Excellent work! You're going to fall in love with your alps after you make your first set In addition to engineshops tip: I print white, then finish, then white, then a last finish to smooth it all out. Finish isn't actually any pigment.. it just kind of smooths everything out for you. Tim
Nice job Jamie. You'll find the vinyl works great. I do the "sar" on the hoods of my diesels that way. grant
Thanks for all the kinds words everyone. I started a separate topic for the BHP unit in a new thread here: http://www.trainboard.com/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/9/t/008289.html I tried to answer the questions related to that unit in that thread.
Painting Metra's F40-PH Hi Jamie' I am doing some models of these also. So you were able to strip the Kato paint? That means I wasted $96 on three new undec shells. Oh well, I have plenty of spares now, HaHaHa. I did a pair of Life-Like F40-PH's in Metra colors 5 years ago. I used Badger Modelflex Amtrak Red and Amtrak Blue for the colors. The blue is a little too dark. In the photo, the bright sunlight makes the blue look a little greenish, but that's a camera illusion. Your model is very good with the real hand grabs. For my models, the Kato "Amtrak" horns are wrong for Metra, did you find the Metra horns at Sunrise details? The old Life-Like horns are stacked more like Metra's. The Kato cab top headlight is single, a dual unit from Sunrise will fix that. I will be using the Sunrise Ditch light details for all 4 nose lights. On the old models, I used fiber op's and cut the decals, fair simulation. I am installing my own operating ditch light circuits in my Metra's. Your model F40-PH is a great example of craftsmanship. I will use your example as a standard to shoot for. Jamie, keep it up! Sincerely, Forrest Skidmore
Painting Metra's F40-PH Sorry Jamie, I meant to show this front photo of the ditch lights. This a primitive model with Life-Like Models, but I learned a lot from doing these models. I painted the areas at the lights silver, then cut the decals to show the shiny light fixtures, then put fiber ops through the body with 0603 leds behind the fiber's ends. They look WAY cool flashing down the tracks! Forrest Skidmore
Hey Forrest thanks for the kind words, tips and suggestions... I actually filed down a few pieces of styrene to make the mounts for ditch lights. I took some sunrise units and filed them and drilled them out but I haven't mounted them. Now that winter is setting in I have a bunch of projects to finish up including this one! I'll post more photos when I make some progress. Meanwhile be sure to post up photos on your progress as they will make more good reference material for this thread. - jamie
I realize this is old news, but I wanted to comment on the Metra blue questions. In looking at the paint samples, the blue that BNSF7173 suggests looks a lot more like the old RTA blue then the newer Metra Blue. Prior to the Metra branding, the blue was lighter and looked just a smidge greener. The colors on the Metra versions are much much more vibrant.
Well mine are done, all five of them. These are not as detailed as Jamies as these were a custom run for a local hobby shop. YoHo, after more research you are right, the blue I originally gave Jamie was the older light blue, I found however if I added 5 parts BAR blue to the original formula, the color looked like the newer blue. We'll see how they sell. My only complaint was the way Kato has these assembled, they are kind of a pain to re-assemble. I'll add more pictures of these on my blog tomorrow, I'm off to bed. Jim
Fantastic job, all of you! I'm going to do 3 F40's in Via for a customer--how bad are they to disassemble? At least I have 3 undecs!
Not really bad, just more than the older Kato releases. First, be carefull when you take the body off. Start by spreading the rear of the unit as there is a plastic J hook that is part of the clear for the rear porthole. This clip on the conductor side is held on to the frame. You need to push the strob lights carefully from the inside through the body, don't be tempted to pull them out as you may break them. Start with the rear light, then rear glass. Next push the two strobes out, now with tweezers, gently pull up and away the headlight plastic followed by the gray plastic "interior" and pull back. To get the two piece windows, I used my tweezers to pull in and away from the shell. Carefully push the red plastic light into the body, don't loose it! Now with tweezers yet again, pull out the horn assembly. I hope that helps Hemi, it took just about 25 minutes to disassemble five units. Jim
My Metra F40-PH progress. It's been so long, I forgot how the post function works. I want to update this thread with a progress report on my F40-ph's. I have started painting 2 new Lifelike locomotives for a trial/test run before I do my Kato units. Kato's F40-PH is an Amtrak unit with the air horns recessed about 10 scale inches into the roof, and with only one headlight above the windshield. I am correcting those deviations from Metra units with inserts made from 1/8" x .040" Evergreen Plastic styrene, and dual headlight fixtures from Sunrise (metal) and Detail Associates (plastic). I am using SolidWorks CAD software to print out masks and templates for painting details on the F40-PH bodies. I use sharp scissors to cut the masks printed on Avery label paper and/or .0005" thick Reynolds Wrap type aluminum foil. I will try to upload some photos of my progress. Forrest
To get the Alps to print white, you will need a set of drivers. The default Windows drivers will NOT permit printing of white. Let me know if you need the XP drivers and I'll send a copy to you (or you can get them off Ebay like I did). Each Alps printer has it's own personality....believe me on this. It's a little like artistry getting the printout to be what you want. Anyway, good luck and have fun!
Thanks for the encouragement, Richard. Hi Richard, Thanks for the kind words. My goal is to show the progress and the mistakes I made to help others avoid the same problems. I have only painted 5 or 6 engines in my life, so I am learning fast what doesn't work. In this post, you can see close up that my cheap masking tape does NOT do a good job on the orange/blue border. I will use ordinary Scotch Magic tape for edge masking the next Kato Metra engine, and use a lighter coat of paint. I laid it on pretty heavy to see what would happen. The Scalecoat II paint is far superior for not bleeding under masking tape than any water based paint I have used so far. Later, I will try some Tamiya masking tape which I have heard is very good. I had problems gluing the BLMA MU cover to the front with thick super glue. The super glue slightly damaged the white and orange decal. Should I try using blue paint to attach the MU cover on the next model, OR does anyone have ideas how to best do this? You can see in the photos that I touched up the white ares on the decal, and I didn't trim the decal to exact fit on the bottom right side. Hopefully, that area will be covered by the LED ditch light that will go there. It's nice having spare shells to use as rough drafts!:tb-err: Forrestgs
Here's some inspiration for the ditch lights. I used fiber optics and ran them back to the main bulb used for the headlights. At some point in the future, I may convert them to LED's and hard wire them to the decoder for independent control. For now, this allows easy access to the frame if anything happens. I used Sunrise Enterprise ditch light castings that I've had in the parts bin forever. Brian
Nice ditch light installation! Hi Brian, Your ditch lights look terrific! The engine must look cool going through a station or crossing. I have some plans for my Metra unit's lighting systems. I hard wire my LEDs to my circuit board like you said for alternating flashes like the prototype. My circuit is not DCC though, it is DC. I have photos and movies (.MOV) that show what I do. Forrestgs
