Yup! Brian does great work. He's really trying to promote the custom building hobby. It is a dying art. But the good news is, the manufactures will not invest their money in the odd ball locomotives. This is where modelers like us, step up and show how to build these oddities so others can do the same through our efforts. Sharing is still what makes this hobby great.

Now, I’m going to add the air tanks, Salem filter and piping. I’m going to use a mix of DW #304 air pipes and .012 brass rod. I’ll start with the left side since it is the easiest. I drill a #75 hole in the front and rear of the air tank for the DW pipes. I test fit the pipes to make sure they fit in the holes. Next, I use CA to glue the tank in place with the rear tank brackets sitting at the .270 mark. I allow 10 minutes for set up. Now I’m going to clean the pipes up of any flash and mold seams. Next, I set the pipes in place and get them into position. I then pull them out enough to add CA and reset them back into the position I wanted. I also added the moisture injector from the Cannon kit. I used liquid cement for the injector. The left side is done, now I’ll move to the right side.



With the right side tank facing front, I’m drilling the front hole with a #79 drill bit, and a #75 for the rear of the tank. I Glue the tank in place with CA at the same .270 location. Now I’ll use .012 rod, and I make the angled bends for the pipe going from the tank to the air filter. I then slide the pipe through the filter and back into the air tank. I check the fitting and glue the rod in place with CA. With the pipe glued in place, I use needle nose pliers to bend the pipe at the front of the filter. I place the pliers in front of the filter and carefully make the bend. Next I use two small Athabasca eye bolts and set one into the hole I drilled for the small air filter, and I drill a #80 hole for the second one. The location for the first eye bolt was correct to the prototype, the second location was just eye balled in and in a direct line with the first eye bolt. I use .012 rod and bend the pipe for that. I use CA to glue that into place. That pipe does run behind the air tank along the rail. I felt there was no need to duplicate that detail; it will just disappear on the model. Lastly, I added the injector to the rear of the tank.
I also added a vent valve just ahead of the air filter. I used Railflyer DP 6217. DW makes the vent valves also. I measured .166 from the center of the first stanchion and drilled a # hole. I glued it in place with CA.

Moving back to the left side of the deck, I’m going to add the DA bell #1202. The location for the bell is .157.


I wanted to support the bell instead of just gluing it to the inside of the side sill. So I used .080 x .125 styrene and cut to fit the base of the bell. I drilled a hole through the center of the styrene base so the mounting pin on the bell slides in. I use liquid cement to glue the bell to the base. After a little drying time, I drilled a #80 hole through the bell bracket just above the bell itself. That hole will be for the .010 air line. Next, I’m going to cut some plastic from the base of the bell to a total height of .304. I measure from the bottom of the bell to the base. The clapper isn't included in the measurement. I then used liquid cement to glue it down to the deck. Allowing some set up time; I took the .010 brass rod and ran it through the bell. I carefully make some bends at both ends of the line so I can glue it to the deck. It wasn't important to me to make some elaborate attachment to the deck as long as it was secured. The visible line measures .520.


Now I’m going to add a pair of inspection lights. I usually add the Cannons version but I had a pair of PSC lights sitting in my parts bin, so I figured I would use those instead. I made pads for these to raise them to the proper height by cutting .040 x.040 styrene. I drilled holes into the styrene block for the mounting pins on the lights. I used liquid cement to mount the lights on the pads. I measured from the edge of the jack pads out .115 for the center location of the lights. I used liquid cement to glue the lights to the deck.


The final detail I added under the deck was the four pilot supports. I made the pilot supports using .012 styrene rod. I cut the supports to a length of .510. This is over-sized for what I need. I leave enough material on in case I don’t cut good angles on the rod. Looking at the pic, you see the angles are at both ends of the rods and where they are to be glued in place. When cut to size, the rods will to be about .451 in length. I used CA to glue these in place.



The last detail to add will be the DA #1505 MU receptacles on the top deck. I used liquid cement on these.


The deck is now ready for paint. I don’t add the lift bars or any other details to the pilots; it’ll make it easier to apply the barricade decals. So these details will be added after decaling.

Handrails

Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not using Kato’s handrails as a whole. I’m only going to use the stanchions. If you want, you can use the handrail set from Smokey Valley, but you have to plug all holes in the deck and relocate and drill holes for the SMVs. Or, just use the Kato handrail set as is. What I’m doing is using a jig along with a mini drill press. There’s many ways you can make a jig to drill stanchions. It’s all in how elaborate you want to make the jig. I made mine simple. It’s not pretty or perfect by no means, but for me it works. It allows for fairly straight through drilling. What’s important with the jig is how the part is supported. The stanchion has to fit snug and has to accommodate both sizes of stanchions, unless you want to make a separate jig for each size.

Before I start cutting up the Kato handrails, I grit blast them to give them some tooth for paint. Then I nip off each handrail section flush to the stanchion. I use a small 400 grit sanding stick to flatten the edges where the handrails were nipped off. In the jig that I made, I drill a #79 hole down the center. I will paint the stanchions separately on a painting jig to hold them in place.

Paint

To get ready for paint, I used Baking soda as a grit blasting medium to remove any gloss from the Kato paint on the body and the parts that were added. Since the deck was already blasted, there’s no need to do it again. I wash the body and everything else to be painted in warm soapy water and allow them air dry. After drying, I use 70% rubbing alcohol and scrub all the parts down again. I want to make sure all oils from handling are removed. I leave the parts dry.

I’m not going to get too involved with painting. Paints are a personal preference. For me my preference for this build was Accu-paint. I have Accu-paint that I blended for my RDG yellow. I was able to match the color from a paint swatch I received when the GP30 was painted. I made a little over a pint of the color which has served me well over the years. All the paints I used on the body are Accu-paints. I did use the Floquil blend for the frame and trucks and Poly scale paint I used for the interior. I also use Floquil primer gray for the insides of the fan housings. Just a note, Accu-paint is now made under the name Tru-color.

First thing I’m going to paint is the interior of the cab with Poly scale gray. When the paint dries after a day, I tape off the windows on the inside of the cab. I then shoot the yellow over the body and cab and use a holding jig to paint all handrail stanchions yellow. I let these dry for a couple of days. I didn't tone down the yellow for this build. I decided to keep it close to factory color. I will fade the paint during the weathering process. This also applies to the green. My thoughts are to replicate a unit just a couple years in service.

Next I tape off the yellow and paint the green on the body, cab and deck. I use Tamiya 6mm masking tape for the edging. The tape is very flexible and easy to use. I burnish the edges of the tape to prevent bleed through. I let the paint dry for an hour and slowly peel back the tape. I also paint the headlight housing, drop steps separately and fan screens. I let these dry again for a couple of days.

Next I tape the deck and side sill for the Stencil black paint on the pilots and steps. After shooting the black, I leave the tape on the deck. After the Stencil Black dries for a day, I shoot under the deck including the air tanks, back of pilots and outside the step wells with the same black paint mix as the frame. This makes everything uniform under the deck. I remove all tape after an hour.

I now take the time to hand paint the inside walls and supports of all the fans Floquil D&H gray. I include the fan caps still attached to the tree. I’m not worried about the fans being painted perfectly, as they will be weathered.




I added the headlight housing and set all grab irons in their locations. I will glue them in place and paint them by hand.