Feeling a little lazy, I reached into my box of dusty 10 year old bits and to my surprise found two cast resin DX tops. One may have been an ancient creation of the Druffmeister, so I’m going to gloss over this so that I might continue to frequent this site. Let’s just say that its graceful arch made the Hunchback of Notre Dame look like the straight man here. The other one was this gray number that may well have been made by Cross Creek Models a long, long time ago.
On the plus side, it’s nice and straight, matches the blueprint, and it certainly looks DXish from four feet away, or in this terrible picture (sorry about that), but applying a more critical eye to it… The top of the nose could probably be fixed with some sanding, but the cab is more troubling. The sides are perfect, but the roof is too tall, which translates into strange angles and a cab front profile that looks more Chinese GK than Dixie to me. Hey, maybe that’s what the Dalian DKs will end up looking like. The long hood is well proportioned and nice and square but it‘s letdown is in some of the panel detailing, especially the mesh grilles. The hood doors are unusual, but I reckon they’d look ok painted up. The frame, headstocks and steps look fine. Overall, this is probably a good place to start DXing from.So lets put some lipstick on these pigs. That’s a bit harsh. Make a polyester purse from a pair of sow’s ears? Hmmm....
I began by carefully shaving off the raised details that I wanted to replace from the back of the long hood with sandpaper stuck flat to blocks of wood.Next up, I pruned off the nose, cab and forward section of the long hood containing the dynamic brakes with a knife and a razor saw. Rather than rebuild the dynamics grilles and the panel detail below, I thought I’d steal that section, as well as the cab and nose, from the Druffster Top. Straightened out a bit of course. I did want to update the cab sides with the latest single sliding window rather than the original DX 3-hole config, but while performing the cabinectomy, I ended up demolishing most of it, so ended up retaining only the roof and nose, both of which were pretty spot on. To this I started making new cab pieces from thin styrene, which was then backed with clear plastic.
And then....
(cliffhanger ending)
5 comments:
Hmm, Dx top History. I'll start by saying I never ever made a Dx top (Dc's and Df's were more my scene). The first bowed top could either be a Cross creek model, or a John Rappad original (take a picture and I'll be able to guess). The second I think is the one Bruce Patterson did in the 1990's under the chosen scale co-op lable. The resin was something we found that was reinforced with kevlar (should have hair like stuff in it when you cut it open).
But looking at the rear grills, it looks like it was built by someone who had a Dx plan, but had never seen a Dx? Looks like a phase 1 set of grills, fresh off the boat before they tried to solve the engine temp problems....
Gee, I just reread this...what a geek....
I cant imagine Bruce making this mistake?
Sifting though the backblocks of my brain, I recall that Bruce was interested in the phase 1 Dx's, and this may be the reason that the grills are wrong, as it is a phase 1 version. You are correct and Bruce would not have made a mistake like this.
Oh the advantages of working in a larger scale.....
I had seen a Phase 1 Dx, didnt have a plan, but still built one.... :-)
In any scale the Dx is a beaut!
So where is part 2? The suspense is killing me!!
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