Oh happy day! So, 10 minutes ago, the postman delievers them, in all their black glory! I got the shell off easy enough, the spread with 4 toothpick method, and put the mech on my test loop to verify operation. Was jerky so I sanded the loop with 220, Brighboy's it, and Rail-Ziped then wipe off with 50/50 water alcohol. Runs just fine at 3 volts, any less than that, and it finds places to stall on my track, which is the MTL Starter Set loop, running on an MRC 1300 without the sparker. Leaving it run a while, while I write. I discovered something important, if you plan on re-painting. The glue that holds the etched steel railing on is contact cement, and mine is less than a couple weeks old, so it is still somewhat rubbery. Yes, I used a brand new #11 exacto blade to carefully slice through the contact cement holding the side rails on. No funny bends, although it did scrape a little paint off the undersides of the rails exposing shiny silver metal. Probably stainless steel. How to do it? Start at the cab steps, and ever so carefully seperate the railings from the sidesills, moving quickly in one quick fluid movement. I bet after several weeks the glue will harden enough that you might bend the thin etched metal trying to do this, so if repainting and superdetailing is in the cards, remove the railings quickly after purchase. Front and rear endrails present a different challenge, which was solved by a quick slice from the deck in fromt of the stairs straight down, first one side then the other, leaving the middle still tacked. Next move is hold the body upside down, then slice from underneath across the pilot openings to get those railings off. The horns pry up, and off, ever so gently with a jewelers screwdriver. First a little pry up front, nexe in back, next left, then right, and repeat until it comes up. This part is so small it will vaporize, so be careful! The tank comes off by just pulling it down and off. The rear lighted numberboards pop out easily by gently pushing them inwards, left side a bit, then right side a bit, repeated until they pop out. The cab comes off by using a larger jewelers screwdriver with an approximate .100" blade, inserted in the shell, inside the battery boxes, which are just under the cab. Twist the screwdriver a bit to spread the batterybox sides and pull up on one side of the cab. It lifts up a little. Do the same thing on the other side and gently rock the cab side to side while pulling up and off the shell. Use some smooth jaw jewelers pliers and easily pull the black cab LED shroud out of the cab (must be to block LED light from illuminating everything inside the cab, but it also helps hold the cab glazing parts in place.) The cab side windows come out only by pushing in and towards the center of the cab. Start by pushing on the tiny front and rear door windows to release them from their snap lock, then push the side windows in, Just like a Kato N Scale loco cab. Front Windshield just needs to be pushed backwards to come out, and the same with the cab numberboards. That's it, completely disassembled, and ready for painting. Oh, by the way, the plastic is black too. The black paint is so thin that I won't try to strip it. As I write this, I have been doing these tasks, so i'm 40 minutes from the postman's delievery, and my loco mechanism is still running, so I will run it in the other direction for a while for even burn in. I just brushed a little Polly S Easy Lift Off stripper, or ELO for short, on the cab sides to get the car numbers off and let sit. I also just brushed on some ELO over all 5 of the Pennsy Keystones. Oh, guess what... the ELO don't attack the plastic at all, and the paint comes right off! Oh Joy! The paint actually comes off WAY WAY easier than the Pennsy Keystones! I used a fairly stiff hobby paintbrush for no more than 5-10 minutes, and then took the ELO drenched parts in to the kitchen sink, where I poured full strength dish washing liquid over the ELO covered shell and cab, then used the same brush to scrub the dishwashing liquid into the ELO, and just rinsed with warm water. I now have a perfectly stripped shell, oil free, and ready for painting! Total time as of now since I started typing... About 1 hour to completely disassemble and strip the model! Standard Disclaimer.... If you ruin your model while doing any of the above procedures, don't cry to me, just offer the mechanism for sale to the Nn3 guys, or convince Allan Borg to sell you one of his resin GP shells. They look good, as I seen them at the Z Scale Convention, and I am very sure that this mechanism fit, as it is so very very tiny! -Robert ; ***had to fix a bunch of typo's from typing real quick while doing this work*** [ September 07, 2005, 10:36 PM: Message edited by: pray59 ]
WOW!! 1 hour?! Complete teardown? I will still be staring at mine in the package! What roadname ya' gonna paint her and when will ya' post the pics?!?
My first 2 are going to be BN. The only question is do I want to build a GP35, or a GP39E. I cut the front truck mounted coupler off with a fine blade saw in my dremel. It came off very easy, yet the truck still looks correct, so I get to make a pilot mounted coupler and plow during my modifications. -Robert
I don't know about how to make the plow yet, but for the pilot it looks easy enough to cut from sign plastic. It looks so far to just be a kitbash project, but if I can make it reproducable... I will let you all know. I already cut the truck mounted coupler off, and now I have to build a pilot to fit, then a coupler mount, then the MU hoses need to be formed from wire, then I have to figure out what to do for a plow. Sounds fairly easy so far. -Robert
Well, I disassembled the loco yesterday when it arrived, and tonight after taking care of Covered Hopper orders, I started on my GP mod. It shouldn't be too difficult to whip up something like the GP39E out of a GP35, but the version I wanted to build was as rebuilt from a GP30, so I needed that art deco thing going on. Here is my progress, 3 days into the game: I cut off the 36" fan between the rear 48" fans, but left just enough of a nub to represent the plate welded over the original fan hole. I also had to modify the roofline from the dynamic brakes forward. -Robert [ September 11, 2005, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: pray59 ]
That's awesome!! Quick, make a casting off that shell! I'll buy one right now!! That's my alltime favorite, I can just imagine the GN green and orange on her right now!!
As you can see, I got rid of the dark photo above, editing my post, and here are a few more pics of progress as of today: As you can see, I have the bodywork done. I filed off the 36" fan from between the larger rear fans, but left enough remaining to hint at a plate welded over the original hole left from the GP 30. I also relocated the horns to the back. I cut all the mod parts from sign acrylic, and turned a piece of brass wire to make the firecracker antenna. I also fashioned a Pilot, and Snow Plow out of Acrylic, then used brass wire to form the MU hoses. Overall, the model, although not perfect, catches the flavor of the prototype so far. More to come. -Robert
Man, I ordered my GP's from buynscale.com, because they had the lowest price, and they should arrive on the 12th. I don't think I have ever been so impatient for an order before! Looks great so far Robert!! I might be hitting you up for some decals in the near future!
Well, you are in luck if you want GP39E decals. I made a 1/4 sheet, and it has enough for 18 locomotives. 9 are as rebuilt from GP30's and 9 are as rebuilt from GP35's, all with the tiger stripe nose. The loco I'm doing now is an as rebuilt from GP30, but you can tell that. What's a GP39E? just a rebuilt by EMD 30/35 for BN, with a new 645 engine, which gives these units a reason to be seen on modern BNSF. Yup, they still have them. -Robert
Well, I have been at it all day, so I'm done for now. I have not DCC's it yet, and will probably wait until after the GATS in 2 weeks, as I have to get my module ballasted first. Side by side, you can see there is quite a bit different than the Pennsy GP35 it started out as. I had made decals before, but without a model to measure, they were the wrong size, so I made new decals today. I still need to put the numbers on the number boards, but I ran out of time this weekend, so that will be another day. -Robert
Side by side, you can see there is quite a bit different than the Pennsy GP35 it started out as. No kidding! Considerable bash job, and a nice one, too! Why didn't you use a GP30 shell? Really nice job of adding the art deco stuff.
I would have loved to just use a GP30 shell, however, there are only 4 plastic North American diesels made, Marklin and MTL make an F7, AZL makes an F59PHI, and MTL just released this GP35 a couple days ago! -Robert
Robert- I thought there were a few others available? E8/9, SD45, SD40-2? Didn't AZL make some of these? Boxcab E50