DME 2nd Hand Diesels: Chopped and Stacked

Both units needed some attention in the exhaust stack area, the 555 needs two additional stacks and the 6606 needed them moved on top of the dynamic brake housing. I decided to dabble in resin casting and make copies of an exhaust stack on the non-dynamic hood. I used a basic Alumilite Mini Casting Kit. The results are much better than I would have guessed and it was very easy. The biggest lesson learned was that when casting such a tiny part it is nearly impossible to mix a tiny amount of resin correctly, and there is mucho wasteo. If I ever need to duplicate a part again I'll wait until I have several molds to fill.

Both units got their noses chopped and cabs loosely fitted. The gear tower on the Life Like mechanism is very tall and as a result the hoods are about 1mm too high, but at normal viewing distance and angles it is hard to tell so it fits the "good enough" criteria for me.

DME 2nd Hand Diesels

I haven't finished dirtying up the covered hopper fleet yet but I will some day... Until then, I dug out some Life Like SD9's to give some special treatment to. They'll be converted into a tired DM&E SD9 and SD10. This is a project I've wanted to do for quite a while, and the folks over at nscale.net are having a fall kitbashing party so it seemed an appropriate time to start these. Life Like is probably not a good starting point for such a project but it's what I have so it'll have to do.

The SD9 will be number 6606 that had its nose cut down in one of CNW's rebuilding programs. I plan to use an Atlas SD26 low nose cab. For the SD10 I'm taking the easy way out and will be doing 555, A MILW rebuild that was wrecked and rebuilt again with GP35 cab parts. Easy peasy, I happen to have a cab from a busted Kato GP50 shell. The air filter for 555 I'm particularly fond of, I measured a Detail Associates HO air filter and drew it in Sketchup, then uploaded the drawing to Shapeways. It's crude but effective.