David, I'm not sure if there ARE any tricks involved... For the snow shields I printed out a couple photos and guesstimated the size, cut them out of .005 brass and bent them to shape, cut the attachment straps and bent them, ACC'd them to the bottom of the shield. Trim for height, paint, glue to the roof. Horn mount cut a brass strip, drilled a mounting hole and reused the horn set. Ditch lights used smallest evergreen tube cut very thin and enlarged hole to fit 0603 LED, glued to flat stock to form bracket, glued in 0603 Sunny white LED, drilled through body at correct location, routed wires to avoid nose piece (which holds coupler), tacked them down with glue, glued lights in appropriate place, soldered to F1 pads on (Digitrax) decoder (LEDs wired in parallel, no resistor needed). I put some Kapton tape across the top of the decoder just in case...gently put shell back on body being careful to not pinch the wires, and done. Took a bit of time, mainly waiting for glue and paint to dry. But the locos now look better and more prototypical IMO. Pretty happy with the results!
Jim, Nice job on those snow shields! I'm in the process of fabricating some right now for a couple of RI E units which were ex UP.
Thanks! Snow Shields would be a perfect thing for someone to do on rapid prototyping machines - Shapeways...Someone now has porch mounted ditchlights - a tremendous possibility for detail parts!
Jim, This may be a dumb question, but how did you make the clean bends on the outer edges of the shields?
I used a pair of narrow nose pliers as a brake. Worked for me, and on a couple that bent on the bias I was able to go back and rebend with no problem...
Been too long since an update. I've been on the layout regularly, just nothing particularly photoworthy. Here's some of what I've been doing: Here are my modified E9s again - there are at the moment only an AB set thanks to a non-standard Digitrax decoder. I'd bought three new boards when I bought the new E9s and they installed normally. And when I did the first A unit, seen here, everything was normal and worked just fine. When I got to the point on the second A unit where I needed to solder to the board, there were no function solder pads and the B unit board was the same. I emailed Digitrax who essentially told me I was nuts. And ordered another board. Here we focus in on the lead unit of the freight that's waiting for the passenger special to get in front. And what, you may ask, is different? The MU cable. Following a suggestion on The RailWire, as soon as the Atlas store reopened I ordered a bunch of their MU cables and am redoing the fleet - also in the process looking for fallen off details, just a general overall checkup. The difference between the decoder wire I was using and these is slight but these are better. It's a good project and one I'm glad I did.
Those E9's look great Jim, its amazing how much a few details and ditch lights can change the overall appearance of an engine. Phillip
Love the layout, giving me ideas for my Canadian pacific in the Rockies layout I am going to be starting soon. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
The real UP E9s have looked like that for quite a while now. One would think Kato would make some add-on parts. Cause you can't properly model the modern UP without them. But wait - they're Kato. And thanks Phillip and Syrous!
One more week of the E9s - this time showing the finished ABA set. First unlit: Then with both headlight and ditchlights (ditchlights are on F1); And finally on the road with their train:
Been working since late January on a major scenic change near Bealville - taking pix along the way. Hope for the unveiling in a couple weeks...thanks for the poke!
We're just south of the Bealville crossovers. I've got a project going here, building a ranch. No particular prototype. Here 'tis before I began: And here we are with the basic terraforming done and structures in place: Here's a slightly different view. There is a ton of detail to be added and things on the railroad are slow for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the arrival of spring in Middle Tennessee and the concomitant yard work.
