Dieselhead

Didn't expect to see so many builders from here on this forum. Very cool! ABQ myself.

A wee bit of a derailment, but what would make the 426 unsuitable for short round track, other than weight issues? Would the smaller track not give the engine room to really wind out, thus keeping it down in the low RPM ranges, necessitating shorter gearing?

I'm very impressed with your replication of offhighway grime. How'd you make that look so good?

Now these are projects I love! I'll certainly be following this one!

Looks like you've got your work cut out for you. Will this be a curbside to save on frustration or will we get the whole hog?

Thankfully providing one's own power doesn't seem so hard, the IH 345 looks fairly similar to a smallblock ford to me (with some cursory looks anyway) but with a different intake manifold and front dress, but they don't seem so bad to stratch.

Looks great. With all these old T/A's popping up, we might need us a proper race. Could use a few bowties first though.... Man, they really did shoehorn that dual-quad in there, didn't they!

It would be a disservice to not finish out the story, so here goes; after emailing Buffalo Road, they said that the incomplete kit was sent to me by mistake, and that they would ship out a new kit free of charge and let me keep the parts one. Great! It arrived today, and was exactly what I wanted; a brand new box, still in its shrinkwrap, with parts neatly bagged inside undisturbed. It was here quickly and there was no wheeling and dealing to get it resolved. Overall I'm satisfied - they owned up to a mistake and rectified it and that's all we would really want in this situation. I'll be building this one soon, see you guys On The Workbench!

I figure this is the place for this complaint. If not, my apologies. A week or so ago I ordered an Italeri M923A1 "Big Foot" truck (kit no. 279) from Buffalo Road Imports. The listing marked the kit as new stock of a discontinued kit - at a good price too, so I jumped on it. It came in the mail today, and upon opening it, there was an immediate problem - the kit had been somewhat assembled already. The box didn't have it's shrinkwrap and was slightly damaged (both of which I could live with) but the frame assembly had been started, with a frame laying on top of the trees in the box. The bench seat and front bumper were also loose in the box, and the instructions had large, yellowed glue stains on them - as did the frame. Upon further inspection, I discovered that the engine and transmission assembly had been mounted upside down in the frame - and judging by the other parts, and the detail, I'm fairly certain I won't be able to flip it the right way. Needless to say, I'm pretty unhappy with the situation - and composing an email to Buffalo Road Imports as soon as I get this post out there. I'll update if they fix the issue - but I'm dubious of trusting them, especially if they offer an exchange. For now, it's a waste of $40.

Paint looks fine to me! Rollers aren't the most attractive creatures anyway, so no sweat either way.

Looks great to me! Man, the track on that front axle is deceptively thin!

Very nice sir. The forced perspective of the painted molding and the long hood almost makes the windshield look chopped, lol

Personally I'd shoot the body colors, then mask off the grille parts and do them in gloss black for the Alclad's backing. My biggest personal concern is a pearl finish paint not having the right backing properties for Alclad to adhere or shine up correctly. But the truck looks great anyway, so you could totally get away with a monotone color. Great work!

I'm certain with good primer anything's possible, but I'd be afraid that an auto paint would be too thick for good adhesion to model parts without drowning out the details. Maybe it's time to learn decanting.

What would be a decently-accurate paint for Detroit blue-green? I'm planning on a Detroit or two soon and I want them in OEM colors. I'd prefer something not too expensive since I won't be building too many of these motors so I don't think it would be quite worth it. Rattlecan or airbrush is fine. Thanks.

A few reasons; counterweight, for one (some are filled with scrap metal, I've seen a few with sand or rock as well) as well as a way to push wrecked vehicles out of the road if necessary. It is also a nice, prominent place for advertisement and does a fairly good job of protecting the front suspension, should the truck be in a collision. Some wreckers also have front outriggers and I've seen big wrecker bumpers like that used to mount those and their hydraulic systems.

Man, all these crazy Bronco builds inspired me to pick one up for myself, but I don't think I'll be going as crazy as you have! What sort of craziness is in store for that old 302?

Just to add, I've also seen steel plates under and over transmissions instead of safety blankets, which serve the same purpose - shrapnel catching. The ones I've seen are around 1/4" thick steel running the length of the transmission bottom and top, and since most of the ones I've seen have been on off-highway rigs, the plates usually cover the transfer cases and divorced driveshafts as well.

If it's any consolation I've seen plenty of junkyard rebuilt trucks rolling down the road. And while it would mean some more weathering and a non-showroom finish, a cool build could certainly be patching the pillar with some styrene painted up as bar stock and seats that have been hacked out by junkyard pickers long ago, and replaced with seats jerry-rigged from another truck. I'm not familiar with this kit, but there should be some way to cut the interior tub out of the cab, right?

Hey guys, back again with some questions. I picked up a Revellogram M48A2 today for cheap at Hobby Lobby, and as much as I like M48s, I like M67 Zippos more. My problem is, very, very little reference is out there for differences between the two tanks externally. Have any of you built one before? What all do I have to convert? How and where? As always, thank you very much.

So I took the last couple days and went ahead and finished this up. This is the only good picture of it I have right now, I'll go and get some more later. For my first tank I'm pretty proud of it, and I really enjoyed building it. I suspect I'll be doing more in the future.

So I've actually gone ahead and decided what I'm gonna do paint-wise. The tank is now tank-shaped, the hull is done, as is the turret (minus the spare track mounting lugs, what a pain!), sans zimmerit. I've concluded I'm going to do a 2-color ambush scheme with octopus rings. The main colors will be Panzer dark yellow, and german red-brown, and standard dark brown for the octopus rings. That's all later though, as I have to buy all that stuff. Silly me to start a model and not even have primer!

I really don't think I have the hand-eye prowess to do it homebrew, I was planning on just buying the little Zimmerit addon parts from Tamiya and sticking those on there. Still haven't decided on a paint scheme yet.

Hey guys, just started on the Tamiya King Tiger (production turret) and I can't find a full paint list. I could mark everything from the book, but if anyone has a total list of all the paints required that'd be great. Of course, tips with the kit would be handy since I just got the barebones done (lower hull and suspension). How does paint apply to the Zimmerit? Anything to worry about? Many thanks.

Looks like something straight out of Maximum Overdrive. Great work.