Bringing a basket case back to life - The Athearn RTR GP38-2 Project begins.

I started work on the basket case Athearn GP38-2 today.  The first job was to strip the paint.  I used 99% Alcohol and soaked the body parts in a sealed tupperware tub.

It took a lot longer than I expected, nearly five hours of soaking, and a lot of scrubbing with a toothbrush.


Here's a 'before' shot showing the previous owners attempt at weathering.





Here are the parts soaking in a tupperware tub.








Here are some shots of the stripped engine. There are still some areas of black paint clinging on, especially in the nooks and crannies of the truck sides, and the underside behind the steps.








Annoyingly, I've managed to lose the small cab step edge from behind the cab, it probably fell off during the scrubbing process! I will need to fabricate a new edge from plasticard.


Two of the damaged body mounting lugs fell off in the alcohol, so I guess they had hairline fractures or were already loose. I am going with the suggested screw mounting for the body, so that shouldn't be a problem.


Next step will be to begin drilling the holes for the various Cannon & Co grabirons I purchased for this build.


I've also purchased a Dynamic Brake housing to replace the non-dynamic section on the roof, as this engine is going to become a Norfolk Southern unit and the prototype has dynamic brakes.