Modeling The New Haven DEY-2, Part 5

The Finishing Details

A method to model the louvers on the cab plus the two different widths of louvers on the side of the long hood and were a deterrent that had delayed starting this model for some time. A breakthrough in the thought process came when I used .005" styrene to re-side a Proto 100 DL-109 and discovered how easy it was to emboss detail into the thin styrene by placing it over a detailed surface and then transferring that detail into the styrene by rubbing it with a toothpick.

The below photo shows a piece of .005" styrene clamped to the side of an Atlas RS-1 body shell, the louver detail has been embossed into the styrene with a tooth pick. These louvers where cut out and glued to the side of the long hood in the appropriate places as necessary.

Click to enlarge photos

A die was necessary to emboss the wider louvers required for the sides of the long hood. Using the same louvers as above, this section of louvers was removed from an other shell and the two were spliced together to form a die for the wider louvers. see below.

This model was built before resin rivet and louver decals were available, maybe a decal for this detail is available today.

Outside mounted hinge detail for the doors on the sides of the long hood much like the hinge on the RS-1 in the photo above were required.

The photo below show brass wire glued to .010" styrene strips to make the single door hinges at top and the double door hinges below. Initially the wire was cut longer that necessary to facilitate ease of handling when gluing and was cut even with the edge of the strips after the glue had cured.

The photo below shows the underside of the components that make up the two access hatches that are located on the top of the long hood.

This photo shows the underside of the hatch components after assembly. The two long strips will be the contact/glue surface to mount the hatch assembly to the top of the hood.

To make these glue strips fit the arch of the hood, the now upright hatch assembly was rubbed back and forth over a fine piece of sandpaper that was draped over the top of the hood until the arch of the hatch mounting strips was the same as the hood making full contact glue strips.

 

Below the hatches have been glued to the hood top. In the same photo note that both the narrow and wide louvers have been attached to the side access doors along with the single door hinges.

Brackets to hold the front and rear headlights were made from a piece of brass channel. Two lengths of brass wire were soldered to the channel and will mount the brackets into matching holes drilled into the ends of the hoods as seen below.

The pilots are also made from styrene. For strength, the footboard mounting brackets were made from brass bar stock. A completed pilot and a set of components can be seen below.

Below a pilot and a buffer have been mounted to the front of the flat slab baseplate that the cab and hood superstructure will sit on, the pilot components lay in the foreground.

The steel plate slab of the prototypes baseplate was 1 1/2" thick, .020" styrene was used to represent that on the model. The base plate was carefully cut out just enough to clear the motor, gear tower assemblies and parts of the original chassis that protrude above the mounting surface of the styrene base plate.

Below are the component pieces that were used to re-side the SW9/1200 trucks to make them look more like the welded trucks on the prototype.

The truck sideframe at the top is an unaltered Proto SW9/1200 piece, the one below that has the brake cylinder and brake shoe assemblies removed to make clearance for the styrene pieces to be glued onto the sideframe and the third sideframe has all the pieces attached. The springs below come from old freight trucks, the spring parts were attached where needed, see the six springs peaking out below the larger styrene piece that makes up the re-sided side frame.

Below the finished trucks are attached to the chassis.

In the following two pictures some of the finishing details can be seen attached to the switcher.

Two Access panels are on the front of the long hood.
Three angle iron steps for roof access are on both hood ends.
All louvers including the ones on the cab sides are in place.
Headlight brackets.
Door hinges installed.
Side tanks installed, these are made from styrene tube with the ends caped, then tank sides resided with .005" styrene with rivet detail embossed.
Exhaust stack made from brass tube.
Sand storage tank clean out plugs, Cal Scale bearing caps used for this.
Pilots installed.
Radiator fan shroud, this is from a Stewart RS-3 Flat kit. May be available from Bowser today.
Lift rings, Detail Associates.

Below are the pieces that make up the end steps. These are made oddly enough from EMD F-7 number boards. I had bought two used Kato-Stewart F-7's to repower a pair of poor running Geeps, the bodies were un-needed and these number boards were a separate casting and very strong rigid pieces so I thought that they would be a great basis for the end steps.

The few added pieces of styrene shown were all they needed to make a fair representation of the curved bottom end steps of the prototype.

The shape of the side plates of cab steps were taken from the GE drawing. A finished step and the component parts to make the second set can be seen below.

The next set of photos taken during the painting process show cab steps and some of the other final details like the whistle, grab irons and assorted details on the top of the short hood in place.

This picture has the end steps and hand rails installed. The hand rail stanchions also come from the Stewart RS-3 flat kit, the hand rails are made from brass wire. The painted trucks and side tanks with straps show well in this some what off color photo of the completed model below.

 

In conclusion, this was a fun and challenging build that gave me an opportunity to explore some new modeling techniques. My wish is that this series of photos may inspire someone else to build a model of this locomotive, possibly in a larger or smaller scale, or the very cool Bangor & Aroostook Railroad version, or maybe just some small aspect used to build this model that could be helpful in building a model you need.

Now, I wonder if some decoder manufacturer has a sound file for a 1936 Cooper-Bessemer 660 HP non-turbo prime mover?!

Although New Haven DEY-2's were never used on the Berkshire and gone before my modeling era, this one will be occasionally at home switching cars on the layout in Danbury as seen below in front of the nearing completion Danbury freight house model. The freight house will be the subject of a future posts.