Kadee Conversion - 3d printed pilots for Williams GP9

Because I have recently been working on 2 traditional GP9's, one Williams and one Lionel, it became obvious that the stamped steel chassis' were different in construction and consequently had different step plate heights.   Hence, a redesign of your William's pilot would be needed to fit a Lionel.  Hopefully this picture better illustrates the difference in height.

          William's          Lionel

Bruce

So I suffered a little bout of improvement-itis on my GP9 pilot this week , and incorporated some of the features from the SD90 pilot, as well as adding a few more details. Here is what the final version looks like:

I know this is probably kind of an odd engine to do this to, given its basic nature, but hopefully it helps some folks. 

Eric

brwebster posted:

Because I have recently been working on 2 traditional GP9's, one Williams and one Lionel, it became obvious that the stamped steel chassis' were different in construction and consequently had different step plate heights.   Hence, a redesign of your William's pilot would be needed to fit a Lionel.  Hopefully this picture better illustrates the difference in height.

 

          William's          Lionel

Bruce

Yeah, that's a pretty big difference - that Lionel is really high! It's easy enough to regenerate the model for a different chassis height, though. If I can get some pictures and dimensions, producing a Lionel variant is definitely do-able.

Eric

thor73 posted:

So I suffered a little bout of improvement-itis on my GP9 pilot this week , and incorporated some of the features from the SD90 pilot, as well as adding a few more details. Here is what the final version looks like:

I know this is probably kind of an odd engine to do this to, given its basic nature, but hopefully it helps some folks. 

Eric

 

 Not so. You definitely created an option. Williams engines are robust and are excellent candidates for upgrades to PS2/3 or ERR .

I finally finished painting the improved version of these pilots this weekend, and got them installed on the engine:

Although it adds a few assembly steps, having the various detail parts as separate pieces definitely makes the painting easier. I will probably make the plow a separate part as well, for future designs.