Hi all!

Thx for looking into the photos of MTH AC4400CW photos at 'New MTH AC4400CW Scale Wheel and Atlas Lash up?'. After Mr. Friedlander's instruction, I was
able to post the photos and am doing the same for my 1st plastic 0-scale loco,
the modern diesel:

GE Dash 8-39B by Atlas 2 Rail

About the Model:

The model has the narrow cab unlike the AC4400CW. The front face looks like
a smashed up look of a Chinese Chizu dog*. Not quite cute but of some taste?
I love the model very much. In fact, I've kept it out of the box for several
months on my test track. After weathering the MTH model's 3 axle trucks, I decided to weather this Atlas one too. But this time, I decided to weather
the body as well. Unlike the BNSF's Dash 8-39B or 8-40B engines, all the photos
I've seen of the SP's issues are weathered. But curiously, the prototype photos
didn't have rusted trucks. The prototype Dash 8's (and AC4400CW's) trucks have
only dusts and some non-rust streaks. But, I decided to rust the trucks anyway
to make them look like of cast steel. I guess the prototype trucks use expensive rustoleum now days?

_____
*Atlas 0 is coming out with Dash 8-40BW, 2 axle but of wide cab version of the
same engine. i think u may still order them.

The wheels - The front face rim is too thick as viewed from the side. But the
diameter measured with my Mitsutoyo caliper was 0.876 inch at the tread to flange fillet. this means for 0-scale (1/48th scale):

.876 x 48 = 42.048 inch or ~ 42 inch diameter.

I thought all the diesel is of 40" diam. But when I checked it out at my
RR yard where I work, the modern diesels have bigger wheels. The AC4400CW
UP engine had 42" wheels. My MTH AC4400CW measured 42 inch (.876) as well so
I assume the Dash 8 uses 42 inch wheels as well. In practice, heavier the
RR vehicle, bigger the wheel diameter (not steam engines!). E.g., 70 ton trucks
for container cars use 33" whls whereas 100 ton and 125 ton trucks use 36" and
38" wheels. I guess the modern diesels are much heavier than the 2nd (or 3rd generation?) generation diesels of the 70s (e.g., GP38).

Weathering Experiment:

I'm just a beginner in weathering. I don't have an airbrush. I'm pretty bad
at using a can spray to make consistant uniform coatings. So, i just decided
to use a small brush to dab around. As in my MTH model, I used Polly S rust
500068. 1st, I brushed the paint using down strokes on the trucks. I wasn't
satisfied with just the trucks being weathered. So, after reading some article
on HO weathering using turpentine to 'water' down the paint, I tried to thin out
the Polly. but no luck. the paint kept on concentrating by itself as blobs
and didn't mix with the turp. it maybe dat the turp is too old at 20 or 30years of storage? so, i decided to use the standard paint thinner (of equal age). the paint seems to be thinned better with the thinner and i started to
drip/brush down the clevisis between the side panels. but as u can see, the
mix also made the surface shinny. didn't like dat. so, i let it dry. then,
i decided to chaulk the panels over the job. dat cured the shinniness but
after 2nd thought, real weathered engines also have shinny spots amongst dull
weather beaten surfaces like an old automobile sat out in the sun. so, i left
some shinny portion on the side panels. i used my finger to smear the chaulk but couldn't reach quite well behind the hand rails. I've then tried Q-tips but not much improvements. so, decided to poverize the chaulk and dab it on with a dry brush. the brush was not able to place the powder onto the panels. u really need a bit of a force to smear the chaulk. went back to fingering. what's gd about chaulk is dat as long as u don't spray over the job with dull coat or shinny coat plastic, u can wash it off and try again till u get it 'right'. well, i just kept the 1st chaulking as it is for now.

All the photos were taken with my new Canon Powershot A550 Digital Camera of 7.1
Meg Pexel, 4X optical power.

The photo 1 below gives an honest broad profile of the model:



The photo 2 below shows Semi-Superposed Rt side of the model. The side windows
have beveled thick plastic glazing that Atlas need to replace with thinner
one. the window rims should be thinner too. no locomotive have 6 inch walls!!!
The MTH's window glazings are much better. the figures in Atlas get distorted
as viewed from the outside as well. the window glazing looks like those glass blocks of the 70 buildings. can't see anything thru them. Note that:

o I left the shinny thinner/turpentine streaks as is on the panels behind
the back cab door as shown in the photo, the streaks are thin yellow.
(Photo 3 gives a better closer look)

o The cab sides and the mid panels have more chaulk smears. Note dat the
rear part of the mid panels have more rust dabs

o The panels under the giant cooling fan 'umbrella' has less of the weathering
and the trucks have rust streaks as well as the white chaulk streaks

o The vertical streaks i smeared on the fuel tank side got smudged up when
i carried the model to this photo spot. oh well! yeah, the fuel port should
have petro streaks downward too!

o The piston coming out of the brake cylinders should have shinny chrome paint
and the twin square bellow columns at the middle of the truck frame should
have black rubber paint. should also have grimmy black/grey oily guup at the
trucks

Photo 3, 4 - Front Side, Middle Side





Photo 5 - Rear Side Panels



Photo 6 - Semi Superposed Rt



Photo 7 - Closer view of weathering, Superposed front



Photo 8 - Semi Superposed Rt rear



Photo 9 - Dash 8 lashed up with AC4400CW



Photo 10 - MTH AC4400CW with truck only weathered

looks great to me, and its your first time?




1 suggestion.....I take the truck sideframes off and hit the area behind the sideframes with a flat black or something, I also paint the entire frame flat black too. Just to take any sheen or shiny screw heads outta the equation.

good Job!

Great job on the table top it looks absolutely real!

Your locomotives look great! It takes a lot of courage to weather a brand new model for the 1st time and I think yours turned out super. I'm still trying to find the courage to attack one of mine with more than chalks that can be washed off if I make a mistake. I see some of the results of Dave B. and Don (Industrial ?) and just wish I had half that talent.

Nice job!

Butch

Thx for the comments TC and UP.

Yes, I need to put a bit more of detail paintings. As for more practice,
we can try kid's water color 1st. the water paint should wash off but try
if dat's true. then, if u like the result, we can spray with dull coat or
shinny coat. yes, the shinny screws and chromed gear behind the trucks
can be annoying. but at times, i kind of enjoy the gears spinning to let
me know there's real motor behind them. there are too much daylight between
the trucks and the bottom of the loco's frame. i think the prototype's body
comes down a bit lower but if i do dat, i may bring down the coupler height
too low. may need to do surgery. and also, in the prototype, there are
several square columns dat comes down/up betwn the trucks and the frame.

The next photos is of prototype wide cab version, Dash 8-40BW of the Dash 8-39B or 8-40B. The ATSF version is really weathered badly and this would require
better talent than I to simulate. At RR work yards, I still see patch work
of SF engines with BNSF captions stenciled, even today:



2nd Photo is of BNSF. it seems the RR always keeps their loco clean. I c them
everyday like dat:



3rd photos are Atlas 0 current offerings. they come with DCC on gold serice
in BNSF and ATSF as well as others. check the atlas web site.





i've ordered 3 Atlas 2 rail BNSF and ATSF versions from the AM hobbies.

carman

Glad you figured it out.

The weathering job you did looks very good. Be sure to dullcote it to keep your fingers from easily messing up the chalks, but be warned, you need to mask off the windows so the dullcote won't haze them up and that the dullcote may wear off some of the chalking so it won't look so heavy.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by carman:

I tried to thin out
the Polly. but no luck. the paint kept on concentrating by itself as blobs
and didn't mix with the turp. it maybe dat the turp is too old at 20 or 30years of storage? so, i decided to use the standard paint thinner (of equal age). the paint seems to be thinned better with the thinner and i started to
drip/brush down the clevisis between the side panels.
[QUOTE]

The loco came out looking very nice, you have a good eye for weathering.
Pollyscale is a water based paint so you want to thin it with water or alcohol instead of paint thinner or turps. You can make a pollyscale wash by putting a few drops on an old saucer and adding alcohol or water till it is the right consistency........dave

Carman,
Beautiful weathering job!

Even the plant stand it's sitting on is nicely rusted!!!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Again, really nice work.

Jim

thx guys for the complements and suggestions. i didn't know polly was water
based. ok, if u wet her crackers, it'll melt. the rusted stand gives a gd
example of how rust does it's job. this steel stand is like 20 - 30 yrs old,
setting in hot calif sun. it would have been a goner if it was outside in
east coast where i used to live. the steel even have to deal with salt if it
was a car. the sheet metal be eaten to holes if the paint was scratched within
2 yrs. the rust eats from under the paint and eventually, the paint comes off or gets eaten. light brown coming thru the paint is still working hard to come thru. chocolateized. when the rust is old, it seems crystalized, giving sandy texture with dark chocolate brown.

i didn't 1st wanted to paste the MTH and Atlas lashed up photo since
i haven't figured how to clip off the flower pots and junk shown below the stand. but went ahead so all can see how the engines look together. at my current work down the port of long beach, ca and port of los angeles, 44% of US
imports come thru from the ships across the seas in intermodal containers.
the containers are then taken off the ships and placed on the intermodal
container trains (and vice versa) using huge 3 stories high or higher cranes
and diesl crab like loaders with huge thick rubber tires. (see pitgo's container train model photos). as the container cars are placed in the huge yards, the mile long railcars are inspected by carmen, then
repaired, brakes and valves adjusted, safety equipment repaired (crossovers,
sill steps, handholds, handbrakes, damaged/wornout wheels, couplers/cutbar, replaced, ... then some switch engines (usually from local Pacific Harbor Line [PHL]) would re-assemble and placed the string of container car, of 100 - 132 or more loads, on the outbound track. UP or BNSF engines of 3 - 5 are lashed up onto the railcars. At this point, we carman are called to test the entire system using the End of Device (EOT) communicating with the control tower to keep the outbound track safe, then with the engineer/conductor in the head engine via radio voice link. we never seen a train with only 2 engines here. but i've seen 2 or even 1 engine pulling shorter container train in photos.
i believe the mile long container cars from these big sea ports are kept together and sent to a big in-land state yards, like dallas, chicago, st. louis,
etc. where the containers are transfered to smaller container trains for local
delivery (or placed on big rig trucks). these 'local' delivery trains have only
one or 2 engines. oh well, i guess i can't finance long container cars even
if i can finance 3 - 5 plastic engines!!! it's amazine how pitgo amassed such
a long container cars. must of been like a dull unforgiving production effort
to convert all those ugly lionel trucks. i don't think i can do it. gigantic
task of a determined individual, or pay some 9 yo kid. whew!

oh, my senior hobbist reminded me dat i should also rust out the wheels.
yes, they're too shinny, catching the hot california sun, yellow. as he
pointed out, only new iron has orangy light rust but the older ones have deep
dark chocolate color. on old wheels we replace daily at the RR yrd, the whl
has dark brown gray tone. not much grease on them except for their bearings.
couplers (unless new) have just dark brown tone.

carman

Finally weathered the wheels. Also dabbed a little bit of shines on the
shock absorbers and the brake cylinder pistons on the trucks.

1. The left side broad shot:



2. Shows front super posed left but also shows some rust spots on the
front step grab irons. I must admit dat I just done this job randomly
but next time, I'll study where paint wears off or gets scratched,
promoting rust to eat. I guess smokers would slide cig lighter along
the grabs? There shouldn't be too much at the bottom of the irons



3. Front side broad shot. I just used Polly's grimmy black and her Rust
paints as I turn the motor and kept the brush on the whl rim. I've
also added metalic paint on the shock absorber pistons and brake cyl.
pistons where it retracts or advance.

Note:
the rear whl flange is on the rail. If ur an inspector and missed this,
you can be suspended or terminated if the loco derails. ur the last
one who inspected the engine!!!



4. Wheel Tread. Since the whls come gunblued (chemically blackened), we
should make the flange and the tread shinny. I used to think dat these
surfaces were shinny because they scrape against the rails. but this is
not really true. the brake shoes would make the more smoother and shinnier
than the rails ever could. flanges can get shinny goint thru curves,
frogs, guard rails with great pressure of course:

In this shot, i would like 2 c casting hollows on the front of the
trk frame as in the prototype. this can be done by gluing the backing
to make the frame thicker. there's plenty of room betwn the whls (the
axle never touches the journal box) and the back of the frame in this model



5. Here's the final front left superposed shot. This weathering was just
my 1st exercise. since it's of chaulk and water paint, i can wash them
off and do it again. nxt time would be more based on the prototype
photos.



thx for looking in.

carman

Oops!

Here's photo #4 showing the close up of the frame's front edge where
casting hollow should be and the gunmetal coated tire tread that should
be shinny silver.



carman

Excellent work for a first attempt. Remarkable.

Yves

thx for ur comment yves!

here would be my last photo for this article. the wheel treads and flanges
were shined with emily paper (sand paper) but the camera exposure was not up to
show the shine:



i also learned that i like just a little of weathering. too much would
make the model too junkie! when i get more practice and like the result,
yes, i would dull coat it. also, the model was weathered without disassembling
it resulting in not being able to reach behind the side grab rails. so, the
next time, i would disassemble. there was a great article in 0 Scale Trains
(OST) mag of recent issue, sept/oct 2008 by rich divizio. He used standard
artists' paints, water soluable oil, gouache, and other mat'ls to bring much
more sophisticated techniques resulting in beautiful weathered hopper.
i hope everyone would go buy the issue and enjoy how the pro's do the job.
yet, i think my technique of water based paint and chaulk would be a great start
to overcome any amateur hesitation as i had.

one more note of CAUTION:
=======

when u turn wheels to paint them off rails by connecting the power line
onto the bronze electrical pick up tabs, make sure your allegators do not
touch the diecast gear boxes. else u would short (burn) the motors. you would
know with the distinct smell when dat happens.

till then,

carman