Hello all, I recently drew up a high hood conversion kit for the Atlas GP35. This is my third one (I'm working my way up to the GP30 -SO MANY WIERD ANGLES!) Anyways, I'm pretty happy with how this one looks, and I'm quite confident the fit on the Atlas shell will be good. This kit would be appropriate for both N&W (with addition of an all weather cab) and SOU (with the addition of SOU style sunshades) Norfolk Southern, and of course everyone who bought them second hand from those roads. The glass from the original cab can be reused, and I have included holes to add grab irons, windshield wipers and sunshades. Any thoughts? Thanks!!
I have one question and an observation. I purchased a couple of your SD45 high hoods and they look great. I haven't tried this yet, but if memory serves me correctly the same hood should fit the GP35. Are the dimensions similar? Now for the observation. Have you considered making the hood to accept the Atlas GP35 light/numberboard?
The dimensions are very similar. When I checked the atlas GP35 there were two slight differences. The fist being that the lip on the long hood that fits inside the cab is ever so slightly wider, you could easily sand the SD45 cab to fit. The other was that no matter how many times I measured, the windows on the atlas cab are shaped differently. The SD45 cabs probably are probably interchangeable, but for ease of instillation I wanted to go ahead and draw up a GP35 version.
Oh, and I have considered making the number boards open. I have never been a fan of the factory number boards, the lenses are just a pain to put numbers on, so I prefer to leave them closed. I have noticed that if I don't paint the inside of my shells the are not completely opaque. I'm experimenting with printing the number boards very thinly, then masking them from the inside of the shell when I paint it. That way they will have a more prototypical glow to them.
Very nice. I was thinking of doing some cabs myself but was concerned how they would look. What program did you use to model these?
Piper they look great. Can't wait to try out the 40/45 HHs. Are you going to do the GP38/40-2s or SD40-2 High Hoods?
Thanks! I've toyed with the idea of the GP38s, but since Atlas released a high hood version I was holding off. I do want to eventually do some GP40s, but those are taking the back burner to a few other projects. My 40/45 hoods will fit the Kato SD40-2, but they aren't an exact -2 match - again that's taking a back burner. I really want to get the GP30 hood off the ground, but the cab has so many strange angles it's really taking a lot more time than I thought. Its a model that I really want to get right, I hope that I can finish it off this summer sometime.
I received my test print Monday. I soaked it in Bestine for about 36 hours and cleaned it up with a little light sanding. I was very pleased with how some of the details turned out, especially the bell and the details around it. This one will be a N&W unit in Pelver blue.
Hi PiperguyUMD.... I just purchased a few of you VO-660 models on Shapeways. THANK-YOU!!! I was wondering if you might consider doing an accurate GP20 High Hood conversion for the Life-Like GP20. There were a few railroads which opted for the high hood version f the GP20... and it doesn't look like Walthers will ever upgrade the old Life-Like model for a high hood. As far as I know... Western Pacific, CB&Q and perhaps Great Northern had the high hood versions.