Dabbling in Die Cast

[Casey429]

I hope you folks don't mind me trying to infiltrate our world of styrene with some metal, but I figured you all might like to see this. I had originally restored/customized this 1/34 scale First Gear Mack R600. In looking through some old pictures, I originally finished this up back in 2006! Years of shelf wear and some less than stellar building techniques had left it looking pretty rough.

I'm not sure what the exact shade is, but the orange is duplicolor, black is factory. The fender unit is separate from the cab, enabling the factory paint detail to be retained. Wheels were originally black, I went with chrome and it's looking rough too. I'm going to swap in a set of spoke wheels, Camelback suspension and wide front tires from a junker First Gear R Model mixer I have. I don't know what Mack suspension the tractor currently has. It resembles upside down Camelback and has smaller springs.

Teardown was pretty straightforward. Being that I have done it before along with the less than stellar build quality from the last go around, it came apart fairly easily. Since its metal, a bath in lacquer thinner made quick work of paint removal on the cab. I've cleaned up some of the mold lines and have the battery boxes, bumper and roof (also a separate piece) primered.

The exhaust was missing from this truck when I acquired it years go, so I fabbed the straight pipe in the above photo. I had originially built the mufflered setup for another of these trucks. I originally purchased three of these and a lowboy trailer from a member on a die cast construction forum I also frequent. The muffler and standpipe are aluminum, the rest is solder.

One other thing that needed addressed was the broken turn signals. I never did anything about them back when, so now was a good opportunity to fix that. They're a set of the turn signals found in most AMT truck kits on the amber light sprue, with a coat of Tamiya clear orange for added color. I think they're as close a match to the factory lights (left) as I'm going to get. I painted the edges silver to add a little extra something.

One thing that always bugged me about the First Gear trucks was the interior. The truck is based on the early R model with the flat-back cab and steel dashboard, and is also incorrectly depicted in tan. At that, it's not even the right shade of tan for the later R cab either. Some Model Master "Hellgrun" remedies that. I had originially done this in "Lichtgrun" but I believe the other color looks more like the Mack green. Seats were left the previous shade.

That's all for now, hope I don't catch too much flack for this. As a side note, for anyone who is into Mack trucks, I would highly suggest picking up one of the many different variants First Gear has produced over the years. They're great pieces. Thanks for looking.

[Superpeterbilt]

I dont think youll catch any flack for this. At most they might move it to the diecast section, but its still a truck so hopefully your ok. Ive customized/rebuilt many of the First Gear 1/25 B model Macks. I buy them for wrecker bodies, and rebuild the rest of the truck. Anywhoo, this project is lookin good.

[Bennyg]

I like your work. I've done a replica of my grandfathers B61 using a 1/34 First gear Mack.

http://modeltruckstasmania.proboards.com/thread/1178/1-34-mack-b61

Cheers.

Ben

[Casey429]

Hi everyone. I haven't forgot about these old dogs, so here's a quick little update...

DONE!

Sort of...

I say sort of because this little side project has opened a brand new can of worms. Before I get into that, first things first. Here's the original Bulldog Number One.

This is the same chassis pictured above with a fresh coat of Rust Oleum satin black. I swapped out the original cab for one donated by a mixer that I wiped the tampo printed logos off of. The same mixer also donated it's wheels and rear suspension. I really dig the no-nonsense ready-to-work look. Only modifications were a few additional paint details. I removed the air cleaner and painted the inlet duct flat black to match the real trucks. I also trimmed the turn signals with silver and gave the hood ornament a proper coat of gold. All Mack parts here! To finish it up, I painted the rear axle flanges black. They come chrome on most First Gear trucks, and if they were moon caps, I'd have left them. The chrome flange doesn't work for me.

In doing that, it inspired me to break out Bulldog Number two.

This was one of the original 3 beaters I purchased that I never did anything with. So, it got the same treatment as the one above. Stripped down, cleaned up, and a fresh coat of the same Rust Oleum. I also swapped cabs on this one, from yet another mixer. Another mixer donated it's rear suspension and wheels as well. This one is only temporary, as I'm eyeing up another cab donor for it. It's tough to beat the paint on these things, so I like swapping cabs to do color changes. This one doesn't have a stack on it yet for that reason. This one also got the same paint details, along with the front wheel hubs getting it as well.

I've also worked on whipping up a few additional details. First up, a cab guard. I was going for something that looked like it would have been fabbed up by a construction company's shop for their new truck. It's all Plastruct square rod and sheet with some mesh added to the window opening. The beacon is AMT. This will be painted with the same black as the chassis.

I also fabbed up a behind the cab wet tank. This chassis originally had one, but it was long gone when I got it. First Gear installs them on tractors paired with dump trailers. Sides are mudflaps donated by a mixer (see the theme here?) and the rest is just bits of scrap sheet. A little more body filler, sanding, paint, and a fill cap and it should do the trick.

Donor flaps:

And last but not least...Bulldog Number ? I haven't decided when this one will get done or what order that will be in, but I couldn't resist tearing into it. This was yet ANOTHER mixer that I removed the barrel from. It's slated to become a water truck. I picked this one because a friend of mine has a 1:1 DM600 water truck that was a faded baby blue when he got it, reminiscent of this one, and it was also a former mixer. Real former mixers are popular for water truck builds due to the front mount PTO. I already wiped the graphics from this one, and added the grille guard from one of the other mixers that donated other parts.

And one more for fun.

Part of the draw for these is that they're so easy to tweak and re tweak as desired. The other part was I got a killer deal on six of the already mentioned mixers recently. I ordered doubles of two of them for my collection, and the rest are fair game. Some will be plucked for parts and others will be transformed into other trucks. I also haven't forgotten about the original cab pictured above. It's getting a fresh coat of paint and a new chassis that's still to be determined. Stay tuned! Thanks for looking!

[Tesla]

Sharp looking Macks Casey!

[Mopar - D]

Very interesting post of some very nice Macks

[Mackvision]

Always glad to see someone doing a Mack! I really like Firstgear trucks,i have a ton of them,never occurred to me to re-do one,but now its on my "to do list" which seems to get longer by the day! Nice work on these,they look great!..........................................Mark

[Bennyg]

Awesome work. I'll have to do a few more.

Ben

[kilrathy10]

Whoa!!! That is cool.....What an awesome project this is.....Great work, Man....1/34 scale.....Never knew anything was available in that scale....Never even crossed my mind......Awesome....