Detailing a DL&W F7
The rear of the frame was milled out to make room for a high bass speaker. A small bar of frame was left for the truck mounting screw. The milling was done a little at a time to avoid removing too much material. The cylindrical speaker enclosure was built from .010″ styrene and its back was covered with electrical tape. It isn’t pretty, but it effectively seals the enclosure and allows for future access. Sealing the enclosure is necessary in order to allow the speaker to sound its best. Modelers often leave the speaker without an enclo- sure thinking that the shell will act as the enclosure. While that is true, the speaker will not sound nearly as good as if it were to have its own dedicated enclosure.
chalk completed the weathering. I did- n’t want to go overboard with the weathering because the Lackawanna kept its engines very clean.
While the outside of the model is fin-
ished, the inside still needed some work. One of the main reasons I bought the Bachmann model is because it was equipped with Soundtraxx Tsunami sound. There is nothing sweeter than the sound of an EMD 567 prime mover and the Tsunami sound decoder cap- tures it beautifully. The speaker that comes with the model is good. I wanted
to get the most out of that Tsunami de- coder, though, which is where the high bass speaker comes into play. These speakers are just bigger, meaner and sound really impressive. There is plen- ty of room inside that F-unit shell for it but I still had to mill some material off of the frame to allow for its increased depth. I used my drill press milling machine for that. (See the accompany- ing article on page 75.) I left a small amount of material at the truck mounting location but everything else was milled away. I built a small cylin-
drical speaker enclosure from .010″ styrene and attached that to the speak- er with cyanoacrylate. I had to make the end of the speaker enclosure match the curvature of the roof so it would fit within the shell. I then closed off the end of the speaker enclosure with electrical tape. This is enough to seal the box and allow for future entry into the enclosure if need be. That wrapped up the interior work and I reattached the shell. The last thing to do was to attach the nose light and finish off the rear back- up light. The nose light is a Details West casting and is available through the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society website (
www.erielackhs.org). I used cyanoacrylate to attach the nose light to the nose door. Again, Polly Scale CP Rail Yellow does the trick here. I paint- ed the inside of the red light with Testors Model Master Turn Signal Red. Once the red paint dried I mixed up a small bit of five minute epoxy and put a drop in both the nose light and rear back-up light. This simulates a lens nicely. Make sure you hold the model vertically until the epoxy sets up. Plac- ing the model horizontally could result in a lopsided lens!
The final results speak for them-
selves. The mechanism is smooth, the sound is top notch and the shell has that EMD bulldog face that we all know and love. I was able to walk away at the com- pletion of this model with a Tsunami- equipped, superdetailed model for a rea- sonable price. The best part of the project for me, though, was that I got back to doing what I do best, custom painting and detailing models!
The profile of a Delaware Lackawanna & Western freight scheme F7 is certainly handsome looking. It is hard to believe that this
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model started out as a very basic, low-cost model. With a little de- tailing and paint work, the model rivals its high-cost brethren.
JUNE 2013
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