John, I don't know if you've had any experience with Enhorning plastic
shells, or the remade Wabash Valley ones. The Enhorning white plastic was
brittle, being that they were 1950's technology and materials. They were
however a pretty decently shaped EMD bulldog nose and some very fine rivet
detail. (See Rusty's pics) They lacked in the fans which were more like
fancy buttons from Grandpa's suits. They were also a very rare commodity in
any scale being that they represented a phase IV F-3 which has side grills
the same as F-7's Their steps were correct in shape but so very vulnerable
that no matter how careful you were, they seemed to snap off when
installing the shell onto a chassis. Slight spreading of the sides was
necessary and bingo, pop, off comes another one.
However, once on the chassis these steps should last forever. Unless
some klutz decides to see how much he can bend them on purpose, hmmm the
old ham handed stress test!
Gluing to the plastic is no problem, I've used acc & epoxy and if one
is careful making them practically a press fit, I don't foresee any
problems.
I approached Rusty to see if he could help me out and make them in
brass, still the better choice than re-pinning the original plastic ones!
Bud Rindfleisch
