My Model Railroad: August 8, 2011 Brass GP-9 Shell

I won a bid on E-bay, it was listed as a PFM SD-9 BRASS HO ENGINE SHELL. When I received it I was disappointed because it wasn't an SD-9, it was a GP-9. I recovered quickly and decided to do it to it anyway using an Athearn GP-9 chassis instead of the planned SD-9 chassis.

I used a Muriatic Acid wash to thoroughly clean it then a Rubbing Alcohol wash. After it was dry I painted it with a very light coat of Rust-Oleum Self Etching primer.

I let the grey primer dry over night then shot it with Testors Flat Black.

There was a lip on the Athearn frame that I had to remove so that the brass shell would fit flush.

I removed all of the motor, drive & trucks to grind the needed ⅛" from the frame as shown above.

I drilled 4 holes in the Athearn frame to use the existing mounting holes in the brass shell.

The Self Etching Primer worked very good as the shell paint took quite a beating during the fitting process.

The hard work is finished on my Brass/Athearn Geep. I ordered some Liquid Masking Tape because I can't remove the hand rails to paint the hood ends silver. After the silver paint on the hood ends dries it will be install the window glass and decal time.

The Liquid Masking Film worked but it was a disaster! It took two hours to clean it off. I only used it on the end pictured on the right above. I finally had to use a wire brush to remove it. That left me with the brass handrails broken loose. I used AC to reattach them because I figured that the heat from the silver solder would ding the good paint. I did the touch-up with two coats of flat black Crafters Acrylic thinned with water so that I wouldn't leave brush strokes.

I used the 3M Automotive Masking Tape on the cab end and now it's ready for the Black Widow decals.

The Black Widow Decals are on and the red SP stripe is on the frame. The 3M Masking Tape did the trick again.

My Alps printer does a bang-up job on decals.

The 1mm 1½ volt lights worked out very nice for headlights. I used a full wave bridge rectifier in series with the motor to supply the constant 1½ volts to the lamps.