I remember years ago that I was thrilled when AM came out with their PA especially since, unlike the Flyer version, it had a curved roof just like the prototype. But the nose never quite looked right to me. It seemed to be too long and the top of the nose seemed to slope upward a bit too much. Recently, I compared the model to the plans in Kalmbach's Diesel Locomotive Plan book and sure enough, the nose on the AM version is about 6" too long and slopes upward too much.
The AM nose top meets the bottom of the window opening, whereas on the prototype there's about a 2-3" lip below the window opening and a fillet between the window frame area and the nose top. Actually, Flyer did a better job on the nose than AM. So, in my efforts to come up with what I thought would be the perfect PA, I looked at reshaping the nose top of the AM PA. I basically, scraped and sanded the top to a profile that reasonably resembles the prototype. Fortunately, the AM nose is plenty thick at that location and removing about 3/64" of material didn't weaken the shell. I've attached a photo in the photo section comparing the reshaped nose to an unmodified PA shell. You can access it here (or look under new photos in the photo section): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/photos/recent/1531629226/view There's not much you can do about the extra 6" length, but I do think that the reshaped nose contour is worth the effort. Let me know what you think. Bob Frascella Wenham, MA ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
