Hi Guys
Is there a way that I can go back and add window glass to the cabs of my atheran blue box locos? I don’t know if anything is commercially available? or maybe make something myself?
The Walthers catalog still shows their “diesel dress up kit” for the old Athearn F7 A and B units (i e not the F units they offer now). It includes cast clear plastic that fits into the windows and port holes
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-822
American Model Builders and Detail Associates offer window inserts for some, but not all, of the Athearn blue box engines:
Dave Nelson
Yes they are commercially available.
Here is one instance:
http://www.laserkit.com/windowho2.htm#Athearn
I don’t know exactly what loco you have but I got some window inserts directly off the shelf at Caboose Hobbies for the F-units.
Thanks for the link guys. Yeah I have the f7 window inserts. I didnt know if there was a way that they could be made from some other material?
The window openings are likely too large to use that technique and product (the name of which I of course suddenly cannot recall!) that is used to fill small scale structure window openings between the muntins, where you basically “urge” the viscous plastic material from side to side using a toothpick, and it cures hard and clear, and reasonably flat. For a time I wondered if clear latex adhesive caulk (the kind that comes out white) could be used, but I suspect it would not harden flat enough to look like a window glass. And it does not become rock hard either but remains slightly soft.
With great effort I wonder if it would be possible to seal the back of the window openings with strong tape and then, taking care to have the model positioned at exactly the correct angle, use minute amounts of one or another of the “water effects” products (including the ones you see at craft stores for filling a vase with artificial flowers in it) to fill the window opening up to the outside surface. That is one idea. Time consuming because it would mean a window at a time. And get the angle wrong and you’d have one funny looking window!
Another thought – and I have tried NONE of these by the way – would be to press bond paper against the windows and burnish the paper so that it creates an exact image of the window, and very precisely use the images of window openings as a master to carefully cut out the thick but somewhat flexible clear plastic or acrylic material one sees in some commercial packa
Micro Kristal Klear?
[:-^]
Athearn / Horizon make a dress up kit for the F units
they included the needed glass for windows and portholes and the brass grabs that some want to use.
Johnboy out…
Jeremy,
I sort-of semi-detailed an Athearn BB SW7, I also glazed the windows on an Athearn BB GP9.
The material I used was none other than just clear acetate, 0.005"thickness. It can be somewhat tedious to install them to the side view windows on a hood unit but it can be done. This is a cheap material, too and so if you mess up you can always cut a new one for that window. I use the Evergreen clear acetate. I bought a package of this stuff back in the 90’s and I still have plenty of it. I also glaze my scratch-built structure windows with it, which some modelers think is not good, as real glass should be used. I say, trying to cut microscope slide covers can be even more tedious, especially if you’re trying to fit the glass snugly inside the dimensions if a small window.
Detail Associates (I think) sells “window glazing material” for this purpose (forget the exact name, can’t find it on Walthers.com right now). It’s basically ~1" wide strips of thin clear plastic.
Another potential material source is the clear acrylic sheets you get in poster frames, like from Wal-Mart. I haven’t personally tried using this mat’l in a loco, but it should work. I bought a poster frame I had to trim to size one time, and considered using the leftover acrylic sheeting for something, but just ended up throwing it away during a train room “field day” several months later.
Also, I suppose you could use clear plastic from any clamshell-type packaging material, if you can find some that gives you a nice clear undistorted image when looking through it.