Well, I contacted Atlas about this issue. I will let you know if I hear anything. Thank you Boilermaker1 for your reply. There is absolutely NO WAY I am going to try to glue that funky plastic to the shell only to have it break off if I use the wrong grip to handle it and wind up with glue residue everywhere.
Anyway, as I said above, there will be no shades for my little guys. They will just have to suck it up. Here is indeed the problem from using a mold that is a few decades old with only minor upgrades.
The part provided does not even look like the parts diagram.
I am now more than ever curious as to what Atlas will recommend.
Donald
I mean, its really not an "issue". Some models dont need the shades, or they had fabric shades, and not molding in a slot for the sunshade makes those arrangements possible. The Red Caboose tooling was a head of its time in some ways, as the parts trees made many prototypical arrangements possible. They came with 3 different headlight housings, Dynamic/ No Dynamic Brakes, a few different ways to mount the bell on the locomotive, drill your own horn hole, etc..... From a pretty generic kit you could build quite an accurate model of a lot of different prototypes without having to hunt down detail parts (the parts tree even has the round plates for the cast logos on N&W models). Of course, then came the after market and now you can do all kinds of things with the kit (and subsequently, the atlas models as well).
I cant imagine they're delrin. They're either ABS or Styrene. I had some surplus and scrap RC parts here, so here's how to do it if you want. It can be done without making a mess.
The bottom profile of the shade fits over the rain gutter.
Apply glue to the top surface of the rain gutter of the cab (just the horizontal part, not the edges that drop). Use of a needlepoint applicator would help here. Putting it on the cab gutter rather than the sunshade will make sure that if you get any squish out, its under the shade where you dont see it (just slide the shade down the roofline until it touches down). Adjust front to back so its centered on the window.
I didnt physically glue this, because the blue thing is my handrail soldering jig (its a scrap RC sill and cab), but you can see how it fits on there when installed.
Once they're on there, its fine so long as you dont palm the cab. If there is no provision for the sunshades in the box foam, either dont put it back or cut the foam so there is clearance. Pick them up with your thumb on the center of the roof and the rest of your hand under the fuel tank. Here's a few RC units with sunshades installed. the black one is still a work in progress, but its almost done (clearcoat, handrails, windows and electronics).