Now making the bends to match the SW hood isn't bad either. The styrene made by Evergreen flexes enough to make these bends without scoring or cracking. It’s not a brittle plastic like the shell. I use my flat nose pliers from Xuron and gently place them on the hood just before the corner. I then take and bend the rail following the hood contour. I repeat this for the other side. Happy with bends, I glue them down with liquid cement, and yes, let them dry overnight.

It's been awhile since I posted on this project. I'm getting back to this build real soon. I decided after the meet, that my shop needed a face lift. So I decided to paint the walls and floor. It was quite a mess for awhile. It's all back together and now I can get back to modeling.

After a night of drying, I cut the styrene ends flush to the body. I use a NWSL true sander to clean up the ends of both hoods. With the ends flush and the measurements are good, I’m going to do the final prep on both hoods. On the Baldwin hood section, I remove the molded on grab irons and sand the area smooth. Using a BLMA grab iron template, I drill the holes for my replacement iron. I’ll be using BLMA scale drop grabs. Next I take strip styrene .020 x .060 and cut 2 pieces about ½ long. I’ll use liquid cement and glue those vertical to the mating end of the Baldwin hood leaving half to attach to the SW hood. These will be used to help secure the body sections together. This needs to dry thoroughly before bonding to the SW hood.

On the SW hood, I remove the molded on lift rings on the side of the hood. I fill all grab iron holes on the hood with styrene rod and liquid cement. I leave the plugs dry thoroughly before shaving them flush to the body. After a night of dry time, I will then sand those areas smooth and also where the lift rings were. I’ll use the BLMA template and drill new holes for the iron. All grab Irons and lift rings will be added after all major body work is done.

Next I’m going to join the two body sections together. First, I’ll make sure the ends of SW each match to width of the Baldwin hood.I'll make adjustments to the SW hood until I get a slightly snug fit without distorting either body. When I get the fit that I want, I run a bead of liquid cement down the mating joints and on the styrene supports. You want to get a good bond at those joints by slightly squeezing the bodies together and create a little ooze of melting plastic. Double check the alignment and set the shell aside for an overnight dry.

As long as you make a good bond at the body joints, you’ll find the body as a whole is durable. Next I’m going to fill in the space between both bodies with a new hatch. On the prototype, you’ll notice that this section rises slightly upwards from the EMD hood to the Baldwin hood. The Baldwin hood is taller compared to the SW. This section of the hood is flat and does not follow the original angle from the center of the hood of the SW. Also, on the original section of the SW hood, there was an access panel on top of that section of the hood. When EMD rebuilt these hybrids, they included the access hatch. I have arrows pointing to that hatch on the photo below. That photo was taken by Tim Darnell.



Making this section will require several pieces of styrene and some sanding to shape the top edges to follow the EMD lines and match up with the Baldwin hood.

To make this new section, I used 0.030 x 0.080 styrene. I cut 2 pieces to fit the sides of the hood. I cemented these to the hood using liquid cement. Next I cut a section of 0.040 sheet styrene to fit over the top of the new hood section; I over-sized the width by .010 to allow for blending and rounding the corners to match both hoods. Use whatever size styrene you need to fill in that section. Both of my 1200m’s used different size styrene for that hood section. So the size styrene I used above might not match what you need. Check your fit. I cemented the top cap using liquid cement; I made sure I got a little melt action going on between those joints. I let this dry overnight for a secure bond.

After letting this all bond overnight, the new section of the hood edges have to be shaped and sanded to match the curvature of the EMD hood and reduced to match the Baldwin section. I started by scraping the edges with a sharp #11 blade and used 220 grit will get things going fairly fast. Once I got the general shape of the curvature, I used a pencil and colored that area of the curvature to see how it all looked. Doing it this way is easier than firing up the airbrush to primer the section. After getting the bulk of the shaping out of the way, I use 400 grit to smooth and remove the rough sand scratches and then finish up with 600 grit. So you have to realize when to stop with the 220 and move on to the other grits and using the pencil to see how well those edges turn out.

To make the access hatch, I used a Cannon #1102 toilet hatch. In appearance, it seems to be close to the right size and it has rivet detail already on it. I gently scrape away and lightly sand with 600 grit, the grab iron detail off the Cannon hatch. I use Scotch double sided tape to hold the hatch in place while doing this. The tape does hold it real good, so to move the hatch around to different positions to get it clean, I use the help of a #17 blade and slip it under the hatch to separate it from the tape.

The hatch is 0.020 thick and I want it to be no thicker than 0.010, so I reduced the thickness by sanding the bottom across 220 grit and using the tip of my finger to do the honors. You do need to constantly rotate the part with an equal amount of swipes to reduce the thickness evenly. I dampen my finger tip so the hatch doesn't slip off and I go to a 15 count on all four sides than measure the thickness. When I’m done I glue the hatch down against the SW hood centered.

Ron,
Thanks for this series on building these. Some of my fondest moments chasing trains in Philly in the early seventies included these. In particular down at Darby Creek, southwest of the city. I had not realized how much the EMD hood tapers down to mate up with the original Baldwins.
Keep these going as I am going to start mine as soon as I finnish a few painting projects.

Chris