Southern Pacific C44-9W #8147

I thought it would be fun and challenging to paint and detail an undecorated Kato Dash-9 and then sell it on Ebay.  The Southern Pacific had 101 Dash 9's in its roster before the UP takeover.  They were numbered 8100 - 8200.  Seen below is #8147, the one I decided to model.

Here is what I started with:

I found the Kato model to be very accurate when compared to the real thing, however, there were a few glaring discrepancies:  the most obvious being the location of the ditch lights.  The SP had the lights mounted above the anti-climber; Kato has them below.  Also, the Kato model does not include the filter vent for the air conditioner directly behind the cab on the conductor's side and the railing stanchions are not properly spaced on the ends above the anti-climbers.  The hard core "rivet-counter" will, no doubt, find more flaws than I did.  The thought of installing working lights in the proper location and chopping out an area for the AC vent was too scary for me.  I soon decided I could live with the minor differences. 

Painting the model was fun and things went smoothly.  First, I disassembled the model.  Then I painted the entire shell and trucks SP Lark Dark Grey.  As a precaution, I did not remove the motor from the frame.  I masked the motor, flywheels and electronics and painted the frame the same dark grey.  After the shell was dried, I masked it up and painted the ends SP Scarlet.  The wheels got a coat of roof brown, as did the portions of the gear housings that are visible when the model is reassembled.

The decals were a very challenging aspect of the project.  Microscale makes a set specifically for the SP's Dash-9's, but I was unaware of this until after I struggled with the Microscale generic "Modern SP hood diesel" set.  The C44-9W was included on the list along with EMD's and other GE's, but the "Bloody Nose Wings" had to be trimmed.  Glad I always buy two sets of decals.  I spent a great deal of time getting the wings to fit.  The paint did not match the decals, but I would deal with that later (with a little SP Scarlet and a fine brush).  Also, the number board numbers were too large so I just painted the number boards flat black and glued them in place.  And, the decal set I used did not include many of the warning notices specific to the Dash-9, most noticeably, the four white and red rectangles on both ends of the over hanging wings.  Oh well, rivet-counters would have a fit, but I made the most of it.

The white stripes along the length of the engine were especially troublesome.  I ended up removing them and reapplying them because they were moved out of alignment when I applied Solve-a-Set.  And because I had covered up the rear jack lift brace!

Next came some of the details.  I installed the grab irons and painted them to match the prototypical photos I referenced from the internet.  I also installed the couplers, couple lift levers and air hoses.  I pre-painted these parts and touched them up after installation.  The model has pre-drilled holes for all the detail parts, but I needed to enlarge them (too much perhaps) with my trusty pin vise. 

Before I finally reassembled the shell I test ran the engine on my test track.  Check!  The Dash-9 ran fine and the directional lights still worked!  Reassembling the model is much more difficult after it is painted and decaled up.  I needed to touch up a few areas.  Then I installed the railings and a speed recorder I crafted from left over plastic sprue material and a guitar string.

I weathered the finished engine with chalks and coats of Dullcoat.  Here are some indoor photos of the finished product.

Natural Sunlight captures the actual colors of the model best.  This series of photos shows how I cut the model and pasted it into a background I shot right here in Castle Rock, Colorado.  No Photoshop for me (that would require learning) - this work was done Old School with the plain old Paint app found in Windows.

Ebay Photos:

Thanks for looking!

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