the more I look at my P2K Phase I high hood

[blues90]

I don't know why when I got the u-dec phase I low model they already glued on the cab and DB blister , the only part that was not glued on was the walkway and low nose. On top of this I used a front range high hood and looking at it the front has the wrong spacing of the class lights and grabs , also the nose is not a sharp edge in the front of the hood but sort of flat you know the V point down the center. Then only solution I can come up with is to use the rear hood off the SF dec low nose and splice that on of get a cannon high hood front. If I could even find just a shell I would start over. As it is I have to work with what I have.

 

[sd24b]

I don't know why when I got the u-dec phase I low model they already glued on the cab and DB blister , the only part that was not glued on was the walkway and low nose. On top of this I used a front range high hood and looking at it the front has the wrong spacing of the class lights and grabs , also the nose is not a sharp edge in the front of the hood but sort of flat you know the V point down the center. Then only solution I can come up with is to use the rear hood off the SF dec low nose and splice that on of get a cannon high hood front. If I could even find just a shell I would start over. As it is I have to work with what I have.

I think Model Railroading magazine ran several articles on building a SRR and N&W high hood 30. Seems to me that they used Cannon's hood end. Phil

 

[el3637]

I presume you are talking GP30 and wanting to convert a low nose phase 1 to a high nose?

Before the P2K high nose versions were released I did one that I high nosed and also converted it from a phase 2 to phase 1. After Proto did the low nose phase 1, I started on another one but the project got back burnered and next thing I knew Proto was announcing both the high nose versions.

I started a web article on it which was almost eleven years ago... time flies... anyway I at least got through the high nosing part of the project, these are pre-digital photos scanned from film that's how long ago it was! http://gp30.com/models/nw552/ The first page is a lot of back-story and other fun, the real project starts page 2. I used a Cannon high nose entirely and this covers the modifications to both the nose and the cab to produce a model of N&W 522-565.

Andy

 

[blues90]

I presume you are talking GP30 and wanting to convert a low nose phase 1 to a high nose?

Before the P2K high nose versions were released I did one that I high nosed and also converted it from a phase 2 to phase 1. After Proto did the low nose phase 1, I started on another one but the project got back burnered and next thing I knew Proto was announcing both the high nose versions.

I started a web article on it which was almost eleven years ago... time flies... anyway I at least got through the high nosing part of the project, these are pre-digital photos scanned from film that's how long ago it was! http://gp30.com/models/nw552/ The first page is a lot of back-story and other fun, the real project starts page 2. I used a Cannon high nose entirely and this covers the modifications to both the nose and the cab to produce a model of N&W 522-565.

Andy

That was you? I saw that artical while doing a search on GP30-HH's and that's what made me see the way I did the cab roof to the HH was all wrong . I also saw your photo's on the old Atlas forum .

I am sort stuck now . the old front range GP30 high hood I got long ago was all that I had and it's one piece as you might know and now it's glued in place. My options now are to just use the front end of a cannon HH kit meaning I need to buy one. I was going to use the SF decorated shell I have which is a phase II but the one step is melted and then I need to correct the cab from phase 2 , all I needed was the drive but the shell came with it all used but in good shape and that means stripping the paint and starting all over .

Or I can just cut off the front range HH end and splice on the one from the rear of the SF dec shell and use a athearn GP38-2 short hood roof section . I fear now since this FR highhood is glued on I will break the shell cab and walkway trying to get it off .

The last option is I could live with the crappy front range HH front detail and just redue the cab roof to the HH proper. It never accured to me to use a cannon HH kit or I would have. I thought I had one cannon HH front end section because two come per pack and I used three but I can't find it .

Fixing the cab roof cowl? to the proper length is not a problem . What ever approach I use can't be worse than it is now. I just never looked or compared the front range HH end to the P2K GP30 long hood end. I am pretty good at cutting and filing and sanding parts to fit well without putty but certainly putty does come in handly.

 

[blues90]

Here is a photo of the front of my HH GP30

As bad as the photo is you can see the center line on the front of the short hood . It is not to a perfect V point , it is a bit flat . I noticed one thing . The headlamp is the proper distance below the top of the short high hood . but the number boards are a little low they should almost meet with the bottom of the head lamp. It is really difficult to tell from actual photo's what the proper dimentions should be as far as their proper placement. I can move the drop steps and class lights. I just don't know if I can get the sharp line in the center of the front hood.

 

[el3637]

The Front Range nose was an interesting product for its time. It was designed specifically for the Bachmann shell, and not really designed for the correct brow. At that time - like the fan spacing issue - most people weren't aware of it. There are even some brass high nose GP30s out there with the Brow Mistake, I built a Bachmann one and high nosed it back in 1979 using the back end of an Atlas SD35, and made the Brow Mistake. Some manufacturers - like Oriental Ltd./Challenger - caught the Brow Mistake but never did fix The Fan Mistake. To this date only two model manufacturers have done GP30s with the correct radiator fan spacing in any scale: Proto 2000 (which took some arm twisting) and Overland who got it right in the first place. Every other model is wrong, including some otherwise very nice ones.

A large scale manufacturer blew me off when I warned them about it at the Rosemont show one year, so I walked away. They got it wrong.... oh well. If I never influence anything again, I at least thing I had something to do with P2K's fans being corrected. Not directly, but by getting some other people on board with more influence, and giving due credit to the late Fred Dabney who was the first to actually notice the problem... I had built multiple GP30 models and never noticed it.

Andy

 

[blues90]

The Front Range nose was an interesting product for its time. It was designed specifically for the Bachmann shell, and not really designed for the correct brow. At that time - like the fan spacing issue - most people weren't aware of it. There are even some brass high nose GP30s out there with the Brow Mistake, I built a Bachmann one and high nosed it back in 1979 using the back end of an Atlas SD35, and made the Brow Mistake. Some manufacturers - like Oriental Ltd./Challenger - caught the Brow Mistake but never did fix The Fan Mistake. To this date only two model manufacturers have done GP30s with the correct radiator fan spacing in any scale: Proto 2000 (which took some arm twisting) and Overland who got it right in the first place. Every other model is wrong, including some otherwise very nice ones.

A large scale manufacturer blew me off when I warned them about it at the Rosemont show one year, so I walked away. They got it wrong.... oh well. If I never influence anything again, I at least thing I had something to do with P2K's fans being corrected. Not directly, but by getting some other people on board with more influence, and giving due credit to the late Fred Dabney who was the first to actually notice the problem... I had built multiple GP30 models and never noticed it.

Andy

I think what I'll try to do is cut the rear long hood end off the P2K Gp30 decorated in SF phase 2 shell and then figure out the headlight height . trainiax has 1:55 drawings that look correct so I can used those for reference then use the short hood roof I have when I cut off an Athearn GP38-2 to make it a cannon high hood. That roof is long enough to make the proper cowl . I really don't want to try to pry the frant range HH sides away from the battery boxes in fear of braking them . This way at least the nose will have the sharp edge to the V point and the proper class lights . As you know the front range HH has a V notch cut into the rear portion of the roof and it does fit perfect with the P2K . I figured if I run a bit of testors liquid cement inside where the FR HH is glued to the front walkway it may soften it enough to pull it free this is because the walkways have the grid plate that I don't want to file it off. Using the long hood end of the SF dec shell I can always cut below the class lights if I need to shorten the over all height and then slice it back together , this I will have to check , I know the headlamp is closer to the roof on the HH end than the long hood end.

It appears that the DB assembly is glued on with 2 pins in holes so hopefully I can get then off the SF low nose shell , trouble is for some insane reason P2K also glued them on the undec phase 1 shell as well and those are no DB blisters. Why they also glued the cab on an undec shell as they did mine is beyond me , the walkway and short hood were just snaped on.