Plastheniker

Hi Hermann, usually modern pickups are not my cup of tea but reading your name I knew what to expect. Indeed once again perfect workmanship and photography. For a few moments I took the first picture for real.

Thanks for the info, thanks for the interesting link!

I was considering to show a scratch built 1936 MAN F 4 truck in the Big Rigs sub-forum, but finally I thought that such a subject would be too exotic in an American forum. Now a fellow modeler told me that to his knowledge at least one major American city uses a considerable number of MAN buses. Does anyone know more?

Thanks for the recent replies! Charles, I agree a how-to section particularly for truck modelers would be useful. As far as I know none of the general automotive forums has one. I know only two specialized truck forums with such a section. As a stop-gap I use to add mini-tutorials to my topics when questions arise. I must admit that I never start WIP threads. As mentioned before in some model car topics I find making notes and taking pictures while building extremely disruptive. For that reason I stopped writing magazine articles many years ago. I hope you will be fully satisfied when milling the grille - certainly not the easiest part of model building. Hans-Juergen, I didn't want a fast reply without pictures. I use on all my American (=1/25) truck models those tyres that Round 2 includes in the reissued Ertl/AMT kits for several years. Since they are made from a rather shiny material (vinyl?) they look unrealistic OOB.Two steps are indispensible The tyre tread must be sanded with a rather coarse sandpaper, f. e. 120 grit. While the tread becomes a light, used look, the grooves remain black and by this they really stand out. The shine of the tyre sides should be reduced by brushing them with a small brass brush (steel is too agressive). Such small inexpensive brass brushes are actually made for cleaning spark plugs and can be found in hardware stores or tool departments of house improvement stores. Nota bene Ertl/AMT kits included various tyres over the past 50 years. This is important when buying old kits f. e. on ebay. I found 5 different types of Ertl/AMT tyres in my stash: #1 and #2 are great and can be found in recent issues as mentioned above. #5 is also okay but too small for big trucks. #3 and #4 are not usable because they have no real grooves. Unfortunately #1 and #2 can't be used for European (=1/24) trucks as here they are conspicuously too small.

Thanks for the recent replies! Dann, Though actually a (mostly scratch) builder of German and American vintage trucks for almost 15 years I switch to car modeling now and then in order to avoid a one track mind. For the current 12 months I have three aged 1930s kits on my to-do-list that I have never seen finished convincingly: Cadillac V16 Fleetwood (Italeri) Chrysler Imperial Phaeton (Italeri) Delahaye 135 (Heller) Of course I will show them here.

Super clean work, perfect paintwork!

Excellent work, VERY realistic!

Modelling at its very best. Perfect paintwork (not totally matte, just a very little shine), perfect merger between paint and decals, a subtile effect on the "brass" parts, incredible details, and, and .... I hope (but I am not so sure) that many modelers can really appreciate your achievements. I do!

Thanks JT! Resumption of my preceeding post: ... ... ... ... Therefore I simply glued short strips of 0.5mm styrene as horizontal bars between the vertical bars. Here provisional gluing with acetone is best. Always using the same piece of brass square rod guaranteed equal distances between all horizontal bars. After applying a minimum amount of liquid super glue to all joints I milled a plane grille surface using my modified (now precisely height-adjustable) modeling drill stand (Ignore the circular saw blade on the picture). After sanding on a flat surface I foiled everything, covered it with flat black enamel and polished the paint away from the raised surfaces. Then I sprayed the finished grille with flat clear to achieve an even matte surface. Finally I restored the removed (step 1) chrome moulding around the upper grille hiding the gap between grille and cab. I hope this is understandable. If not please let me know.

Thanks for the latest comments! Hans-Jürgen, sorry for the delay. Despite all headache I can't remember what I used for the ribbed headlight carriers. I found the black, ribbed styrene strip in my spares boxes. Possibly it came originally from the floor or the oil sump of a car/truck model since these parts have ribbed surfaces very often. Unfortunately it was not possible to edit my old GMC topic so regarding the grille I am going to start from scratch. An X-Y table ("Kreuztisch") of any size is very useful but not indispensable. Usually I use this rather unorthodox assembly of a full-size X-Y table and a full-size slowly running drill with a narrowed slitting cutter. (Ignore the workpiece on the pictures). Broadly speaking I did this: As mentioned both grilles are an integral part of the cab. I cut out these grilles completely including the moulded frame around the upper grille. Since the resin is very thick I drilled out most of it and removed the rest with a rotary tool. When finished it may be necessary to glue a strip of thin styrene around the upper opening to achieve a clean and even edge. Then I cut two pieces of thick styrene sheet (maybe 3mm) as baseplates fitting into the openings but leaving a gap of 0.5mm all round. I inserted these baseplates into the openingss provisionally and glued a wide strip of 0.5mm styrene all round the baseplate as a (on the upper grille it will be finally hidden) grille frame. This assembly should fit snugly. After removing it I milled vertical grooves into the baseplates milling through the grille frames and glued strips of 0.5mm styrene into these grooves as vertical grille bars. (If you work precisely this can be done manually.) Normally I would have done the same for the horizontal grille bars milling through the vertical grille bars as well. Space between the horizontal grille bars, however, was (as far as I remember) appr. 1 mm. The vertical grille bars (remember only 0.5mm thick) would never sustain so many cuts lying so close together. To be continued

Nice work on one of the better AMT kits. The only issue I remember was giving the wood deck a convincing wooden appearance. BTW the colours in the first picture go together really well.

Thanks for the response! There were conspicuous gaps between soft top and the top and the rear of the side windows, the windshield frame and the rear body. The remedy was cautious bending, adding styrene strips, putty and a ot lof sanding ...

Colour chice, paintwork, detailing, craftmanship - simply perfect! IMO the model of the month!

Excellent idea, funny, very different and beautifully executed!

Super clean work, can't be done better!