beautiful snubber/journal covers from the B30-7 donor, I use a Detail Associates GE snubber assembly part that came with Hyatt journal box covers (not a fan) and cut that nastiness off, leaving just the shock absorber and the mount. The rest of the truck I did the same way as the front trucks. Here is a photo of 7088 late in its life for comparison. Notice the front truck has the center journal but the rear one does not. The 7088 was like this since it was under CSX ownership still in the Family Lines paint (pre-1990). Next up was some modifications to the cab. Most GE standard cab units have two vertical weld seams just below the side windows, the same height and distance apart as the window. This detail is not present on plastic models, only the brass ones. I wanted to try to replicate it. I am only a novice modeler, so originally I drew two vertical lines in the plastic with my X-acto, but that's kind of tacky and silly looking (not that my fix is much better). What I did was take a .005" thick brass sheet and cut a rectangle 2.5cm wide and 0.8cm tall, about the shape as the bottom part of the Atlas cab, and lightly sanded where necessary to clean up the jaggedness. Then I cut the 'weld seams' out which leaves you with three rectangles. Then I placed them all on the side of the cab and lined them up for a test fit, and glued in place. Then I sanded the crap out of them. Here is the result right after I did the first one. I have since cleaned it up a little better and sanded it more. I wanted to leave them a little beat up, as the locmotive cab sides really do get knocked around and beat up... especially when they are as thin as the old standard cab unit's cabs are. I know, it's not perfect, it looks...kinda bad actually, but I am hoping that after a couple hits of Mr. Surfacer and then eventually paint, it won't look all too terrible. I am sure my skills at this will improve as my modeling does, but this is my first build. Some day I will look back and laugh at this sheet saying, "I can do better!" And here was have a proto photo. My version is a little bit more pronounced in the hopes that after I surface and paint/weather it, it will still be noticable. This is C30-7 #7025 which is an older unit that came with the two windows in addition to the side window. The smaller windows were blanked over by almost all railroads and gasketed whenever the FRA came out with the window glazing CFR. Next up, tackling those damn strobe brackets. They really weren't as hard as I thought they would be. Last week, I tried making them out of square styrene stock and cutting it at an angle to make right triangles... I failed miserably. Somebody on Facebook gave me the idea to use styrene angle stock and then fill in what is left in the middle with either glue or putty. I used Evergreen Item No. 293, "ANGLE, .100" (2.5mm)" which is in an L shape. The strobe brackets I cut for the model, using guesstimations of the real ones, are 3cm (length front to back) by 2cm width. Of course, with sanding, they get a little smaller, and the cutting methods of styrene isn't precise, but they look good enough for me. I filled in the middles with putty at first, and after I let that dry for several hours and it still crumbled, I filled in what was left with CA and sanded. I have a bunch of work to do cleaning up that excess CA around the area, and the scratches to be taken care of by Mr. Surfacer whenever he arrives. I'm not really sure how to remove dried CA other than with a sharp razor. Hopefully it ends up looking halfway decent. They are a little bigger than the proto and hopefully this doesn't draw your attention when the model is finished. Then I got the idea that I would put blanking plates on top of the strobe brackets to cover the hole from where the strobes used to be. I don't know that the C30-7s actually had this, but the EMDs from the same era that had their strobe lights removed did, so I'm guessing the C30s did too. Not too many high res photos of CSX C30-7 roofs that have strobe light brackets on them. The brass plates are from the BLMA Removed Headlight Cover set (man I just love that set and I'm really worried that it will be gone forever) and are the same as I used for the class light blanks. You can see in the above photos that I added new framing at the base of the cab out of small styrene strips. It is more pronounced than the prototype, but hides the ugliness of the brass sheet toward the bottom. I may end up sanding it more to make it thinner, but the Atlas cab needed a little help with the frame at the bottom. The cab is not sitting on the sill level either, so I will have to fix that. And lastly, here is the rear. I added new DW headlight casting and DW number boards. I am really starting to hate the DW headlights. They look beautiful, but they SHOULD COME CORED for headlights! By the time you drill them, shave off the sprue, and sand all the remnants off of the back, you've damn well bent it so badly you can't use it as a headlight. I must be doing something wrong. I shouldn't have to go through 3 headlights just to install one. Man, Mr. Surfacer really has some work to do back here. Including that huge gash below the sand fill. It needs help badly. Hopefully I can fix it. - Nick O'Dell
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 4:09:54 GMT -5
Here is the side shot on the engineer's side. You can see I've added all sorts of piping and fixtures. I still have yet to do the back steps and I'm kind of dreading it.. I hate installing brass steps, but it has to be done. The engineer's side of the cab still won't sit level on the sill, even though the bottom of the cab is perfectly level. I think the sill might be warped. If you use your finger to push the sill up, then it is fine. I'm really not sure how I'm going to fix it. I shaved off the corner of some of the ribbing I added to the front of the cab and it didn't help, so now I will have to replace that whole section of ribbing. Front wedge shot. You can see the ribbing I'm talking about and how the cab won't sit flat. Mr. Surfacer has been working on the nose area and I am happy with that area now. Only a couple of dings which are from a hard service life :-) I have added Utah Pacific Brass GE Lift Rings.... I highly recommend these for anyone who models GE. They are awesome! A little more bulky than the prototype but they really give an extra bit of realism to your model. The rings on the Atlas B30-7 were actually very detailed for a stock model so these weren't really a huge improvement. The radiator area again. I really love the depth that adding the stainless screen gives. I just wish the radiators were bigger. They aren't wide enough on the Atlas models and you can't fix it without a whole lot of work. BLI got this area pretty much correct on their C30-7 model. Too bad BLI did and nobody else. Here we get into the nitty-gritty air stuff. I have added DW reservoir castings, no brainer. Also a DW 975 final filter (units equipped with air dryers have these), piping, a pipe for the locomotive sump drain, and spitter valve from a Cannon EMD Reservoir kit. I buy these kits JUST for the spitter valve. They are a model of Graham-White 580 valves, which is what everybody models, but if you turn it upside down it vaguely represents a Graham-White 686 valve, which is what almost all CSX units had in the 1990s. Perhaps my favorite accomplishment, wire for the spitter valve heater. This is .006" brass wire. Here is a shot of the front with the bell, 975 final filter, air reservoir, spitter valve, spitter heater wire, and pipes. Shot of the front after Mr. Surfacer and me holding the shell down so it sits remotely flat Conductor's side profile. Still need to work on that hole patch so it's more or less flat. Will have to add some material to it, somehow. You absolutely cannot model CSX units without an Air Dryer! This is a Graham-White 975, twin tower air dryer, and is a Details West casting. Without this part, I probably would not model. Some things are important to me like aftermarket horns and air parts, and other things not so much. Here is the rear, conductor side air details. I also added some piping on the fuel tank for the retention tank drain (it is in the rear of the fuel tank) but I am not finished with that area yet. And lastly here is the rear after using Mr. Surfacer to try to smooth it. The top area above the number boards looks decent but the middle looks terrible. I really don't know what to do at this point.
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Post by airchime30109 on Feb 28, 2016 4:11:14 GMT -5
Thoughts and Concerns: I would really like to have prototypical class light plates for GEs. The BLMA set is pretty close, but the prototypes all have 3 bolts, the BLMA has more than that. I don't know if I could get someone to make a brass etch of them or if I should try to make a decal, or use archer bolt decals (the plates are super tiny) or what I should do. The class lights on standard cab GEs were much smaller than on EMDs. What should I do about the rear of the fuel tank area where the waste retention tank is located? There is a square plate with bolts and also ribbing and welds on the tank to separate the two areas.
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Post by nssd70m on Feb 28, 2016 7:27:38 GMT -5
Very impressive build! I have a Atlas custom SBD C30-7 7067 in my roster, not as complex as yours though. Earl...
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Post by airchime30109 on Mar 1, 2016 0:37:15 GMT -5
Thanks, Earl! I plan to make it pretty detailed, although this is my first build and I have never done one of these before. I have always admired HO scale locomotives but never took the plunge into actually modeling. Now, several years after I started admiring HO locomotives, the quality of the tooling on stock engines has improved so much that they look REALLY good and I took the plunge! I've never painted or weathered any model before, so I am nervous about that, but I guess you have to learn somewhere. I stay up late at night sometimes worrying about it!
- Nick ODell
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Post by airchime30109 on Mar 4, 2016 3:52:44 GMT -5
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Post by shellfish on Mar 4, 2016 10:33:52 GMT -5
Airchime, Very impressive build you have going on here! I have a quick question to you or anyone else that can answer. On the picture above who makes the brass access cover with the six bolts that you have on each side of the headlight? Detail Associates makes them in plastic #2307 but I can not find them in brass. Thanks!
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Post by airchime30109 on Mar 4, 2016 14:26:16 GMT -5
Thank you! The class light plates are BLMA from their removed headlight covers set. Unfortunately, they are now VERY hard to find since BLMA had been purchased by Atlas. The set comes with several styles of EMD class light plates and also removed headlight plates from where locomotives had their headlghts moved to different locations, several different styles.
I really hope that if someone at Atlas is reading this that they will begin producing these BLMA products. The BLMA removed headlight cover set is an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for HO scale locomotive modelers, especially those who model the 1990s to present!!!
- Nick O'Dell
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Post by airchime30109 on Mar 7, 2016 3:56:49 GMT -5
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dekon
Staff Member
Posts: 634
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Post by dekon on Mar 19, 2016 23:24:34 GMT -5
Wow, great looking build. Are you going to model the spider and web from the pictures above? Just kidding.
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Post by ChessieFan1978 on Mar 23, 2016 23:05:42 GMT -5
What Details West Pyle Headlights you use, I'm getting ready to detail a Family Lines unit.
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Post by iomalley on Mar 24, 2016 10:15:51 GMT -5
Hey Nick, I gotta say I've been watching this thread with interest, and I'm really excited to see some colour on it and your corrected graphics, but...the base of your cab looks like a$$, and I think you're going to regret it if you don't fix it up. Just a suggestion tho, as the rest of your build is spot on, I hate for you to have regrets. I've progressed on many projects leaving something questionable alone, and have had to sell the model because it bothered me so much. I'm not saying you're anywhere as nutty as I am, but if it were me.... No disrespect at all, just a friendly suggestion...
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Post by airchime30109 on Mar 25, 2016 21:32:05 GMT -5
Sean, thanks for the comment! No disrespect taken. I actually did sand down the 'rib' on all four corners of the cab because it does stick out too far. I think it looks much better now although I don't have any photos of it at the moment.
- Nick
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kcw
Road Foreman
Posts: 60
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Post by kcw on Sept 16, 2016 1:49:59 GMT -5
Sean, thanks for the comment! No disrespect taken. I actually did sand down the 'rib' on all four corners of the cab because it does stick out too far. I think it looks much better now although I don't have any photos of it at the moment. - Nick Any updates
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Post by airchime30109 on Oct 15, 2016 23:48:04 GMT -5
Got called back to work so I haven't had much time to do any modeling...railroad doesn't like giving me time off unless I am in the hotel, so it seems. I just bought a brass C30-7 that I absolutely had to have, so I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this plastic one or what I will do. There are lots of things about it that I do not like, such as the radiators not being the correct shape, and when I spliced the shells together the end shell result ended up being just a smidge too short, so there is a little gap between the shell and the end of the walkway. We will see what happens! I may sell it as is and let somebody else take a crack at finishing it, or I may finish it and sell it.
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