Kato Santa Fe F-7 Diesels

[Nato]

    Now that I really have the hang of correctly posting photos. Two photos of Santa Fe F-7 Diesels showing how painting out the stripes on the side grills improves the look. Nate Goodman (Nato).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

[sizemore]

    Now that I really have the hang of correctly posting photos. Two photos of Santa Fe F-7 Diesels showing how painting out the stripes on the side grills improves the look. Nate Goodman (Nato).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Too bad it does nothing for unballasted track ;D

The S.

[oakcreekco]

Looks good Nate. Gotta love those ATSF "F's"

[Bob Bufkin]

I might be an Eastern modeler but I gotta admin that the AT&SF F units painted in the warbonnet are the purtiest F's around.  WM circus coming in second.

[wm3798]

That's it... I'm voting Bob off the island!

[DKS]

I have no recollection where or when I'd read it (or even if it's true), but I recall it was claimed that model magazines featuring a Warbonnet F on the cover will sell more copies at newsstands than they would with any other image.

That and a fiver will get you a cuppa jo.

[Bob Bufkin]

Lee:  "No man is an island" or some sort of crap like that.  Besides does this let met get away from Gilligan?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I really like the "ghost" that you left behind, I think it conveys the effect quite nicely.

[randgust]

The warbonnet is one of those schemes that everybody 'thinks' they know until they really study it.  An F-unit paint job is really complex, and and the impression also changes with era and age.  The stainless steel grilles were painted but didn't really hold it, and red would shoot through to the inside yet not show on the top.  Some grilles appear to have the SS either masked or removed, others didn't at the curve.   The body sides had great contrast between the stainless and the silver although it wasn't supposed to look that way; it's almost like chrome and white.  The red aged orange.  Odd oversprays of silver from constant repainting of trucks an pilots.   If you really LOOK at photos you go...wow....that's way more interesting than a stock painted unit.

prime of life....with the typical pre-Amtrak fresh silver trucks...
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=33824&nseq=139
(see the paint shadow in the grilles?)

and near the end...
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=291571&nseq=13


And that fix you just applied is the first recognition of that, but I bet it won't be the last!  There's just so much 'texture' that gets ignored.

[Mark5]

I might be an Eastern modeler but I gotta admin that the AT&SF F units painted in the warbonnet are the purtiest F's around.  WM circus coming in second.

I like 'em too!

[Sokramiketes]

The stainless steel grilles were painted but didn't really hold it, and red would shoot through to the inside yet not show on the top.  Some grilles appear to have the SS either masked or removed, others didn't at the curve.   

I'm confused by what you're saying... did you really mean to imply that the stainless steel grills were painted silver over the stainless?  I don't think that was ever the case.  And what do you mean by "red would shoot through the inside yet not show on top"?  Meaning you could see the red through the grill but never on the grill slats themselves?

[Ryan87]

I always thought the locomotives were painted before the grills were applied...