The Freelanced Blackwolf Mountain Line (Equipment/Layout Progress)

DragonFyreGT Apr 10, 2017

  1. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Hey One last update for the month. Again no pics. Sadness. Ah well. So I stripped the door frames/diaphragms off both of my F-Units. All is filed down even and we'll try again. In September I will be ordering the Diaphragms and B-Unit Kits. The reason for this is I need a spare set to go with the spare Diaphragm and when I swap the B to a powered a-unit chassis I'm going to sell the A as a detailed dummy.

    So I just odered a set of Kadee #158s. Kadee gave me some help. They said that the instructions weren't clear but the stock Stewart draft gear Boxes should have been used in the rear but since I no longer have them, they said that since the stewart boxes take a #5 or #58 with a centering spring that the standard Kadee Draft Box should fit with filing of the sides. That got me thinking. 158's are just 58's but self centering. Their draft boxes are the same height. But no filing of the side. So I'll be installing and testing them. If This works great. But if it doesn't I'll figure something out. Scenario C is the height is still too high and I cycle these over to my roling stock that need them (My Power Car Baggage Car project comes to mind) and order a set of 58 Overset shanks. This will also make it easier to install the shell's buffer parts and not worry about couplers coming off in 30 dozen pieces. As for the A-Unit front, I plan on mounting a 158 Box some how. Without the use of that monstrosity Kadee wants me to use.

    Snubber shocks are also ordered as is the speed recorder cable. I won't be skipping those parts this coming month. I also went ahead and ordered the pin Vise set that pretty much has every drill bit my heart could ask for. I figured I Might need it to install the speed recorder and the snubber shocks. It also means i Can start installing the reversing lights soon. Figured'd it was easier this way. Sadly nothing for the fuel tanks, their back to October. And one final nail finished is the sound unit sounds. Both F9A/B will have ESU Loksound Direct Fit with the EMD 567D3, Copper Bell, and Nathan M3 Horn. Well the bell and Horn on the A-Unit. Boosters didnt' have bells did they? Ah well. Next Updates as the parts come in. Many thanks to Mr. Trainiac. You really helped out in a big way.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
  2. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Happy August everyone. Happy there's been a delay in my parts for the month. They're going to be here next week. EMD Snubbers, Speed Recorder Cable and some Kadee 158's to try and fix the coupler issue with my Stewart Kit. And as always plans have changed. So while we wait for the parts to come into the workshop, there's going to be some changes to parts and what not with my update schedule.

    To start with, the Dash 9 is in the shops until further notice. A Combination of the diaphragm issue, coupler issue and new parts finally showing up I've been after is putting her on ice, but only temporarily. For now she'll bunker down in the sheds for the winter. The parts in question are a set of winterization hatches i've been after for a while. THere are better versions of them and I'd tell you what type but everytime I do this something goes wrong. So we'll call them winterization hatches minus the type. To buy them x2 with their seperate grills I'd have to double the order and everything comes out to over 80 bucks. Buying these two diecast ones will cost me a total of 35 bucks with shipping. Obviously I Won't do this all at once.

    Over the next two months a winterization hatch and a B-Unit Detail Kit from Details West will be bought. This pushes all other projects back to next year as in November I have my g/f's XMas gift to pickup (Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon for 3ds if anyone is wondering) and Xmas shopping in December. This also means that when the hatches show up I'll have to pickup a pin vise kit and open up the vents for a photo etched brass part. I'm thinking of using this part from Plano: http://www.planomodelproducts.com/212-c-l.jpg simply because it gives me a good sized sheet to practice with.

    Once the hatches are bought and prepped and test fit, we can move onto the exhaust fans and Spark Arrestors on the roof. As for the underframe parts. As mentioned before I cannot do the Hi-Tech battery box/tank kit until the bottom of the frame gets milled down. If someone knows if a metal chassis can be filed down flat, let me know and i May go down that route. Next the Fuel Tank extension details are on hold til Feb. January will be the diaphragm kit to finish that off. Than we can start working on the underframe although I do plan to cut the skirts the way I want them to be done ahead of time. And if I have time this month I'll cut the "Battery Box" part of my frame cover off.

    Other parts I might be doing is the organization of the roof details. I'm going a bit out there being that I saw NS' Thouroughbreds had a round GPS dome on the roof. I'm essentially behind the rotoray beacon placing a squared off dome with sinclaire antenna/wire (in the Details West Kit) and then oppositeo f that another small sinclaire antenna. And between the dome and the edge of the roof said small dome antenna. I say there with a friend of mine on facebook and we said "hey what if...." haha. I have to put the usual F-Unit grab irons over the cab windows and sides as well along with using a 3 chime horn (from Cal Scale) to mount. All of this seems to be going down the "I can but" route. Since most parts will have to be painted before final installation.

    We're getting there, slowly. Is it jsut me or is this hobby a continuous "3 steps forward 10 steps backwards" situation. Than again, do we ever actually finish working on our layouts. Oh well. Detail Part installations next week. Cheers.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
  3. StickyMonk

    StickyMonk TrainBoard Member

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    Looking at your issues with KD couplers on your Stewart F units got me thinking about mine, these are the couplers on my F7A and F7B[​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
     
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  4. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Nice weathering on those BN F units. Looks quite real!
     
  5. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Many thanks for the awesome photos, Matthew. My 158's Showed up today. Well I should have known. I live 3 hours form Champaign IL where they shipped from. I put the 158 boxes together with the couplers and screwed them into the close coupling braket. I may need to switch to Short Center Shank whiskers later but I won't know for sure until I begin final assembly of the Diaphragms which will be early next year. For now, they are indeed matching the height gauge. And now much more easy to take apart and reassemble for thinks like the coupler buffer. One screw got away from me but I'll find it. Atm I am using my height gauge screw as a stand in for the front of the F9B (No photo of that but it's all level height wise). And as I said in previous threads if I have to switch couplers, I use 158's on my rolling stock now so I have some cars taht need conversions, but the spare 158 (No mounting solution for the A-Unit and I am NOT going to use the stewart/kadee assembly for it, I'll igure something else out later) will go to replace the broken one on my TOFC. It literally took a car wreck, a totaled car wreck, to break a kadee coupler knuckle. So for those who are unsure about their quality, I am speaking about it now and 100 percent endorsing them for all scales they produce for. Anyways enough product placement, Enjoy the photos:

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Have a great weekend and hopefully sometime early next week I'll have the rest of the parts ready for showoff. One note, because I am waiting to pickup a powered Steawrt F9A for a chassis swap with my dummy B, I will not be installing the Snubber shocks on the B-Units trucks. When the powered chassis is bought which will be hopefully sometime next year, I will install them. For now I can do the other modification work. And since the coupler mounts pop out of the chassis on Stewart Units, I can swap my couplers over too. Neat. Anyways, That's it for now.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
  6. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Well Good news and Bad news. Lets getthe bad news out of the ay. My speed recorder cables showedu p mangled. ANd because the seller I bought them from didn't get shipping insurance and refuses to do a return, I'm essentially... yeah. So for now those are on hold. The good news, though is the Snubbers survived the USPS mangling. Well one set did. So I have them primed before installation to make them easier to see. I'll get those installed as soon as I can. I do have one other project I'm working on.

    It's a christmas gift for my uncle. I'm using one of my intermountaain flatcars to do a close but not quite prototype of a log flat car. I'll post photos in the workbench thread tomorrow once I'm finished painting it. So until I get those snubbers installed. Later.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
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  7. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Mandetory Update. Warning The Train has massively derailed. Okay so here's the deal. I was hoping to have the winterization hatches done this month. Bowser Trains let me go to the paypal page and it redirected me back (like it always does) and nothing went through. So I said "okay." and moved on to Miniatures by Eric. They have several parts I need incuding this months order of a set of 3 F-Unit Door Frames/Lift Rings Doors etc. One piece cast which I was hoping would shortcut me. Well I Ordered them on the 1st of September and here we are with notthing yet. No email saying they shipped, no response to my emails I sent (The only contact info I could find was the shopify email for Eric). I don't know what's going on. Clearly no refund was issued as it doesn't track in my paypal like the purchase that wen through showed.

    I'm hopeful they will be here. But for now there's literally nothing I can do as this was the modeling budget for the month. And next month is Halloween and I'm treating myself to an upgrade to my airsoft gear so I won't be picking up parts or doing much work til Decemer. Either way. On the positive side my Pin Vise is here so I can start doing some more intricite work. I'm also almost finished with the flatcar and once it's done I'll post photos of it. So for now just keep your eyes peel as I try to figure out what exactly went wrong. Derailments. Oy.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
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  8. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Well here's a back to back update. My parts arrived from Miniatures by Eric. I'm not going to go into a customer review per say, although an email letting me know the item was mailed would have been nice. But Overall the wait was worth it. These parts are very well done. I will have to do some filing to clean them up but hey for Lost Wax Casting they are amazing. They look like the pewter parts from Details West but seem to be more solid and are a one piece F-Unit Door/Frame/Buffer/Lift Ring casting. So I have to prime, glue and install which will get done later.

    For now enjoy these part pictures:
    [​IMG][​IMG]

    I have to admit, I'm loving it. So as before stated I might be able to squeeze some parts in on november, but I'm christmas shopping november/december and I have an airsoft pistol upgrade coming next month. We'll see how this goes but next on my docket is a few more tools and Dash-9 Parts next. Train keeps on rolling. I will have installed photos shortly this coming week. So fingers crossed. I'm being very picky about this because the only locomotives that survived my original set were these Steart Units and so as the front face of my layout I want them to look their absolute best. That's not to say I'm skimping on my others Either. I am also tempted to resrpay my BN Executive GP35/GP60B to BWM color but I haven't made that decision yet. Til the next update.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
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  9. Mr. Trainiac

    Mr. Trainiac TrainBoard Member

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    Now that is some work ethic! Is this the second door set? I can really respect re-doing it until it is right. Sometimes I don't want spend money on parts and just wing it, but a good model is worth it.
     
  10. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    THanks for the kind words. Yes this is my second attempt at this. I ran the Details West frame/door and the American Limited Models Diaphragm kit except I may have run the Athearn Kit not the Stewart Kit. It didn't work too well nor was anything laying down right. I refiled the ends even and ordered this kit to avoid having to install the doors seperately as Details West Requires. Now DW makes fine parts, don't get me wrong, I'm just willing to save time and steps where possible.

    And since I only have 8 locomotives wearing my paint scheme, I figure I will take the time to super detail them. THings like the Lease power Wisconsin Central/CN Units, Amtrak P42s (Exception being I will be running the Heritage Phase 1 Unit) and my Short Line Logging Company (Now named T.O.R.R. or That Other Railroad, Thanks on/Dan of TSG Multimedia for the inspiration), I really don't care if they are super detailed or RTR's out of the box. A Few exceptions and compromises do have to be met, Ie the side grills, Stewart for the day did great side grills that looked real even though they are molded in. and since my fans/winter hatch will have see through screens, I can mount my speaker below them. The dash 9's lower grills, I will mask for painting but do they need to be see through? Naw. I figure with what I'm doing enough detail work will be done that I can skip a few things and you won't really notice. After all that's what grill/fan weathering is for right? I spent almost 10 years putting this concept into planning, now I'm finally attempting to finish it, one blunder at a time.

    This all started with a BN Rainbow passenger set I started building. I changed my mind on the F-Units long after I bought them, so having them be my flagship Blackwolf Mountain F Units (Now designated F9-Au and F9-Bu to designate a T4 Compliance Rebuild) reqires a lot of "don't settle for it until you're absolutely sure you love it." mentality. After all I don't want to go back and repaint something becuase I had to fix a mistake on it.

    I will also say if you need Canadian specific parts or parts no one else makes, Give Miniatures by Eric a look, the parts are well worth it.

    -DragonFyreGT
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
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  11. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    5 Months. Thats how much time was spent aligning, fixing and trying to close couple these units without destroying the shells. I finally decided to file down the ends as flat as I can. Here's what I realized. Back in the day, Stewart tooled the F Unit Shells a bit different and they began to look more prototypical vs companies like Athearn. We all know this in fact I've learned through research that this is why their shells are still relevant today. But the ends were not tooled right. If you compare the F-Unit rear with the plugs on companies like Rapido (where Shron basically 3d Scanned a Real F-Unit) and a part maker like MBE, you can see it wasn't done right. This is a minor inconvience. But after months of the "back Door Drama", I am calling this close enough. THe F9B's rear is not fully aligned, it's slightly higher, and there is a minor gap between the A Unit. I can remedy this by fixing it with some squadron putty and even then with the rear Ladder Grabs, you won't really notice that gap so much unless you're looking for. Drat I shouldn't have said that than. Oh well.

    This brings us to the next phase of this drama story. At the moment I am running Kato's maximum Unitrack curves, 34" (roghly) curves. In order to run these girls on that radius, I have to leave diaphragms off. Or switched out the Kadee 158's for 146's between the units. Or I can switch out the curves for Trix 43" radius curves which will ease the tension up. And this time by using the correct kit and assembling it correctly from American Limited Models, I hope that the sprung tension from the kit will make it a bit easier. I will however, refrain from parking these girls on curves. If this doesn't work with the Curves/Diaphragms in place, than at the very extreme, I will swap the unprototypical 146's into the mix to solve this issue. I will be picking the diaphragm kit up in November, and the track sometime next year. Hopefully all works out. But after this drama, I'm finally done with door section and ready to move onto the bigger kits out there and subframe work. Also the Snuggers are primed and ready but I need to pick up a sprue cutter so I can lower the risk of them flying all over the place. B-Unit truck work gets done AFTER I have a DCC Ready Powered Chassis for my booster.

    For Now, enjoy some long overdue photos of progress work, Unprimered and Primered:
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    -Nate
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
  12. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Happy Early Turkey Day. I hope your October was spooktacular. I Liker Halloween. I get candy even as an adult because I'm having fun and participating with my family. Also I got to do an airsoft zombie house run this year so it was great. And while my bb gun break was a nice change of pace, the work in the locomotive shops never ends. And Apparently neither does the giaphragm Drama....again.

    So this post is partially update and partially me venting some frustration. I picked up the Stewart F-Unit American Limited MOdels kit. I am no stranger to these kits. Having assembled a few in the past didn't prepare me for the drama that ensued yesterday when they showed up. The holes on the springs you mount on the inner belows.....were not done correctly during the injection process and I couldn't get them on. And we all know what happens if you don't have the springs. For those who don't they won't keep your diaphragms in place and on curves, the diaphragms will stay turned. So I bit the bullet and ordered another one from a different seller and it's the gray version with a photo to boot on ebay and i could see this would hopefully be a lot less trouble and there will be updates on this later this month. I ordered the Two A's or 1 B kit. I'll be ordering another one next month along with some 146 Kadees as recommended by someone on Model Railroaders forum. But those are for connecting the backs of the units to each other as they will not ever be connected any other way.

    But that's not all. I got some Micro-Mark Same Stuff Plastic Welder as seen on TSGMultimedia's Model Building From Start To Finish. It's a thin watery liquid that when you brush it on say metal, does nothing but if you brush it on two pieces of plastic and hold the pieces together, it welds them in place. Now to attach the diaphragm kits back plate on my doorways I need CA Slow Jet for this. I use Slow Jet so I have time to fiddle and get it right. After that, I'll take the diaphram and Same-Stuff Weld it to the open plastic side. And to boot a lot of my g-scale stuff has been repaired with this stuff. I'm blown away.

    So this is going to be the last two major projects on the F-Units this year. I am also picking up a sprue cutter next month so I can attach the snubber shocks on the A-Unit. I have to wait to find a powered chassis for the B-Unit for any truck work. I lso worked out a cheaper solution to milling down the part of my frames that aren't holding the motor in place so I can put the Hi-Tech Details battery box/airtank in. I'm getting a diamond tipped file designed for metal/glass and I'm going to hand file it down. Then I'll get the Hi_Tech kit, assemble, test fit and hopefully get the fuel tank extension skirts down. Feels like the end is almost in sight. Ah well. I've chewed everyone's ear off enough for this post.

    I'll see you guys in a week or so with profress updates on the new kit.

    -DragonFyreGT
    BlackWwolf Mountain Owner/Operator.
     
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  13. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Okay so this post is long overdue but a primer for tomorrows post. I had to order MORE diaphragm kits after the springs disappeaered while cutting them off the sprue tree. This time I ordered a sprue cutter and two more of the gray kits. Well out of the 4 diaphragms, 2 are ready, the others lost springs again. So next year ANOTHER kit is getting ordered and this will be finished up. Right now the back plates are drying and curing on the locomotive shells and indeed I will need 146 Kadee's between them. I also ordered a set of GE Snubers after the EMD ones fell apart after trying to nip them off according to the installation instructions. I don't think most people will notice and at this point, I don't care. Close enough is fine by me.

    I will have photos tomorrow once I install the diaphragms onto the back plates so stick around because by hell or high water I am getting two of these installed. I also didn't instally the long vertical springs as they wouldn't fit but it doesn't matter it isn't affecting the functionality of the diaphragms, I tested them. I also removed the broken cooling coils from the roof and will be ordering new ones to install along with hopefully my winterization hatches. Now on that note, my fingers are coated in Slow Jet and I need to fall down in a pit because this diaphragm assembly project is stressful and I am so angry and frustrated at how the parts do not come consistantly produced that i Need to walk away before I punch a wall. I get it it's part of the hobby to get frustrated At least 2 of the 3 are done so I'm calling this a victory.

    EDIT: I also cut too high up on my shells to open up the area for my Hi-Tech Battery/Tank kit. I also filed too much and made a ding. To correct this I will be mountain an AEI (Modern ACI) Tag over it with a bracket underneath to cover up the mistake. I am slso going to leave the battery box areas unskirted BN/GN Style while making the fuel area with it's extension skirts be skirted in the SP/WP style. Blending of both worlds. Especialyl since I realized i have the SP Freight Plow installed instead of the BN/GN one. I'm also going to mount the HEP Mufflers in a V pattern to do something unique and different.

    Anyone else have days like this where everything and anything goes constantly wrong?

    -DragonFyreGT aka Nate
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2017
  14. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    And now from the Evergreen Engineyard Facility in (fictional) Pine Ridge, WI..... I present to you....Working, sprung diaphragms on the ECR Rebuilt F9A-4u and F9B-4u Cab locomotives! (the 4u is my railroads rebuilt tag for the F-Units T4 Complience Upgrades).
    [​IMG]

    This has been a nightmare project that as stated in last night's tread is still ongoing. But barring if I find any of my missing upper springs for the last kit, I have at least something to show for my lost money and frustration. The outter bellows on the A-Unit needs to have glue painted on and pressed down (possible with force from the front pressing into my PS2'docking station in the photo) which shouldn't affect the working diaphragms. That being said, despite the couplers being slightly too short, I did test tem on my Kato Unitrack 34" radii track. And the good news is that the diaphramgs are staying together and springing back. I think for this project to have tkaen almost a year to finish the results are...well more than "good enough" I'm going to run with this and call it a success. I don't think I'll need 146's on the rear or rather the "front" of the B unit but that depends on the first business car behind it which is my power/generator baggage car. Well get there in due time. But I digress, next year the last kit (if need be) and the couplers.

    Now lets move on to blunder 2 that actually is working in my favor. One of the things i wanted to do with these girls is not only make them the head and face of the railroad but make them be something unique that stands out within freelance prototype direction. The story goes that the last locomotives aquired secondhand by the railroad which was formed in 1974 were a pair of F-Units aquired from the BNSF Railway, still in cascade green. The original plan was to loot the 567c's for their aging GP40's (It was determined at the time that the 35's were solid despite being secondhand and were structurally sound). But it turned out that the F's prime movers needed more work than they had bargined for and after more inspection the 40's were not structurally sound and to repair them would be futile and costly. Compromises were made so that the parts were stripped from the 40's and given to the F's who would run in their cascae green until 2007 when the Blackwolf Mountain's aging fleet begain to show even more age. Hence CN Swoops in for a partnership agreement. At reduced cost, help transfer WC cargo to Thunder Bay ON, sharing trackage rights from Minnesota to Ontario in exchange for funding to keep their fleet running. 8 Locomotives were designated as non money pits that were sound enough for repairs. And it was the F's that were chosen to be the prototype test. The rest as they say is .... in my head. But seriously that's the backstory designed around the youngest aquistions. Two F's that refuse to die.

    So later on, T4 Upgrades, prime mover becomes the infamous 567E (567 Core with 645 parts, it's a real thing railroads did after the 567c was no longer supported by EMD), and full presidential treatment. Dual service in freight runs and business train runs. This comes to the blunder I made with the half deskirting. Cutting too far up. But then I looked at several prototype and modeling photos over at Details West website. GN/BN had deskirted F-Units. So I felt that by having the battery boxes deskirted with the AEI tags there (covering up a filing mistake on the A Unit) and the fact that I'm running these girls back to back, that it would symmetrically blend well with the SP/WP style skirting they used with their 1500 gallon fuel tank extensions. And since Details west provides a matching skirt to fit those parts, I'm going to use it as a template to custom cut the skirts on my shells. Stewart Shells are great. Yes the step ladders are a little on the thick side but compared to other F-Units of the era, they are quite more prototypically in scale which is all that matters. I feel that coupled wit hthe V pattern HEP Mufflers (Explanation on that in a moment) will make them standout as much as their paint will. So that being said ere's the deskirting on the battery boxes:
    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Okay onto future projects. The Diaphragms/Kadees are on the list as is the fuel tanks and battery box kit from Hi-Tech. I'm also going to be picking up next year the dual headlight housings for the nose MARS light/Red Emergency stop light (A red jewl non functional) and hte dual headlights in the doors. Rooftop cooling coils and winterization hatches aswell and then I'm going to arrage my HEP Mufflers in a v-pattern. This goes back to when I was installing Steam generators on the BN versions of these girls. I drilled one hole and never did anything with it. So I'm going to mount the HEP mufflers from that hole to form a v-pattern for something really unique and I'll do that once the lift rings are in place.

    I do have the Details Associate GE Snub Shocks. I will be installing those soon and will get photos. These are preassemble unlike the EMD ones and yes there is some differences and I'm okay using these because how many people are going to know? And after all if it bothers them so much, well then don't look at them. I think one of the biggest problems with the hobby is how overcritical we can be. We forget that new people need to do what they want to learn the way they want and that's what drives kids away from the hobby, that close minded "There is only one way to do it right" mentality which is okay for things like wiring but modeling There is no wrong thing to model. That's the beauty of freelancing your railroads, the creativity that spills onto the layout from your mind.

    Well that's two posts long overdue and At this point I'm going to go fall down in a pit for a few hours because that project practically killed me. Nerves wise that is. So until the shocks get installed (which I'm working on a cradle mount for that atm).

    -DragonFyreGT ak Nate
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
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  15. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Just a minor update. The back plate on my A Unit slid during it's drying phase. it broke as I was prying it off but i'm in the process of trying to fix it to salavage the kit I also retweaked the springs so they function properly and if all goes a planned, I'm going to file down the doorways a bit so I can get some space for the bellows to touch but the kadees to couple without me having to lift up and then down. But overall it works and despite needing another kit, I got something to show for it. This is going to bring me to my nexxt question.

    I might change my paint scheme up. You've all seen it with black frames (see the first post in this thread if you haven't) bur I'm toying with painting the underframes a UP Armor Gray or the gray that GN used on the big sky blue paint. The cut levers would still be red andi t would be the underframe/trucks/ coupler buffer/plow/etc. So wat do you guys think? Black underframe or Gray Underframe?

    -DragonFyreGT aka Nate
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
  16. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I have always wondered about installing diaphragms on F unit models, and how they effected operations...

    On the paint scheme, maybe a version of each in a paint program, to compare? Are you planning to weather these?
     
  17. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    I had thought about doing that last night and for some reason didn't. Okay so I dug through Rapido's Proto-Paint section (Since they have the Amtrak Heritage Blue and Red that are my cut lover and blue ase paints and out of all the grays they had, the gray that looked good to me was the B&O Gray. I tried to match it up as close as possible in paint and did a rough overpaint of the black on the locomotive sheats, so pardon any lbeed over on the art lines haha.

    [​IMG]
    I'm sorta torn now, I think they both look good.

    -DragonfyreGT aka Nate
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
  18. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I agree they both look good. That being said, I am going to vote for the black tank and trucks. I believe those will blend best with the car body colors.
     
  19. DragonFyreGT

    DragonFyreGT TrainBoard Member

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    Happy New Year. 2017 Went by fast. And things got tied up in december with the holidays along with a project that keeps getting in the way. Well this year has started off alright. The F9's diaphram is now installed with it's new backing plate correctly. This hs also confirmed to me that I Need 146 set of Kadee scale whisker knuckles. From all my research in models and prototypes, the first part of the knuckle should always be visible from under the diaphragms. So now that solves the coupler dilema and I Have other cars that will be getting a set of 158 donars. I am in the process of installing the F9B's front (rear) diaphragm.

    The snubbers are on hold barring me finding a way to stopthe trucks from moving while I get them glued down. But that brigs me to the next project and this will get updated with photos. Final Horn Selection, Nathan M3RT1. Just ordered the 3 chime horn casting from Cal Scale and I'll be installing it right away since the horns will be blue like the roof. I've also got the horns for the Dash 9/8 locomotives worked out as they'll be sporting a pair of Leslie RS3L's. Little by little the details are sorting themselves out.

    Februwary's plans are going to be the acuisition of the rooftop cooling coils, my hobby knife set (to clean up the roof from the old broken ones) and the winterization hatches. As for March, I plan on spending my birtday trying to find a stewart/kato DCC Ready powered chassis/locomotive. And this one is getting fully canabalized for parts. I try to plan these out ahead so I don't get lost in the shuffle of things, but as always something always blocks me from picking up what I need that month (like having to buy a new phone this month, which btw ws worth it). Anywas I'll post an update next week when the horns come in or wben I get the diaphragms finished off.

    So until what will be a new update shortly....
    -DragonFYreGT aka Nate
    Blackwolf Mountain Owner/Operator
     
    BoxcabE50 likes this.
  20. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    It did. Wow. :eek:
     

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