Toast

Getting ready for one last Monster Jam at the Metrodome! I started building this Revell snap kit a bit ago but the decals that come with the kit are, well, not decals. The peel-n-stick sheet just wasn't going to cut it. I tried to get a set from the AMT release but it seemed no one had them and the kits go for a little more than what I wanted to spend for a decal sheet. I pretty much gave up but mspeanut from this forum offered me his set. AMT's body must be a little bigger though so the decals had to be adjusted but I think it's turning out really good. I tried to keep it a quick and easy build but there were a few things that needed to be changed. First was the cockpit. The kit has the drivers seat set to the left side of the truck, like a regular vehicle. I moved it to the center and the steering wheel as well. I moved the tach to a position that seemed to make sense with the centered driver's position. I also added some gauges and a switch panel from a Nascar dash for some added details. I cut up the decals a bit and squeezed them in the space that was available. Not too bad. Huge thanks to mspeanut! looking at reference pics online was really fun. They have a bunch of these trucks traveling around to numerous shows at any given time so I just picked colors from each different one that I thought would make an interesting combination. The flames were quite a task but I managed to trim and modify them enough to get them to fit the different body. There were a few gaps that I'm taking care of with a bit of brush paint. First coat of green. The green on the decal is much darker than what's really on the truck so I used a brighter green to fill in the spaces and brighten up the flames as well. I'm getting excited to go to the show next month!

Love the two tone silver. These trucks were mean looking but the black and black gets boring. Good choice!

big fan of monster trucks, and of your two models. nice work!

I dig the color combo. The style fits that car very well. nice work!

To have some fun at the work bench I let a friend pick out a kit and take over most of the creative direction of the build. The original deal was I had no say in it, I just follow her direction. But there are a few techniques I want to try so I will use this build as a guinea pig. I rolled my eyes when she picked out the color but as it's coming together the Sublime Green is growing on me! For the most part I'm just going by the instruction's painting suggestions. Going with a mild street tuner look so I made a larger tail pipe. Starting to work on the interior. The color scheme of the interior in these cars is really neat and is going to be interesting to replicate!

that looks amazing! I always wondered what would be a good way to make a late model.

very cool build. Looks sharp. That color suits the truck very well too!

I hear you there. I'm a big GM S-Series buff and I have all the old square bodies by monogram and Lindberg. AMT covered the mid 90's well, as did Lindberg. But late 90's GM makes a small body and interior change and no one cares to modify their tooling to reflect it. Like they just forgot about it. AMT's last issue of the S-10 Blazer even had an accurate 4.3 setup that those trucks used until they ended production in 2004.

Dang! :-p

Brazil you say Cesar! I tell you what, I'll pick up a few extra sets for you free of charge. All you'd have to do is purchase a round trip ticket for me and I'll personally deliver them to you! Deal? ;-p

this will be perfect! I'll have a couple corvette kits that can keep their engine parts.

Now some body work. The hood really didn't have a nice shape for the roof so lots of body filler to get that to look right. And I did get a little excited welding one side and it warped a little. But after a few layers and sanding I shot a guide coat and here is how it's sitting right now. Hoping to get the body finished soon so I can get back to focusing on the rest of the beast!

This Silverado body is turning into quite a project. I decided to scrap the long bed idea and go with a crew cab which was my original plan. The bed was starting to look good but no matter how careful I was the small surface area that I had to glue the bed extension kept cracking. So I found another Silverado kit. the best place I found was at Walgreen's for $10. this time I cut some pieces and tried different glues to see if any would work better than CA glue (the CA worked but the small butt joints were too fragile). NOTHING would glue this stuff, I don't know what kind of plastic it is. After reading some posts I decided to try to weld it. My welds made a bit of a mess of one side of the truck and the roof but the sculpting is coming along very well. And the body is as strong as if it was molded in this configuration. Here's ho it looked with the long bed. I'm kind of glad it wasn't strong enough like this as a crew cab was how I originally imagined it. One thing that I gained from it though, in trying to reinforce the bedside from behind I used a spent dryer sheet soaked in epoxy. It did make the panel much stronger and I think it replicates the fiberglass texture of the inside of the body fairly closely. But the joints would still crack and be seen through the primer so I had to figure out a different way to attach the two pieces along the edge of each other. I cut off the long bed at a point where it looked to be where the crew cab would start. And then cut away the front of the second body. After mocking it up and being okay with the location they match up I dove into welding. I cut some strips of plastic from the tabs that mount the body to the radio controlled chassis, which I had cut away from the body anyway, and used them and my soldering iron to weld the two pieces together. I trimmed away the second roof and replaced it with a shape cut from the hood of the second truck. More welding. Added some styrene strips to match up the window frames. CA works great in this situation as there is more plastic surface for it to bond to. Nice n solid.

That's a neat collection of trucks! I especially dig the truggy, very realistic separation of the original truck and the custom fabrication.

He he, some shameless promotion of my favorite S-10, mine! Here she is clean, but she's much more fun when getting dirty! I have a kit and plans for an exaggerated version of my truck but it's on the back burner right now.

Lot's of bodywork going on at the bench. Adding the extra material for the bed sides. After drawing a rough idea of how the body will be cut a I added more styrene to the wheel openings. This is the first time I've used two part body filler on a model. I always thought it'd be a pain to mix and apply in small amounts. I picked up a small kit of glazing putty to try out and so far I really like it. The amount of work time you have with it is about the same as the Squadron putties I've been using. After that it set up much faster though so sanding and getting to your second layer can happen quicker. Trying to get the new bedside contour to match the the original. It's pretty close so hopefully a primer coat will be going on soon.

Oooooh I love me some S-Series trucks! I dig the pics, 1:1s and models. I've got a few planned for the hobby bench but like Jared said, my full scale needs some attention this spring. MN weather had been teasing us these past two months. Jared, I just went through that thread that you linked, I was thinking about that when I saw this one but couldn't remember how long ago it was. Your truck has come a long way from that first pic you posted, looking good!

Cut off all the mounting posts from the under side of the Silverado body. Then glued styrene tubes along the bottom of the bed. I tried to get them as parallel to the body as possible. Then cut the bed across the wheel wells. I have some brass rods that fit nice and snug in the styrene tubes that will allow me to adjust the length of the bed while keeping it aligned. The last couple days I've been building a new chassis for the cab area. Pretty much just winged it with syrene rods, a pair of A pillars from a NASCAR chassis, tape, and super glue. After removing the tape and pulling the body away from it, out dropped a decent looking frame! To make room I cut the rear part of the kit chassis away, surprisingly it is still pretty rigid. The new piece fits in quite nicely. After adjusting the bed to the length needed to fit the chassis I glued on a few more temporary reinforcements and then started to fill in the missing material. Started with the top of the bed.

It is. I pulled it off of a radio controlled toy. I found them at Wal-Mart. there was also a Ford Raptor that I'll have some fun with too. almost done fitting a rolll cage to the Silverado cab that will replace the cage that's fitted to the original dinosaur body. I haven't decided if I want to take the time to add an extended cab or just elongate the bed to fit the existing frame. I should have some good progress pics tomorrow.

Thanks. She's all done!

Finally wrapping this one up! Painted the chassi. I used Testors Window Tint spray to do a quick discoloration of the exhaust system. The cockpit is mounted to the chassis. I've been trying off and on to do the lettering on the back of the car. I shopped around and picked up so many dry transfer letter sheets but couldn't find ones I liked or that were close enough to the artwork I drew up for the car. I ended up getting a set of decals printed by Bedlam Creations. The decals were high quality and went on without a fuss. I would definately recommend them for anyone needing custom decals. Just waiting for the clear on the body to gas out a couple days and the two big pieces will be going together!

Here is what I'm looking at for the Shocks. When I mount them per the instrictions it seems like they're angled too far forward. If I flip them they're positioned like this. The plan is to modify this Silverado body that came from a Radio Controlled toy.

Went to the Monster Truck show a couple months ago and have been itching to build some of my own rigs. First project is starting from the Jurassic Attack kit by AMT. Does anyone have some experience with these kits. the instructions are the most confusing I've ever seen. I'm mocking up the chassis to get the wheel base for it's new body and I think the instructions call out the front shock towers backwards. I'll get some pics up later.

I'm on Xbox live, Gamer tag: BeeToast. I play Forza 4 and other misc. games. Just picked up Dirt.

I'll be there but I don't think I'll be able to get any kits done to enter the show.