Best Of New Brass EP-2 assembly & Mod clinic

[peteski]

Peteski,

Thanks.

Mine are on painted on my model.

PM your address again, and I'll send you some more.
Sorry.

Ron

Thanks Ron - I'm all set. I wasn't looking for more springs. The broken still has plenty of length to be useful.  I just wanted to give you a heads-up.  I ended up coating them with WD-40 before I put them back in the bag for storage. That should prevent any further oxidation.  My workshop is in a basement room which gets a bit damp in the summer time (even with the dehumidifier running).

[u18b]

Spent a lot of time masking the Cabs.
The pantographs are to be gray also.



As for the angle.....
I made the horizontal mask first (under the window).
I then printed out a side view of the loco and cut this angle out of some paper.
I then used the paper to check my angle.



When the painting was finished, it took a long time to take the tape off too.
Haha-  what a pile!
I would make a wild guess that I cut about 40 to 50 pieces of mask per Cab.
The problem (as you will see) is the details along the roofline in the front.



The colors looked a bit dark to me while painting.... but I think it looks pretty good now.



Closer photos will be coming.

[u18b]

First the A Cab - as identified primarily by the relatively clean roof.

Here is an elevated view.



And more of a side view.



You can begin to see some of the masking that was required.



Based on my study of photographs, the color stripes extend to the rear of each Cab.



Now you can see better the kind of masking required.
Looks like I could touch up that tiny spot of gray in the crook behind the sandbox hatch (to the top right of the window).



I need to press the paint ridge down at the masking.



The underside of the sand hatch was supposed to be orange.
This one came out well.

[u18b]

Here is the B Cab.









I didn't do as well with the masking here.
You can see a tiny bit of spray around the window on the left side,
And a lot on the front side of the sand hatch.
I'll have to touch that up with orange paint and a paint brush.



And on the underside of the sand hatch.

[peteski]

Purty! 
Speaking of springs - only one pantograph will be sprung?

[u18b]

Purty! 
Speaking of springs - only one pantograph will be sprung?

Great question!

Here is your answer.....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/MILW_Bi-Polar.jpg
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/milwE2.jpg
http://www.american-rails.com/images/MILW_MS_BiPolars.jpg
http://www.microcosmologist.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Milwaukee-Road-Bipolar-at-Seattle-Union-Station-1950s.jpg
http://www.american-rails.com/images/BiPolarE258.jpg

Milw Rd practice was that ONLY the rear pant be used unless:
--there was a failure
--there was ice on the line and then both were allowed.

They found by experience that if the forward pant failed.....it would take out the rear too!  And disable the loco.

So properly modeled, only one pant should be raised.
 

[peteski]

Great question!

Here is your answer.....

They found by experience that if the forward pant failed.....it would take out the rear too!  And disable the loco.

So properly modeled, only one pant should be raised.
 

But this is a dual-cab loco. What if you want to run it in the other direction?   

The practice of using only the rear panto is utilized by most railroads which use dual-panto electric locos (world-wide).  Although I do seem to recall that when I lived near a busy mainline in Poland (in the 70s) I sometimes saw the locos going by with both pantos up.  Not sure why.

BTW, I like the red-painted pantos in one of the photos - that gives the loco extra flair, and it reminds me of the European locos which often had red pantos.

[u18b]

But this is a dual-cab loco. What if you want to run it in the other direction?   

Well, the deeper answer to your question (and teasing) is that I never could figure out how to lock the pant down.  If I could have adequately figured that out, I probably would have been able to spring both of them.

As it is, springing one is a WHOLE lot better than the sorry ones that the NJCB version has (which fall over).

[peteski]

As it is, springing one is a WHOLE lot better than the sorry ones that the NJCB version has (which fall over).

No doubt about it. Sprung and equalized!

[u18b]

I caught a minor mistake before it was too late.

Somehow it dawned on me that the upper handrail at the step was the wrong color.

I instinctively painted it orange (and if Milw Rd ran today with this scheme, they would be forced to make it a safety color).

But on the prototype, it should be red--- to blend in with the hood in the background.

[u18b]

Time for some orange touch up paint.


Here is a before shot.



And here is after.
Might need to get a little gray to touch up the touch up.

[u18b]

Now, before I get to another clear cote, I might as well add numberboard backgrounds.



Hand painting would not be good enough.
So I searched my decal box for black backgrounds and found some on an old decal sheet for SF.






Like I said.  These decals are old.  Probably had them 15-20 years.
The edges are a little jagged.  It is interesting to see that MS has improved their work dramatically over that time.
Even so, this side came out pretty good.



This side will require a little touch up.

[u18b]

Speaking of touch up....

I realised I made an erroneous statement about my brushes a few pages ago.

So let me start over.
I was at a hobby shop a while back and they had a sale price on some small brushes.  So I bought a pack of about 5.


I'm assuming the size is that number on the left.  10/0

Anyway, they are pretty small brushes.
But for really fine work, I needed smaller.
So I took a fresh Xacto knife and held it against the hairs and turned the brush.
This removed some hairs.
I kept doing it until I thinned it where I wanted it.

So in this shot, you see a stock brush on the left.
A fine trimming in the middle.
And an ultra-fine on the right.



Just now, I used the one on the left for the larger area around the sand hatch.
But I used the middle one for the touch up on the numberboard.
Here, the orange had been touched up to cover some excess black (compare to earlier photo).



I'll go back now and touch up more with a little black.

[spookshow]

Probably not good enough for pros like Ron, but I've been a huge fan of "Microbrush" applicators for a while now. They're available in various sizes, but here are the ones I use most often ("fine" and "super fine") -



Paint, glue, whatever - they're damned handy for applying just about any sort of liquidy substance in tight spaces. Better still, they're cheap, disposable and readily available in 10-packs down at my LHS. I always pick up a great heaping pile of 'em whenever I happen to stop by.

Cheers,
-Mark

[u18b]

Mark,

I'll have to give those a try one day.

But you are correct, they are not fine enough to do the work I do.

For example,  take this shot right here.
It is one of my most favorite because that U18B is about the most detailed loco I have ever built.

But that blank face on that engineer drove me crazy.





I felt I just had to do something about that face.

So I got the really super-fine brush on the right and went to work.






I was pretty pleased with the final results.