It's been almost eight months since the decals for the Lobaugh D&H Challenger arrived. When I realized that each side of the cab involved 12 individual decals, I balked and waited for my brother Pete to come into town. I was actually willing to give it a go myself, but he has decades of experience over me and I had plenty of other hot messes to contend with, so it was easy to procrastinate. Pete was here for the recent Southwest O Scale Meet and agreed to apply the decals. So, finally, here is the model with decals and striping:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d02fu6y6n676kd6/Lobaugh%204-6-6-4%20D%26H%201523.jpg?dl=0A larger image can be seen (by Windows users) by right-clicking on the image and selecting "open image in a new tab". Not sure how it works for Mac. As a reminder, the model sat on Woody Mathews layout for years looking like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/im35yaedqyl1dfkmyl71t/Lobaugh-D-H-Challenger-At-Woody-s.jpg?rlkey=8utrlf8kcggyxd18mnot9igqr&dl=0Bob gets the lion's share of the credit for saving this model from oblivion, as he stripped the paint off the boiler, disassembled most of it, straightened and reinforced the boiler, then reassembled and painted both engine and tender. Others were involved that I would like to acknowledge: Dave "ScaleCraft" Goodson picked up the model from the Seattle auction house, took it home and picked out all the glue and lead shot that caused the boiler explosion, and then delivered it to Richard Garberson, who packed it and shipped it to Bob. After the major repairs were complete, Bob shipped it to me for chassis work. Matt Forsyth provided the decals (which I am told he designed and had custom printed). Pete applied the decals and encouraged me to stripe the footboards. It takes a village, apparently. I see now that I need stripe the bottom of the cab and the top of the forward steps. OK, almost done.
Video will be taken and shared at first opportunity. I have an Ambroid kit for a D&H caboose but if anybody knows of one for sale, I would be interested.
Jim
