My N&W 2578 - nee Nickel Plate 578 - is coming along. Doesn't look like much after something like 5 hours work over 3 nights but... there's not a whole lot of hard stuff left. Well. Maybe.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-001.jpg - replaced cab headlight with a DA 1024 with visors. The stress/cut marks inside the # boards are not going to hurt anything because this will be painted over on the outside.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-002.jpg - inside view shows the trimmed light insert drilled out for the Miniatronics bulbs.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-003.jpg - long hood with headlight replaced with DA standard Pyle. Which is what it had, but the holes were too big.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-004.jpg - inside view of the long hood again with most of the insert chopped off to make drilling out the headlight holes much easier. It still takes a while with an .050 drill and Zona pin vise. But apply much power and the whole thing melts into a blob.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-005.jpg - the low nose has 3 main modifications. 1) Mars light (DA 1007); 2) Dual sand fillers and original center hole plugged. I swiped the second sand fill from another C420; 3) cut out the rectangular "belfry". Bell is a DW styrene frame-mount bell glued to the inside of the nose. A couple pieces of styrene back it up. I had to cut one of the metal nubs off the chassis as well as shave back the worm cover to make sure the truck would clear the inside of the belfry.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-006.jpg - nose on view. I have not yet drilled the Mars light out. The nose wall is thin here so I will glue a chunk of styrene behind it so the bulbs will have a tube to slide into instead of dangling just on a ledge.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-007.jpg - chassis with A6X decoder installed. Notice no resistors - bulbs are grounded to the decoder's 1.5v function output. 6 bulbs all in parallel. Rear bulbs are on "yellow" and controlled by F1. Center (cab) bulbs are on "white" and controlled by F0. Front bulbs are on "purple" and controlled by F2, set as Mars function. Notice that the front of the nose weight has been cut off, and the rear of the nose weight has been cut down horizontally to make room for the rather large decoder. This weight can be made up by stacking some folded sheet lead on top of the decoder - insulated of course. The motor sets fairly low so there is room for maybe 5 layers of thin lead on top and still leave some air space and room to maneuver the wires. Hopefully this time I have enough slack in the wires - I've made the mistake several times of cutting them too short and not being able to get them all into position with the shell off and inverted. In this case I left ALL of the original bulb lead wire, twisted to clean it up a bit. There will be excess wire to squish inside, if it's a problem I'll just leave off the extra weight, or maybe glue a couple strips up under the roof of the long hood out of the way.
Still to deal with: pilot steps... too thick. Need to adapt some etched drop steps too. The pilot footboards I'll have to find somewhere else, the ones that come with the Atlas model are all wrong at least for this prototype. And there's an irregular opening below the draft gear... Atlas nicely reproduced this on their RS11, but not here for some reason.
Andy
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-001.jpg - replaced cab headlight with a DA 1024 with visors. The stress/cut marks inside the # boards are not going to hurt anything because this will be painted over on the outside.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-002.jpg - inside view shows the trimmed light insert drilled out for the Miniatronics bulbs.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-003.jpg - long hood with headlight replaced with DA standard Pyle. Which is what it had, but the holes were too big.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-004.jpg - inside view of the long hood again with most of the insert chopped off to make drilling out the headlight holes much easier. It still takes a while with an .050 drill and Zona pin vise. But apply much power and the whole thing melts into a blob.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-005.jpg - the low nose has 3 main modifications. 1) Mars light (DA 1007); 2) Dual sand fillers and original center hole plugged. I swiped the second sand fill from another C420; 3) cut out the rectangular "belfry". Bell is a DW styrene frame-mount bell glued to the inside of the nose. A couple pieces of styrene back it up. I had to cut one of the metal nubs off the chassis as well as shave back the worm cover to make sure the truck would clear the inside of the belfry.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-006.jpg - nose on view. I have not yet drilled the Mars light out. The nose wall is thin here so I will glue a chunk of styrene behind it so the bulbs will have a tube to slide into instead of dangling just on a ledge.
http://www.gp30.com/models/nw2578/nw2578-007.jpg - chassis with A6X decoder installed. Notice no resistors - bulbs are grounded to the decoder's 1.5v function output. 6 bulbs all in parallel. Rear bulbs are on "yellow" and controlled by F1. Center (cab) bulbs are on "white" and controlled by F0. Front bulbs are on "purple" and controlled by F2, set as Mars function. Notice that the front of the nose weight has been cut off, and the rear of the nose weight has been cut down horizontally to make room for the rather large decoder. This weight can be made up by stacking some folded sheet lead on top of the decoder - insulated of course. The motor sets fairly low so there is room for maybe 5 layers of thin lead on top and still leave some air space and room to maneuver the wires. Hopefully this time I have enough slack in the wires - I've made the mistake several times of cutting them too short and not being able to get them all into position with the shell off and inverted. In this case I left ALL of the original bulb lead wire, twisted to clean it up a bit. There will be excess wire to squish inside, if it's a problem I'll just leave off the extra weight, or maybe glue a couple strips up under the roof of the long hood out of the way.
Still to deal with: pilot steps... too thick. Need to adapt some etched drop steps too. The pilot footboards I'll have to find somewhere else, the ones that come with the Atlas model are all wrong at least for this prototype. And there's an irregular opening below the draft gear... Atlas nicely reproduced this on their RS11, but not here for some reason.
Andy
