I have several Athearn locos that I need to add ditch lights to. One is a Geep of the Blue Box tooling, but was offerered in the RTR line. In order to have ditch lights added to it, I need to add the ditch light casting to it and a couple RTR GE units.
Some my questions are:
When I paint the parts, do I airbrush or paint brush?
What is the best way to add MU hoses? Are they hard to add?
Either one. With small parts like that it might not be noticable if they are brushed
They are pretty easy to add. Drill a hole or 2 and glue them in
i took some small gauge red wire that i had laying around, cut it, and it is now my MU hoses, and you would want to but Detail West ditchlights the lenses come with them. they look AMAZING
Brush painting will look Ok if they are small parts.
I use detail parts from either Details West or Detail Associates. ( Sunrise enterprises had some really cool parts too but they are now out of business.) They will go into place well if you use a drill bit to make the holes. Go to a good LHS or mail order the bits from Micro Mark. They have the very small bit sets from .061 to .082 and you’ll also have to order a pin vise to hold the bits for drilling. I usually make the hole one size larger than the pin on the part you’re going to put in place so i don’t have to force the parts too hard into the hole…chuck.
Either works.
Drill and glue. No.
I have used detail parts from a variety of sources including Greenway products, Detail Associates, Details West, Precision Scale Models to name a few and several of the links below
For M/U hoses try these guys.
This place has some detail parts that I have used also