malibu43
Active Member
I've had a blue box Athearn rotary snow plow for probably 30 years. This was the black version with "Union Pacific 076" as the only decorative lettering out of the box. Several years ago I used some acrylic paint to paint the fan blades red and highlight the silver ladders/steps/grab irons.
A few weeks ago I ordered some replacement rubber bands to try to get the fan blade working again, and found that rather than the blade turning, the rubber bands caused the front wheels to seize up. After thinking about it for a while, I tried to change the mechanical ratio between the wheels and fan blade shaft by swapping the stock wheels with the big barrel axels for some with regular axels. However, the axels were so small in diameter, they didn't put enough tension on the rubber bands. I finally found that by wrapping about 1" of electrical tape around the axel, it put just enough tension on the rubber bands to spin the blade, but not so much that it kept the wheels from spinning. I also put two of the largest brass bolts I could find in the garage inside the shell to add as much weight as I could, which keeps the wheels from just sliding along the rails and helps to force them to turn.
At this point I decided to also buy the cheapest used Athearn F7B I could find on ebay to use as a tender. I sprayed both with black spray paint, and re-did the silver and red details. It's hard to see, but I cut some clear plastic from a fresh strawberry container and added window panes to both units. Finally, I found a sheet of SP MW decals on ebay and used those to number both units.
In the process of researching SP rotary plows for this project, I learned that this Athearn model represents steam powered prototypes that were built but never really used by SP. I saw some articles that talked about kit bashing to shorten this model so that it is more accurate to the prototype, but it was way more than I was interested in taking on right now.
A few weeks ago I ordered some replacement rubber bands to try to get the fan blade working again, and found that rather than the blade turning, the rubber bands caused the front wheels to seize up. After thinking about it for a while, I tried to change the mechanical ratio between the wheels and fan blade shaft by swapping the stock wheels with the big barrel axels for some with regular axels. However, the axels were so small in diameter, they didn't put enough tension on the rubber bands. I finally found that by wrapping about 1" of electrical tape around the axel, it put just enough tension on the rubber bands to spin the blade, but not so much that it kept the wheels from spinning. I also put two of the largest brass bolts I could find in the garage inside the shell to add as much weight as I could, which keeps the wheels from just sliding along the rails and helps to force them to turn.
At this point I decided to also buy the cheapest used Athearn F7B I could find on ebay to use as a tender. I sprayed both with black spray paint, and re-did the silver and red details. It's hard to see, but I cut some clear plastic from a fresh strawberry container and added window panes to both units. Finally, I found a sheet of SP MW decals on ebay and used those to number both units.
In the process of researching SP rotary plows for this project, I learned that this Athearn model represents steam powered prototypes that were built but never really used by SP. I saw some articles that talked about kit bashing to shorten this model so that it is more accurate to the prototype, but it was way more than I was interested in taking on right now.
