moonlighting_racer
Active Member
Breaking this into a separate thread in case we decided to kill the locomotive weathering thread too.
8707 was my first locomotive attempt and I think it went fairly well. These typically ran in pairs or trios though, so I wanted to make it a friend. Additionally these are pretty toy like models out of the box so its not super hard to find cheap ones on ebay. 8707 was $60 and 8700 was $50.
I learned a lot from 8707 and 2 subsequent YN2s I did, and I wanted to incorporate it to 8700 while also expanding my skillset and have these look good in a consist with my IM SD40-2. Uhhh... this escalated quickly. Trainworx grab irons, hoses and cut levers, sun shades, and a BLMA cab door.
First order of business was disassembly the sanding off the existing grab irons and the class lights from the nose. The camera is impossibly cruel and what looks good to the eye even under a magnifier looks terrible with a zoom. Cut the big stuff with a knife, then 320 file -> 1000 grit sandpaper. You can see it still looks a bit rough in spots even with the 1000.
The rear got similar treatment. Its virtually impossible to sand some of this stuff without hitting other details, I did my best. You can see the areas around the upper class lights and number boards aren't great.
I went to start drilling holes and realized that on the Trainworx template the holes are substantially smaller than my #80 bit. I started to drill them out, broke my last bit, and had to wait a week for replacements to arrive to finish the job. The rear in particular is a little drunk. I realized about half way through that I should be transferring the template to some painters tape, then drilling through the tape since it will actually stay in place. The front is better though you can see the heights are off slightly. You'd really need a drill press and a linear stage to do this correctly.
Still, the holes are there and short of filling and trying again, they are what they are. Let's install the irons I suppose. I used Kristal Klear since I just got it and wanted to try it out, but I'm wondering in hindsight if a gel superglue would've been the right move as it would've better filled the holes and I could've painted over any crazing. I started by just gluing the back side then switched to putting a drop in the hole before insertion as well. I may try to fill them some more once everything dries. I'm hoping I can improve the side to side alignment a bit too, the irons themselves are pretty flexible and will hopefully lozenge into a slightly more aligned position.
I did the fronts last and you can tell I got better. The glue filled the holes much more completely.
I read conflicting advice as to whether to install then paint, or the inverse, but I'm pretty sure if I'd painted first I would've scratched half of it off by the time I was done.
So next up, panel liner, clear coat, then painting the ends yellow. I'll probably try to panel line tomorrow but I've got some rolling stock in queue before I shoot any clear. I also need to 3D print a jig to support cutting the door out of the cab. Everything I read said just to use a knife, but I'm scared.
8707 was my first locomotive attempt and I think it went fairly well. These typically ran in pairs or trios though, so I wanted to make it a friend. Additionally these are pretty toy like models out of the box so its not super hard to find cheap ones on ebay. 8707 was $60 and 8700 was $50.
I learned a lot from 8707 and 2 subsequent YN2s I did, and I wanted to incorporate it to 8700 while also expanding my skillset and have these look good in a consist with my IM SD40-2. Uhhh... this escalated quickly. Trainworx grab irons, hoses and cut levers, sun shades, and a BLMA cab door.
First order of business was disassembly the sanding off the existing grab irons and the class lights from the nose. The camera is impossibly cruel and what looks good to the eye even under a magnifier looks terrible with a zoom. Cut the big stuff with a knife, then 320 file -> 1000 grit sandpaper. You can see it still looks a bit rough in spots even with the 1000.
The rear got similar treatment. Its virtually impossible to sand some of this stuff without hitting other details, I did my best. You can see the areas around the upper class lights and number boards aren't great.
I went to start drilling holes and realized that on the Trainworx template the holes are substantially smaller than my #80 bit. I started to drill them out, broke my last bit, and had to wait a week for replacements to arrive to finish the job. The rear in particular is a little drunk. I realized about half way through that I should be transferring the template to some painters tape, then drilling through the tape since it will actually stay in place. The front is better though you can see the heights are off slightly. You'd really need a drill press and a linear stage to do this correctly.
Still, the holes are there and short of filling and trying again, they are what they are. Let's install the irons I suppose. I used Kristal Klear since I just got it and wanted to try it out, but I'm wondering in hindsight if a gel superglue would've been the right move as it would've better filled the holes and I could've painted over any crazing. I started by just gluing the back side then switched to putting a drop in the hole before insertion as well. I may try to fill them some more once everything dries. I'm hoping I can improve the side to side alignment a bit too, the irons themselves are pretty flexible and will hopefully lozenge into a slightly more aligned position.
I did the fronts last and you can tell I got better. The glue filled the holes much more completely.
I read conflicting advice as to whether to install then paint, or the inverse, but I'm pretty sure if I'd painted first I would've scratched half of it off by the time I was done.
So next up, panel liner, clear coat, then painting the ends yellow. I'll probably try to panel line tomorrow but I've got some rolling stock in queue before I shoot any clear. I also need to 3D print a jig to support cutting the door out of the cab. Everything I read said just to use a knife, but I'm scared.
