July 18, 2011 My New Southern Pacific SD-9

I bought a new Proto 2000 SD-9 off E-Bay to complement my Proto 2000 SD-7.  The plan was to make the SD-9 look like my SD-7 but there are a lot of differences to overcome.  The main difference is this Proto doesn't have Dynamic Brakes.  I did number it as an SD-7.

As you can see it began it's life as a Chessie System Locomotive.




The SD-9 is a much newer version Proto (2010) than my SD-7.  It was very hard to dissemble the shell on the SD-9, the factory almost over glued everything.  I shot the individual pieces of the shell with Testors Flat Black.  I had printed up the Black Widow decals earlier on my Alps MD-1000  and only had to print the road numbers for it.



The artwork was done on my CAD program.  I copied the drawings to Microsoft Paint where I colored them and then printed them on my Alps.  I used an old Champ Decal set off my SD-7 as a go by. 



For years I have been using Pactra Masking Tape but I had run out so I called my local hobby shop to see if he had some.  I was quite surprised when he said that he doesn't stock masking tape.  

He sent me down the street to an Automotive Paint Supply store for some 3M Blue Fine Line Masking Tape.  He said that I will like it better than the hobby tape.  

That tape is the best that I have ever used, it blows all the hobby masking tape away.  After using the 3M I'll never go back to using hobby tape again.



Using the new 3M tape I was easily able to mask the shell and spray the silver ends.

It may have started it's life as a Chessie SD-9 but now it's my second Southern Pacific Black Widow SD-7(9) now.

The Chessie version did not have Dynamic Brakes.  I had some cooling vents left over from an earlier project so I added them and a cooling fan cut out of an older locomotive shell.

 
The end result is very nice, I now have a mate for my SD-7.  

I like to run my locomotives in pairs, now I can do it with my SDs.  The Proto 2000 SDs are highly detailed and powerful runners too.  Twenty four powered wheels will tow a pretty good load.

Numbers 5324 & 5330 will look very good towing my MOW work train with my CMX track cleaning car taking care of the rails.

I used this repaint & decal job as a breather from my kitbashed ¾ dome car project.  

It's time to return to my ¾ dome car.

Added August 24th

I couldn't look at this SD-9 locomotive seeing the GP-9 Dynamic Brakes any longer.  I did a Buy It Now on E-Bay for a Proto SD-9 shell with dynamic brakes.  It was a CNW shell and I Southern Pacific-ed it.

It went from this ↑ to this ↓ in a couple of hours.

 
Now I can rest peacefully when I'm looking at it.