Central California Traction GP-7: First Deisel Detailing Project

[WP_Railfan]

Also any grill or fan you open up will allow light shine through from the LEDs

[sizemore]

If I may make a recommendation, find the double sided scoth tape for scrap-booking. It's nice to use between the sills and walkway preventing the raised gaps as evident in the pictures. It's super-thin, and super tough, you can still separate the walkway and sill with a sharp X-acto and careful action.

HTH,
The S.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Whoa, it's so weird seeing 607 patched. That's the same one that atlas did in that scheme too.

Don't miss the caboose style grab on the nose too.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Don't miss the caboose style grab on the nose too.

Sounds like a WWF move!

(pretend that I know NOTHING about diesels: Can you point out what you're referring to and suggest a part / technique to nail it )

Thanks for all the ideas.
That gap under the cab is only there when the shell is off: when sitting pretty on the frame that gap disappears.
(For what it's worth).

The Dynamic Break Gills I think I can get away with paint / weather, but the fans on top I want nice and sharp and brassy, which should be taken care of with the GMM GP-7 kit. (Yes? Or need special fans?)
Didn't think of letting out the light: good call Nick / WP_Railfan.
Any suggestions how to prevent it?
(Or should I stick a "fire" LED board in there too so it can be the Geep from Hell? Muhahahaha!)

The handrails seem easy enough: string thin wire.
I guess it's all about getting the detail of a separate support, which is why the GMM stanchions are important (otherwise you could just solder thin wire "posts" to the thin wire handrails, yes?)

Funny thing about the CCT horns: the company usually put a box on them as locals had a penchant to steal them.

Any suggestions for cut levers?

My main concern at this point isn't the details, but matching the paint after I've installed them.
Weathering powders do mucho, but that mucho?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Sure. On the short hood, there's a curve grab iron. It's on 70, but also on 60 (you can see it in silhouette here: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5Ii8Vgbrzek/UO4sIxeK-zI/AAAAAAAAKKU/77uamLh3P9g/s1200/cct60rdg607AlanMiller.jpg)

It starts right at the white stripe on the engineer's side short hood end (the side closest to the camera on this photo: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-mk5mfy_h_uI/UO4sI1CPocI/AAAAAAAAKKM/OsInMiMYAXo/s1200/cct70dc.jpg Keep in mind these are ex-RDG and therefore setup to run long hood forward, unless they got changed at some point, which I don't think they do due to the lack of an "F" next to the step wells in the photo).

It's a non-standard grab that, annoyingly (for me), looks like the Reading added.

[jnevis]

IIRC I used Santa Fe Red for my CCT units.  I don;t know if it matches he Atlas units but was pretty close.
I did up a GP15 in a "as if" unit and it' looks pretty good. I can't find my pics.
CCT 44 is another GP7 but it's not the same paint scheme.  I neeed to rework a couple things on this one.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Thanks for all the suggestions and picts.
Just got the GMM GP-7 detail kit & BLMA MU hoses in the mail: fans & vents look good and do-able (will be fun cutting out the old ones!).
That curved handrail I can fashion out of wire, methinks.
(and it's white, which makes painting easier)
I know I could CA or solder the handrails to posts, but it'd be nice to have those post-top loop details so I might get some etched ones.

Guess the biggest issue I see right now is just matching paint, which will take some mixing & matching on scrap styrene.

Got a display for Free-moN at our LD/OPS SIG meet this weekend, so I'll get to the detailing next week.
Thanks again for all the help!

[Nick Lorusso]

M.C. Any questions, feel free to email or text me.


Nick

[mcjaco]

The most terrifying part of this is scraping off the molded on grabs.  Once you get that technique down, it's easy peasy.  Just go slow.

Once step I always forget, and now that I have grab irons glued in, it'd be a pain to fix, is take the numberboards outs before you do anything, and paint the edges black.  There's a lot of light bleed around the edges, and it's a distarction on a nicely detailed loco.