Ok, so I've made some more progress on 89 this weekend.
The first thing I wanted to to deal with was the steps from the pilot. Fun fact,
@turbowhiz pointed out that these were a post-CN addition (I'm guessing from during its time at Steamtown in New Hampshire).
I had thought about looking for the GMM parts but... my dad pointed out that the leftover steps from his Kato Mike that he's applied the L1 boiler to looked like a good fit.
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He was right!
I started with the part visible on the right. As I was cutting the running board ahead of the steam delivery pipe part I discovered that they're actually two separate pieces. Even better!
I had cut the one you see in the photo above too short and I wasn't thrilled with the mounting method, so I did some work using strips of styrene and got things into a better place.
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Then it was a matter of "some putty and paint make me the craftsman I ain't".
The next thing I started thinking about was the cab roof. 89's roof is painted reddish brown and so I need to do the same. But there's an issue: the "drip strip" on the model cab is at a different angle than 89s. If I weren't painting the roof I'd never care, but since it forms the separation line between the colors, I needed to change it.
I shaved off the original and replaced it with some .015 music wire. Why? Because it's what I have on hand that's about the right size. It's what I use for my Reading diesel gutters, so I know it works decent enough.
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I've found that painting as I go really helps me see what I still need to do on a model so I hit all of the stuff I worked on with some black before I called it a night.
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She's never going to be a contest winning model, but I'm happy with the it so far.
