Page 21 - July August 2017

This was made easier by the fact that the SP appeared to have ordered standard GP30’s, and hadn’t specified many unique features. Everything seemed correct, down to battery door louvres etc, making the job a lot easier. In general the casting of these shells was also of a good enough standard to stand the test of time, even today, there weren’t too many ‘coarse’ details that offended me personally. The main spotting feature however was the typical SP light clusters on front and rear.
Thankfully the job is made easier as Details West produces a complete detail kit for these locos that will cater for both D&RGW and SP versions of the GP30. It comes with light clusters front and back, step lights, lube oil filter etc. There were only a few other extra parts to purchase such as roof bell, horns to replace the ugly plastic ones that came as standard, new grab irons, sun visors etc.
After stripping the shells and cleaning them up I used
primer to get a nice uniform light grey appearance, mak- ing it easier for me to mark out the locations for several parts and the contrast between added parts and the shell gave me a good overview of the progress as I was going along.
After most of these parts were fitted, I sprayed the front and rear SP Scarlet red, using some Floquil Polly Scale paint (now discontinued). I then masked off the front and rear and applied the SP grey, also Floquil.
After that had dried I applied decals such as the wings and road numbers. I’ve found that the Floquil red matches the colour of the Microscale decals almost perfectly, and once a layer of clearcoat is applied it all blends in just fine.
Shells during decaling
August 2017 - ROUNDHOUSE 21