Thanks to all for the kind words.

Very nice model. Great paint, details followed by a very subtle weathering job - not overdone. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Allan!

There is one thing that was made mention to me that I failed to mention in my article. It was brought to my attention that the height of the lower green band was incorrect. And that is true. I made that error or adjustment to the band on purpose. The lower green band if you look at pictures, comes up to the bottom of the hinge of the cab and naturally follows through along the rest of the body. I lowered my band because the Kato model isn't very accurate as a model. The hinges on the Kato cab are at a correct height, but the nose grab irons and the grabs on the rear hood are off in height. The height of the Kato grabs are 10.49mm. The correct height should be 11.32mm, a difference of .83mm. I lowered the bottom green band by a scale 2.5 inches or .7mm. I did this to match the appearance of the prototype. If not, the green band would have been above the rung of the grab irons instead of under. So lowering the band gave the model an appearance of visual accuracy. That is my fault for not relaying that info in my article. As I mentioned before and you will continue to hear this from me, no matter how much you try to be accurate to the prototype, sometimes you need to make adjustments based on the model your building, this is due to the inaccuracies in a production model.

With other SD45 builds I've done over the years, I replaced the Cab, sub-base and nose with Cannons parts. This build is what I call a budget build, keeping costs down and one everyone here can do if they like. I appreciate any and all comments good or bad. And I definitely had no problem with the private conversation sent to me. It was my fault that I failed to mention the adjustment I made in band height.I'm just happy someone actually noticed.

I'm looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the meet, it will be fun.

Ron,

Would replacement of both ends of the shell with Canon parts correct the height issue you mentioned? How do the Canon cab and sub-base match up with the Kato shell?

Again, great model and excellent writeup!

Mark

Hi Mark, yes it does correct the issue. Fitting the Cannon cab components to a Kato is fairly simple. The rear hood is more of a challenge due to the cuts and fitting the replacement hood.

Looks great Ron I am soon going try doing my Athearn blue box Sd45,s. Todd Shoffler