Next I’m preparing to build the new pin lifters, but first I needed to make the brackets for the pin lifters. On the prototype they were made of blocks of steel with a heavy clamp bolted together. I made my version of the brackets with .030 x.030 styrene. I cut eight of these to a length .070. Next I penciled a straight line across the face of the pilot with a straight edge. This mark will keep the brackets in line. I used the existing holes for the Proto brackets as a location point for the new brackets. I cemented the brackets in place with liquid cement and let them dry thoroughly.

Letting the blocks dry completely was necessary to insure I wouldn’t have movement when I drilled holes through the blocks. Before drilling, I drew a second straight line across the center of the blocks. The line will guide me when I drill the holes for the pin lifters. I used a #79 drill and followed my line across the blocks and drilled straight through the first two blocks. I repeated this action on each side.

The Alco style pin lifters or coupler lift bars are not well represented by most manufactures or aftermarket firms. Even for EMD models they are a poor representation. Making my own lift bars is not as bad as one would think. Like anything you do in model building it only takes a little practice. Alco style lift bars have a little more design to them compared to EMD. So they do require a little more bending.

I made my pin lifters with bronze wire .010 from Tichy. Bronze is stronger than brass but bends just as easy. I cut 4 pieces of wire allot longer than what I need, this way if I don’t like how it looks, I can just nip it off and start over on the same piece. I made the lift bars first by following prototype pictures. I don’t have the actual dimensions that I used; I made all my bends by eye. I use Xuron 450 tweezer nose pliers to make my bends and just kept track of my locations on the pliers while bending.

To make the hoop on the lift bars, I had to come up with some dimensions. I also wanted to mount the hoop straight into the pilot giving it an optical illusion that it was attached to the lift bars. To make the hoop end, I used a tool I bought some years back from a craft store. The tool which is a mandrel comes in a set of 2 and is used in jewelry making. Micro-Mark sells these tools, but for the same tool they were cheaper at the craft store.



The section I used to bend my hoop has a dimension of .197. After bending the wire, it does spring outwards a bit and gives me the width that I was looking for. A little tweaking here and there gives the hoop a nice appearance.



The hoop is about 1 ¾ scale ft. or .255 in length. I made a small mark at that point and bent the wire inwards. Then I use a tool I made using an old pair of needle nose pliers. I had ground both sides of the tips to .019. I’ve used this tool to help me make short special bends with wire and defiantly came in handy for this project.




After bending both sides, I Drilled 2 #78 holes into the pilot inside the inner brackets just above the lift bars. I checked to see how it fit and did more tweaking to the part as needed.

Lastly, I added the emergency fuel cut off switch. I used an eyebolt for that on both sides.



That wraps up the walkway and pilots. Next up is the body work.

Body


Looking over the Proto S1 doing my normal comparisons between prototype and model, the body details are very fine and crisp. Proto did a nice job replicating the S1. I did find some minor details missing which can be added easily. After putting a game plan together on what I wanted to do to bring more pop to the body, I removed the plastic grab irons, sanders and fan grate. Now the fun begins.
For starters, I removed the exhaust stack. Viewing the pictures of #53, the Reading’s homemade stacks for these switchers had several variations between them. I think the stack on #53 was a sewer pipe in a past life; it was the only model with a stack that fat.

After cutting away the stack, I sanded the area smooth. Then I used a #39 drill bit and enlarged the hole that was left from the old stack and glued a section of .182 rod from Plastruct into it. I sanded the area smooth again and applied putty as needed. I wet sanded the area when the putty dried. A good match for the stack came from a Stewart Baldwin VO1000. I did reduce the length of the stack to .590 measuring up from the base and cleaned up the mold lines. I gauged the end of the stack so I could drill a bigger hole into the plug for a snug fit.

I didn’t glue the stack on until I finished all detailing and painting. I plugged the slots where the lift rings go with scrap styrene and sanded those areas smooth. I drilled # 81 holes for the new lift rings. While I was drilling holes with the #80, I also drilled the holes for the radiator shutter control rod. Next I cut out the radiator fan to add shutters in its place. Removing the fan would also give a little extra room for air flow around the DCC module.

One of the missing details on the body was the door knobs. How I approached this was too use a straight edge across the doors and draw a line. This would help me keep the door knobs in a straight line. I used photos to reference the location of the knobs. Next I marked and drilled #80 holes where the door knobs were going to be. I used .010 styrene round rod from Plastruct to make the door knobs and secured them in place with liquid cement. The length of the rods wasn’t a concern; I made a simple gauge to even the lengths outside the doors once the glue dried.