P&WV 2-8-2 1053

[mmagliaro]

I think it's the way he "doctored" the photo to enhance the contrast.
Can you take a photo without doing any alterations?   Get better light on it.  With steam locos, which tend
to have a lot of black and a lot of shadows, good lighting is crucial.

But regardless, it looks great!

[nickelplate759]

Yep, it's an overly compressed cell-phone pick blown up to show the detail.  It's icky.  Fortunately the model isn't 

I'll do a better picture when I get the last details on.

[nickelplate759]

It's cosmetically complete!    Still waiting for a socket so I can connect the engine to the decoder in the tender.



Yes it's still a crappy cell-phone picture. Most of the work went into detailing the front end, so that's where I tried to focus the picture.

[nickelplate759]

Final details were a MT Z-scale coupler up front, and .015" pb wire for the handrails from smokebox to pilot deck.   Finer wire would have been more to scale, but I needed strength, and if the wire were too fine it would make some of the other railings look bad by comparison. The wire is not fastened, just held in place by its own strength and springiness.   A little paint touch up with a small brush (including the mounting stem for the bell) and it's done.   Not shown are the DCC wires from the engine that still need to be connected to the tender.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

This is really a beautiful job!

[nickelplate759]

Here's a summary of the project.

Original model - 1st-run undec Kato 2-8-2.
Replaced all drivers (including traction tire), pilot and trailing truck.
Replaced tender with Bachmann USRA long tender
Added DCC - TCS M1 and keep-alive in tender.
Modified pilot using a GHQ casting and added poling pockets.
Added smokebox steps and handrails (Gold Medal standoffs as appropriate).
Painted w/Tru Color Weathered Black and Graphite.
Decals - Microscale alphabets, Rail Graphics heralds.

Learned a LOT along the way.  Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

[peteski]

Nice work George!  The model looks great and I bet that (with the Keep Alive) it runs great too.

[nickelplate759]

Finally got the socket for the wiring installed and took her out for a test run.  Runs like a (Kato) dream!