Best Of New Brass EP-2 assembly & Mod clinic

[central.vermont]

LOL! That was good Mark!

On a serious note though, what caught my eye is the thickness of the handrails. They look huge!  They look like they are made from 0.020" brass rod.  Hopefully black pint will make them look thinner.

I think what should change is the grabs. The railing is actually larger than the grabs on the prototype.
One other thing about the door is I have noticed that they seem to have plated in the lower recessed panel of the door. The early photo above shows it there but in the 48 shot below it has disappeared.



Jon

[peteski]

I think what should change is the grabs. The railing is actually larger than the grabs on the prototype.
One other thing about the door is I have noticed that they seem to have plated in the lower recessed panel of the door. The early photo above shows it there but in the 48 shot below it has disappeared.

Jon

LOL Jon - that is what I meant - grab irons, not the railings.  Thanks for the correction.

[u18b]

Peteski,

Yes, you are correct, but that one is a little of a tough call.

KMT did seem to use the same wire on the railing as on the grabs.

While the wire (I'm guessing more like 14 or 16 mil- macro photos make it look a lot larger.), the grabs would have looked better at 8 mil.

Look at this photo.
You can see that the side grab and the railing are about the same wire.


Now look up near the headlight.
There are two long grabs.
The longitudinal one is stock.
The perpendicular one I added.
Mine looks a little smaller.  I think I use 8 mil brass wire.
So the stock one must be about 10 mil.



So my guess is that the side rail is about 14 or 16 mil at most.

(of course it might be 20 by the time it has primer and a couple of coats of paint!    )


Oh!  The reason I said it might be a tough call is because that would be a good deal of work to remove and replace all the grabs on this model.

One positive thing is that this was before the days of OSHA safety requirements.
What I mean is that practically all of these rails and grabs are the same color as the wall of the loco behind it.

If this loco was painted today, safety requirements would be such that the "safety appliances" should stand out as a different color.

So I think that, even though a bit large, they will probably blend it when it is finished.

[u18b]

Jon,
You are probably correct about the door.

When delivered, I wouldn't be surprised if they were wooden.  Maybe, maybe not.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/MILW_Bi-Polar.jpg

These might have been replaced with steel by 1948.  In which case that little panel at the bottom of the door would have disappeared.

However, by the time you get to the Cigar scheme, most of those upper windows on the nose were plated over- maybe welded.
And KMT did model that plated look in a different variation.


In fact, this photo shows that the lower panel has been blocked off too!

[u18b]

I have a question about the grit blaster. Does it basically spray like paint would or much less? I was using mine yesterday and the grit was coming out and working, but it was only spraying maybe a 1/8" blast and was taking forever to get the whole thing covered. Just wondering if I'm doing it right.

Chris, great question.

I'm not an expert at this.  In fact, I bought an extra copy of the last issue of NSR just for the air erasing article- and was disappointed because it did not give me all the answers I wanted.

Yes, the spray is very fine- much more so than a typical airbrush.  But then I airbrush with about a medium or coarse tip.

I would say the air erasing pattern is about only 2 or 3 mm circular.
Yes it does take a long time.

I was blasting with about 55 lbs pressure.  Partially because I was trying to get decent results with baking soda.  But Al-Oxide is so much better.
The results you see.

But next time, I will try with about 40 lbs.

Oh!  And one more thing I discovered by trial an error.  It always worked best when the cup was about filled.
As the Al-Oxide level got lower, the effectiveness went down.  Time to refill.

[Chris333]

Thanks, that sounds about right for what I was going through. Must have taken 2 hours to do the whole EP-2 

[u18b]

Thanks, that sounds about right for what I was going through. Must have taken 2 hours to do the whole EP-2 

Actually, that's about what it took- maybe even slightly longer.

(it looked like it snowed in front of my garage.  lol.)

[peteski]

Ron, I didn't expect you to rip out the grabs and replace them with thinner wire.    The grab iron you added does look better, but it as you said, it would have been a pain to replace them and at this point it is a bit late to even consider it.

[u18b]

Been over two weeks.

Last we met, I had cleaned and primed all the brass parts with zinc chromate paint.

I then set them aside to cure.


The cover was to keep dust from settling on the parts and adhering to the paint.  Also, you can see I left a crack for air to move.

At first, there was a strong smell of paint.  But after a week (as I was advised to wait), there was very little paint smell.

Unfortunately, I had a business trip that took me out of commission for over a week.

So here we are almost 3 weeks later.
Time to add color!

[u18b]

I segregated all the parts onto different paper plates according to their color.

Time to start today with orange.

I'm using Testors Model Flex paint (no longer sold).



I added paint to the bottle.  Then several drops of water to thin a bit.
I then test shoot something to check the spray pattern and flow.
This plate was almost completely covered by the time I was finished.



I never touched the model-- no hand oils.  I used hemostats.



I went in layers.  Too much paint too soon will run.
So I would paint a bit, and then use a hair dryer on the model.
It got pretty hot.  I didn't have to worry about any plastic parts.
The heat helped quickly cure the paint enough that another layer could be added.



I find it is very important to repeatedly clean off any build-up of paint that is drying on the tip as you airbrush.
If you don't, you are at risk of a small glob being flung onto the model.



All the parts with orange.

[u18b]

The next color when I have time is the "maroon" (looks more like Berry to me).

That will take a LOT of masking.

Here are the gray parts.  Of course the roof is gray too.



Here are the black parts.  These will be pretty easy.

[u18b]

Here are some closer looks at the orange parts back at my desk.

These are the handrails at the door.  They have not been installed since it would be impossible to mask the Berry with those in place.
So they will have to go about last and just be superglued in place instead of being soldered.



The walkway sill outer edge is orange.  Hmmmm.  Not sure I should have painted this orange yet.  Maybe Berry should have gone first.



The relatively clean A end went well.



The B end had a whole lot more details and crevices into which to get the paint.
Paint went on a little thicker than I would have preferred, but it looks OK.
The rough surface is really only noticeable under the harsh look of close macro photography.



I'm choosing to not worry about the LED headlight.
I'll just scrape the paint off when I'm ready to install the glass (after I've painted the inside silver).



I'm a little concerned/curious about how the boiler room cabin will do.
It will have gray roof, orange stripe, lower Berry stripe.
But actually, the very bottom edge should be orange.
Unfortunately, sometimes the model cabin sits so hight that it is impracticable to place the orange stripe onb  the bottom edge.  It would looks way out of alignment.

I also plan to paint this about last.
It will make more steps in painting, but as I have looked at other painted models, I realized that it is tricky to line up the colors on this part.  So I will totally get the colors on the Cabs before I do this cabin so that the lines will match up better.

[peteski]

Ron, you managed some orange peel texture in the orange paint. How cool is that? 

I know what you say about macro photography, but if you took a similar photo of a factory-painted Atlas or Kato model, they would have smooth paint.  Maybe the clear coat will even out the surface.

[u18b]

Time to add some more color.

Parts.
FRESH razor blade (with extras if needed)
piece of wood
tape
steel straight edge



Oh.  And reference material.  Sometime paper photos, but this time a shot on my computer monitor.



Lay out some tape on the board.



Use the razor blade and the straight edge to make a fresh straight cut.

[u18b]

I cut a thin strip to start the process.  Goes right up to the rail posts.



And on around the front.
Notice that I still need to press the tape down up snug with an Xacto blade or tiny screwdriver.



This is the easy side.



One of the best precision instruments you have are the ones God gave you.
Always sight down a line to see if everything is straight.
In this case, the railing is a fixed thing--- it is the cab area where I could mess up.



Don't forget to sight down BOTH directions.
I can JUST see that the tape dips down a few microns (fractions of a millimeter).  I'll pull it up a little.



Of course, aside from the (failing) eyes God gave me.... some kind of confirming measure helps.
I'm holding a piece of wire to get a rough guess.
My fingernail is up against the bottom of the shell.  The wire is touching the rail.

Yep.  Add in the thickness of the rail, and it looks good.



This is the side that is a pain.
That cut-out for the door must be masked properly.



I get some tape under the rail.



Tack it down on the left side.



Now comes the hard part.
Getting it straight on the door and wall.



The rivet line helps on the cab (after I "eyeballed it.")



Photos show the color extended into the vestibule area.