EMD Switcher "blankets"

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm moving forward on my NW2 project (and not showing you), but now I've gotten to a point where I need to start thinking about the radiator fan "blanket".

They were common on EMD switchers, but I haven't seen them commonly modeled.

Have you ever done one? Any thoughts?

Right now, I'm leaning toward a piece of styrene or wire with a wrap of aluminum foil.

You can see some examples:
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9017-SW9-at-Lewistown-PA
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9201-Elizabethport-NJ-2-28-1979-0
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9212-Port-Newark-NJ-179
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9213-Binghamton-NY-3311979
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9215-Elizabethport-NJ-11-18-1978
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9215-Elizabethport-NJ-11-18-1978-1
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9228-Secaucus-NJ-8-17-1979
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/Images/CR-9254-NW2-at-Rutherford-PA

[cbroughton67]

Have you thought about using a small piece of tissue? You could glue it to a piece of wire on each end, roll it up some, paint the tissue with the appropriately colored paint (which should give it some amount of rigidity once it's dry), then mount the "assembly" on the locomotive. That might give you the texture / look of a blanket with wrinkles, etc. more so than styrene.


Chris

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I would suggest stretched plastic from a grocery shopping bag. Even comes in white.

[peteski]

I like the grocery bag ideal - it will be almost scale-thickness and it comes in all sorts of colors (the blankets look more like beige or light tan than white).

[Dave Schneider]

I have similar need for a Milwaukee FM switcher. I have heard good things about using tea bag material and will give that a try (when I get to that stage).

Best wishes, Dave

[mu26aeh]

I have plenty of empty tea bags !  You can have them after I dry the leaves out and dump into my ground cover container 

[chicken45]

Didn't @mmagliaro use something for a cab curtain?

[sirenwerks]

Ed, I think Keith Kohlman did this on a C&NW switcher in a NSM article. Just going off the top of my head but I've seen it out there and not too long ago.

[OldEastRR]

Is it really that cold on your layout, Ed?  Don't say if you're going to model it "up" or "down". Otherwise a rolled-up blanket would look good.

[cjjd6901]

Ed's layout is very cool, especially with the MMID locomotives near.  I think that blanket down should cozy the locomotive.  A Barnes and Noble bag would equip a small fleet.

Chris 

[Santa Fe Guy]

I would go with a tea bag they have a nice texture dry well and paint even better.
Nice scale thickness to boot. I used some on my On30 Gas mech side curtains tied with cotton to replicate rope.
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I realize you are working in N scale, however it might just work.
 Rod.

[robert3985]

Here's what I did a decade ago on a LL SW Switcher I super-detailed and painted.  It's a Styrene rod, carved and painted, with a glue-on piece of Styrene on the saggy side.  I didn't do the ties, but if I did, I'd use 6-0 suture silk, which is about .0025" in diameter.

I think if I were to do it again, I'd use the teabag method, except I'd paint the assembly after rolling it up and maybe soaking it with ballast/scenery glue.  The "raw" teabag looks too translucent for my tastes, as the prototype "blanket" is obviously fully opaque in all the photos I've seen.

Photo (1) - LL Switcher Superdetailing Project with "Blanket" Sagging Over Radiator:


Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[sp org div]

Nice model Bob... and it looks good sittin on that code 40.  ^
Russ needs to chime in with how he did the tarp on his SP SW1500...
Jeff

[Jim Starbuck]

I use dried used teabag material rolled up on .008  wire. It works well for canvas cab shades too.

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[brokemoto]

Didn't @mmagliaro use something for a cab curtain?

I do not remember seeing Max's, but Skipgear (who does not often post here, if at all) fashioned a curtain to cover the motor on an B-mann USRA 0-6-0.  I forget from what he made his.

I have seen "blankets" on Baldwin switchers , as well.  In fact, I will try to find the photograph that I saw on one that opened in the middle.  I do not know if you tied it, it had a giant zipper, or what, but I remember the photograph of its being wide open at the bottom and closed all the way at the top.


Railpicturesdotnet has one of CMStP&P 908 with a two-piece "blanket", but that is not the one to which I was referring (I can not figure out how to post the link, here).

Donross has a photograph of CR 9314 with it rolled up (mostly) at the top.  I did not know that any Baldwins made it to Conrail.  It is a patch paint job, looks like an ex-Reading Company, but I still did not know that anything Baldwin lasted that long in Class I service.