New brass Milwaukee Bipolar EP-2 clinic- part 2

[u18b]

That is a huge improvement!  The packaging looks professional.  Also trains for sniffing out that company. I have also looked for a custom-cut foam manufacturer but I never could find one that would do such a small run.  Looks like there are some custom foam inserts in my future!

I'm not sure what the DVD is for but now that begs for a custom insert in its jewel box. But that is something you can easily whip out yourself in Corel Draw.  I have done several of those myself.  If you want I can sent you a Corel Draw template for a standard DC jewel box.

Thanks.

The mini-DVD will have a couple of things on it.

I've got a long way to go, but I've been making maintenance videos for it.  Afterall, a very large portion of this loco is my own unique design.
So there will be videos on maintenance, oiling, cleaning wheels, etc.   As well as complete disassembly.  I actually disassembled one.

As for the cover of the DVD, yes, I already have a cover.  I included one with the first EP-2.

I also made especially for that slot, a sort of READ THIS FIRST booklet.   Afterall, the owner will need to know how to properly install the jumper wire in the boiler room.  I also have a few recommendations- like using a railer (included) to place the loco on the track.  The problem is.... the loco is so floppy and has so many wheels that it is really not all that hard to cause a short when placing it on the track.  So a railer, or turning off the DCC power would be recommended.

In the future, I'll post more photos of the booklet and all that I'm now placing in the new box.

[davefoxx]

@u18b,

Outstanding.  Your attention to detail would put some commercial manufacturers to shame.  Kudos!

DFF

[u18b]

Decal problems.

As I look to painting the next EP-2, I'm encountering a couple of problems.


On other discussion threads there has been (sadly) mention that Todd at Streamstyle Graphics has apparently told people that he's not going to be doing decals anymore  (even though the website is still up).  I've left messages with him-- but no answer.

Well, this is not a thread about him.   What that ultimately means to me is that I am going to have to come up with the decals myself.  (I had hoped that Todd might be open to selling me the vector drawing original files since that would save a TON of work... but I will proceed from scratch.

These next two EP-2s (and a few more afterward) will be in the Cigar scheme-- which is the scheme that most people think of and want when modeling Hiawatha era.




The scheme is somewhat simpler than the Railroad Fair- but there are still some challenges.

1.  I am astounded, but it is practically impossible to find SIDE-ON shots of cigar scheme EP-2s.   I have spent hours and hours looking through all my Milw Rd books and searching the Net on multiple search engines.
I come up empty handed.

I even posted on some prototype discussion boards and personally asked big Milw Rd fans to search.  No results.   Which is weird since you can fin side shots of Joes, Westinghouse locos and others--- just not Cigar scheme EP-2s!

The best online photo that a friend could find was this:
http://www.american-rails.com/images/MILW_MS_BiPolars.jpg

Not a lot different from the color shot above.

2.  From the best shots I have found, it appears to me that Milw Rd changed the font from the earlier version.

Y'all will remember that I designed my own Railroad Fair font so I could make my own decals.

Here is the spot in that old thread where we did this before:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31042.570


So will that font work for this scheme?   I don't think so.

The closest I could come up with (until I find a good side shot of an EP-2) is a good side shot of a Westinghouse loco in the same scheme.  I found it in a book in my library.

The shot is almost dead-on.  So that will make a good comparison of my Railroad Fair font.

So I'm going to replicate what I did before with the different loco.

As a reminder....
Here is the prototype shot of the Railroad Fair loco-- a great side on shot.




And here is my custom font lettering that I placed directly over the shot.  I drew these fonts and matched them as exactly as I could to the prototype.


And by the way, here is the first model I made.  Peteski was gracious enough to color match and print those letters for me.



So now to the new font.

And now here is a more straight on shot of the boxcab loco mentioned above.
From Milwaukee Road West by Wood and Wood, p. 127.  Cropped for research purposes.



I'm going to take this to Corel Draw and use it to compare the RR Fair font I made.  But just "eyeballing it", it looks a bit compressed to me.

[u18b]

Thanks Dave.
I appreciate your encouragement.

[u18b]

OK.  This was helpful.

My hunch all along was that this later font was COMPRESSED.  It is most exaggerated in the M, L, W and E.
And this comparison shows that to be the case.

The blue letters are my 1948 Railroad Fair font.  They are superimposed on the photo is from 1957.



So I think this is good evidence that Milw Rd designers compressed the font for the cigar scheme.

And until someone shows me a better side-on shot of an EP-2, then I agree that this boxcab lettering appears to be the same.

But I'd still LOVE it if someone could post a pic of a side-on shot of a cigar EP-2.

[u18b]

OK.  I started with my old Railroad Fair font. 
Saved it under a different name and then started modifying it as before in the link above.

Here is the completion of the first round of the rough draft process.

Lot of hard work.

But this is getting closer.  Now I have to do some more fine-tuning.



The good news is that these are plain old gold decals-- no half tones like before.  Should make printing a whole lot easier.   The most challenging part is that the gold letters have a black outline.

[peteski]

The black outline is not really visible in this photo.  Is it just because of the B/W photography that it blends into the background color?

[u18b]

Pete,
You are of course correct.

But that is not an EP-2.   It's one of those big boxcab electrics.  I'm using this loco as a (hopefully correct) side-on shot substitute.
The danger here is that I come across a side shot of an EP-2 and the letters are different still yet again.
But I am reasonably sure the letter shapes are correct.


However, the EP-2s do indeed have the black outline.

[u18b]

Wow.  A lot of work over many hours to get this done.

But the basic lettering is complete.

[u18b]

OK.  Here is a new decal challenge I have come up against.

This is so subtle that it is easy to MISS this.
On the EP-2s in the cigar scheme, there is some lettering down at the base of the nose on the sides of the loco.

But when looking at photos like these, you can see that SOMETHING is there-- even though it is hard to tell.






Doing what I could by manipulating contrast etc, I have come to see that the writing consists of   F  for front (kind of funny, but F is the whole loco no matter which way you point it!  BOTH ends are front!).

Then, I can just make out the road number.  Like E4.

Most models don't have this, but it turns out that the Precision scale EP-2 in HO did include these markings.

For example, look at this photo from brastrains.com.

http://www.brasstrains.com/Classic/Product/Detail/067637/HO-Scale-Brass-Model-Train-PSC-Precision-Scale-18204-2-MILW-Milwaukee-Road-Bi-Polar-EP-2-Electric-E-5-6-10-F-P

If you click on the side shot to zoom in.... then right click on the photo and choose Fullscreen.... then you can really see things.

Notice on the B end (left side, busy roof) that it says
E5-F

On the A end (right, clean roof), it says..
E5-F  (the same thing).

But based on the fuzzy photos I've seen, I'm not sure this is correct.

My guess from the fuzzy shots I have seen is....
1.  I cannot confirm or deny the dash.  The shots I have seen are too fuzzy.

2.  From what I can tell, the F ALWAYS goes toward the nose.   Thus the order is inverted per side.

So in the photo of the brass loco above, the right side of the A end is correct and should read as it does---   E-5 F

But on the B end, it is incorrect and should be reversed--
F E-5

3.  Furthermore, the best fuzzy shots I have found are all of the B end. And it appears that there is more.  It looks like a B.

So it would apparently read:

F E-5 B

Check out this photo.  This is a pretty clear shot (as possible with fuzziness) of the B-- though still not clear enough to see the Dash.
You can also see that the F is not first- since the F goes closest to the nose.

This one is E-2 and it appears to say:
E-2 B F

http://www.american-rails.com/images/MILW_MS_BiPolars.jpg

That gold on orange paint does not have much contrast.


4.  But what I cannot tell, is if there is a corresponding A on the A end.... or if they left off the A altogether.  I can't find any clear photos.

Any help would be appreciated.

[nkalanaga]

Even if both ends have a cab, the loco is required by law to have a front, and on diesels and electrics, it is required to be labeled, even if it seems obvious. 

According to Noel Holley's Milwaukee Electrics book, they did, operationally, have a front.  The ends were formally labeled A and B, as I think you pointed out long ago, but they almost always ran with the A end leading, because only the A cab had a kilowatt-hour meter.  On the Coast Division they were turned in Othello and Tacoma so they always faced the right way.

[u18b]

AFter way too much time has passed....

I'm finally getting to the painting stage.

I air-erased all the brass, cleaned with acetone, and lightly sprayed with zinc chromate.

Now in the curing stage.



Bought some Tru-Color paint for this round.   The colors for the Model Flex paint were wonderful, but I just have such a hard time getting thin coverage with that paint.  Looking forward to trying them out.

[u18b]

Oops.  Forgot the photo for the last post.
Corrected.

[peteski]

Even if both ends have a cab, the loco is required by law to have a front, and on diesels and electrics, it is required to be labeled, even if it seems obvious. 

According to Noel Holley's Milwaukee Electrics book, they did, operationally, have a front.  The ends were formally labeled A and B, as I think you pointed out long ago, but they almost always ran with the A end leading, because only the A cab had a kilowatt-hour meter.  On the Coast Division they were turned in Othello and Tacoma so they always faced the right way.

Same goes for all the dual-cab European locos (electric and diesel):  The cabs are marked 1 and 2, A and B, or Front and Back (in the native language).

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  Makes sense.  Otherwise the shop crews wouldn't know which end to work on, and that's the same regardless of country.

I don't know if they all did, but some MILW electrics had the axles numbered as well, with very small numbers on the lower edge of the body.