New brass Milwaukee Bipolar EP-2 clinic- part 2

[u18b]

Having successfully done one Cab, now time to repeat the whole process for the other Cab…. And that’s where I ran into a problem.

The adapter plates went beautifully as before.   The problem came when I tried to place the shell on the mechanism.  There was an obstruction.  What?!

There is a cut out area in the shell for the door to the Cab.    Space is already tighter on that side.





Well, because these brass shells are assembled by real people in Japan and not a machine, there are variances.  It was a coincidence that I did not have a problem with the first shell.   But the second shell was different enough that the door area could not get past the screws- even with thinning the screw heads.

So I used a motor tool to thin the wall of the door area as much as I dared.




Then, I used screws with smaller heads, and I shaved their heads thinner too.  It still was obstructed.


Bottom line, I had to move the end-most screw toward the outside.  It finally worked and I could get the shell on.

This is what the non-door side looks like.



This is the tough one where I relocated the screw.  I got the shell on- but now I have an ugly hole- ugh!  Very non-professional looking.



I couldn’t stand it, so I drilled the hole slightly larger and soldered a piece of 1/16th  brass rod in there to fill the hole.



Now all is fine.

I need to now re-draw my template to move screws more to the outside.

[u18b]

The end result is that I have made the original 22 mil excess play a more tolerable 10 mil. The intended gear mesh is more closely retained and there is now almost ZERO chance of gears ratcheting past one another.

Now that this gap has been reduced, I’ll experiment going back to Delryn main drive gears.




There’s a few loose ends to talk about.

On the down side, these plates make assembly and disassembly a bit more tedious (but not much).

In order to remove the power truck, I have to remove the plates.   Also, the plates are now proprietary instead of universal.   So I marked each one so I could keep track of which goes where.



Will this work for other Kumata locos?  (All Kumata locomotives use this gearbox except the Centipede)

Sure…. But there is one caveat.

There is no problem for the EP-2 because each EP-2 cab has only one gear box and it is charged the same as the shell.   But other Kumata locos have two gearboxes- and each is charged to a different rail. 

In this photo, the left gearbox is charged to the rest of the frame.  The right gearbox is insulated and would short on the frame.



So if we made this mod to another KMT loco (like the RS-2 in the photo above) since the frame is charged, that means the insulated gearbox is now a greater  shorting risk with the shell because we have added thickness to the gearbox. 

If this will work at all, the solution will probably be to use nylon M1.4 screws on the insulated gearbox (assuming they will fit) and/or Kapton tape.

[u18b]

Here is another issue.   Zamac can rot.   For Kumata locos, this was especially bad for the Alcos (never buy a Kumata Alco off ebay without good photos of trucks and gearboxes!). 

I’m obviously worried about how these EP-2s will fair over the years (I have at least two).

Well, this plate I just developed provides insurance.   I already made molds of gearboxes and have cast replacements.  Here is an alloy casting.   The problem is that the metal is a bit soft for normal wear and tear.  But with a plate screwed to the side of it, the headless screw will now ride on tougher brass or phosphor bronze




In fact (for the EP-2) the gearbox does not even need to be metal anymore.   Here is a casting with Allumilite.   If a pair of these plates were added to the side, then I would just need to make a jumper wire to send power to the frame.




This would have been a great solution for the KMT Centipede re-design I did on this board years ago.   I wish I had thought of it back then.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=36138.0







So I confess, I’m really excited I figured this out.

I’ve said many times- Kumata locomotives have a very poor reputation in N scale.   But if you know what to do with them, they can be great pieces.

[u18b]

Time to turn to a part I’ve been dreading a bit…. But time to face decals. 

Decals have already been made (assuming you can even get them which is unlikely, based on my experience- though maybe that will change one day).  Made by Streamstyle Graphics.

But I had trouble with the stripes.




I scanned and printed the stripes.  And they were drawn wrong.   The end hook is going in the wrong direction.




After a lot of thinking and planning, I thought I might be able to kitbash them by making a cut and moving the part I cut.






But then I started studying photos and saw some more problems.

Here the stripe runs behind the hinge.  And terminated right at the louvers.




This view shows a slight difference.   Also behind the hinge but a little further back and seems straighter at the louvers.

Also, the grab at the roof is silver- thus the stripe runs through that spot on the roof.




So I bit the bullet and started drawing my own decals.  To compare, the red is the Streamstyle stripe.  The silver is mine.   It may not be perfect, but it is obviously better.




So after about 50 tweaks and prints, I got a drawing that was usable.  This is about number 30.  The bottom is off. Still more tweaks




Here is what I came up with.  Hard to get to lay flat for a photo.










Lastly, I’m planning ahead for painting and masking.   So I made a mask from my drawing.  When ready to paint the second color, I will lay this template on some tape and trace with an Xacto knife.

[robwill84]

Would it not be simpler to paint the model the stripe color, use Tamiya 1mm masking tape to get the curve just right, paint and then remove the masking tape?

[u18b]

Would it not be simpler to paint the model the stripe color, use Tamiya 1mm masking tape to get the curve just right, paint and then remove the masking tape?

Hi Rob.  Thanks for posting.

Possibly.

But... then you would be freestyling (applying curved by hand with no guides) and I probably would not have the stripe perfectly curved- and definitely curved four times the same way.   I'm sure others could do it, but not me- at least to my satisfaction.

But then there is also the horizontal stripe.  And that has very fine red pinstriping on the outside.



So for me, decals are the way to go- even if they are more trouble to make.

[u18b]

I’ve been working next on the lettering for the decals.
I had already created a Railroad Fair TTF font for my previous work.

But I saw that this earlier scheme did not use that font.   The Railroad Fair font was more elongated.

So I went back to the drawing board.

I started with this photo which (sadly) is the best photo I can find anywhere.   It’s not great, but it’s usable for this purpose.




I then used Gimp art program to de-skew the angle.




Went to work on the letters.





And then placed them in a scale drawing I made of an EP-2.



Still some work to go.  But this is progress.

[chessie system fan]

Don't forget about the passenger car lettering blueprints I sent you!  The font looks similar if not identical to what you're drawing.

[u18b]

Well,   I wasn’t satisfied that my de-skewing  was perfect and that I was doing this right.  So I started over because I want these decals correct.

I double checked my Corel Draw scale drawing making sure it matched the brass model perfectly in all dimensions.  It was.
The white ares of the cab and boiler room are clear so you can see underneath.





Next, I went back to the best photo I have, and de-skewed the whole boiler room and cab area using Gimp.   

I then imported into Corel draw into a layer UNDER my drawing and I compared.    My first goal was to just get the width correct and everything straight.

When that was done, I could see my suspicions were correct.  My de-skewed jpeg was not wide enough.  The red arrows are where the boiler room edges SHOULD come to.






So I stretched the boiler room jpeg to match the dimension of the drawing exactly.





NOW I can accurately compare my old fonts to the jpeg underneath.

I found the font was not as bad as I thought.
I also confirmed that Milwaukee did change the letters slightly after this scheme.  But not much.

I took my old Railroad Fair font I had previously created and compared it to the de-skewed photo.

I found I had to compress the M, L, W, U, and E.  Everything else looked pretty much the same.

Now, I didn’t modify the font itself as a font.   I printed the font on the drawing, and then converted the words to objects.  Breaking them apart, I could then edit each letter as an object as needed.




Here is a close up of:

The corrected letters:  blue

The old Railroad Fair font I had made: yellow.  You can see Milwaukee stretched them a bit in places.

The two compared: bottom.




Now I am feeling much better about my accuracy.
Glad I trusted my gut to think something might be wrong.

@peteski  Pete.  Hopefully you should be hearing from me soon.

[u18b]

Don't forget about the passenger car lettering blueprints I sent you!  The font looks similar if not identical to what you're drawing.

Thanks Aaron.  I had forgotten.
I texted you.

[peteski]

@peteski  Pete.  Hopefully you should be hearing from me soon.

Nice job!
Sounds like a plan.

[u18b]

Making progress on decals.  A lot of time went into this.

Here is the drawings Aaron sent me from his plans book.  It clearly confirmed my suspicion that I needed to mod the tail of the R.




And let me say a word to those who spoke to me about using Font Forge a long time ago.    It was helpful for what I used it for back then.

However, you guys were right!  Editing fonts in Corel Draw was a whole lot easier.  Straights are fine, but using Font Forge to edit a curve can be a nightmare.
In Corel Draw, I took my text and uncombined it first, and then converted it to an object.  Editing was easy from there.

One loose end was the small decals.  They are gold leaf and hard to see on orange, but I suspect they follow the pattern of the late black scheme.
The F for front was not a problem.  It’s the little decals at the bottom of the cabs that identify the A and B units that’s in question.   So I decided to follow the practice in this photo.




And when I fiddle with this photo… (both before and after) it seems there may be something there.   So I’m going to go with it.   I’m almost certain I can see E1A under the front cab, under the letter A in ROAD.






So I added them to the decal sheet.   I then organized the decal sheet in printing layers the way @peteski taught me.




I think I may be about finished.   This is what the decal sheet will look like.  I put a lot extra for two reasons.  I think it is always best to have a back-up of a decal part in case something does not print optimally.  Second, this will let me have enough decals to do two should I ever do another.



Next, I will be working with Pete on the colors of the orange stripe and the red pin stripes.     That will require snail mail samples to be sent.

Everything else appears set.

EDIT:  Actually, I just realized I have no spares of the small orange stripes for the cabs, much less enough for two.  I need to make more.

[u18b]

Correction:

Let's call the above a good rough draft.
I still have a lot of details to work out.

More tweaking to come.

[peteski]

Nice work (as usual) Ron!
Any chance you could send me actual color chip of the orange color?  I have some new inks from Elephant Rocket in Japan, plus the Kodak First Check orange.  Those, plus the ability to layer multiple colors (like orange and yellow, or orange and cream (another new color), should produce a variety of orange shades.

[u18b]

Pete,
I've been so focused on getting this loco built and decals made that I forgot about colors.   

I could use help from Milwaukee fans here.  I need paint suggestions.  Years ago I painted the Railroad Fair EP2 bipolar using Modelflex colors- which looked good but clog terribly, as you see in this photo.   



I now want to use Tru-Color paint but need suggestions.  Tru-Color #111 Milw. Orange is right on.    But what do I need for red and gray?   #110 Milw Maroon seems too brown, too muted.  That's accurate for the so-called cigar scheme which came later.  But the earliest Hiawatha locos had a brighter red which I have heard called a "cranberry red."  So please share what Tru-color paint you use for early Hiawatha schemes.

Or am I way off base?    For example, is this red.....



The same as this red..


And what Tru-Color gray do I need?