Force

I have a Canon EOS 650D, I previously had an EOS 400D as you wich was a good camera but I upgraded to a 650D little over a year ago as it has more features. I have used either the original 18-55 mm kit lens or the one I use for most photographing nowadays, my Canon EFS 18-135 mm IS STM lens wich has better midrange so I don't have to change to a tele lens other than for realy long range. The key to sharp model pictures has not that much to do with what lens you use, it's better to try to use as small shutter opening as possible, if you go Full Automatic the camera chooses a larger shutter opening and the pics are only sharp where the focal point is...and on a car model that can be just the front fender...with a smaller opening you will get more "depth of field", that will say the picture is sharp from front to back of the picture and the whole model gets sharp. Use the AV setting on your dial and choose the highest number possible (for example F18, F20 or F22) and the camera chooses the shutter speed automaticly for that shutter opening...if you don't have Image Stabilizer you might have to use a tripod stand and use the camera timer so you don't shake the camera when you "pull the trigger" so to speak. I have photographed models in all zoom ranges of my lens with this method and it doesn't matter wich I use, the pics comes out sharp either way, but don't go too close to your object, the closest distance possible you can go is marked on your lens, my 18-135 lens has 1.3 ft, ( the standard 18-55 is 0.9 ft) closer than that the camera can't focus.

I believe he talks about this one....it could be a clone and the picture is taken at a later stage and not in 1970. This car also has Centerline or Cragar Super Trick wheels instead of the regular Keystone Classics, Bear Paw or 5 slots of the other cars.

Thanks guys!

According to my references the Plymouth and Sox & Martin scripts should be a silver circular swirl finnish with black outline and the Ronnie Sox and Mechanic Jake King and some other scripts should be gold swirl on the 70 Cuda, . Slixx still has a couple of their Sox & Martin decal sheets in stock, the one for the early 70's Cuda is not entirely correct as far as I know but better than the Revell decals, Slixx says that the 70 Cuda had gold lettering, I don't say they don't exist but I don't have any pictures with all gold lettering for the 70, that's more correct for the 1972 Cuda with number Pro 23 or Pro 4, the 70 Cuda had number Pro 200 or Pro 705, the 71 Cuda had number Pro 4 or Pro 44, the numbers are different depending on driver as Ronnie Sox didn't drive all the time, (Herb McCandless amongst others did some driving for S & M)...and the sanctioning bodys could have had different numbering.

I'm a Sox & Martin fan and I loved building the Jo-Han Sox & Martin 71 Barracuda and I cant wait to get this one. I have several of the Jo-Han 71 Barracuda's, a couple of Jo-Han S & M Superbird's, and a couple of Revell S & M 67 GTX's so this would fit well in my collection, my plan is to build as many Sox & Martin cars as I can from kits available. The small kit flaws with "the fender flares" I can see beyond, they are not that hard to file down and correct so it looks better...it's easier to remove material that shouldn't be there than to add something that's not there...after all, we are model builders aren't we.

Time for another of my old builds, The Pro Touring style was popular at the time for this build about 10 years ago so I thought I would give it a try and the choice of subject fell on Revell's 68 Pontiac Firebird. The wheels are Pegasus Chrome T's with Tamiya tires on the rear end to get a higher profile tire and I narrowed the rims and tires slightly at the front, I used photo etched disc brakes from MAS and calippers from Replicas And Miniatures Co Of Maryland and the front suspension is lowered to get the stance I was after. I used C4 Corvette front seats from a Monogram ZR1 and modified them to fit in the Revell interrior, I also cut out and did new inserts for the back seat to match the pattern of the fronts. The Paint is Volvo Ocean Blue Pearl Metallic with BMF and all emblems are from a Model Car Garage photo etched detail set. The engine block and heads are the same color as the outside of the body and is built out of box with some basic wiring, I had to shorten the headers as they touched the table top before the front wheels so I took 3-4 millimeters out of the downwards pipes to tuck them up closer to the floor, I also redid the exhaust system to meet the headers and clear the rear tires better. Now to the pictures. Enjoy

It might be 1/24th scale but the only Edelbrock Rat Roaster intake manifold I know of is made by Ross Gibson, but he only sells complete engines so it's the Super Stock Rat Roaster Hemi RGE 204 engine you have to find to get one. It wasn't only Super Stock 'Cudas and Challengers who used this intake, Sox & Martin and Jack Werst ran Rat Roaster equipped Hemi's in their SS/E and SS/EA Plymouth Superbird's.

This reissue is the old "Small Window" Unilite cab version, not the later 1100 cab.

As far as I know Jake King painted the engines he built for Sox & Martin Ford Engine Blue as a homage to his own time racing Ford's and to easily identify his work. Jake drove the Atwater Ford Thunderbolt before he joined Sox & Martin. I have pictures from back in the day when Ronnie Sox were still active of Sox & Martin 68 Barracuda's running in SS/A, SS/B, SS/D, E/SA (340 car), FX, A/MP and Pro

Great work on this one Roger.

We don't have any plating service for modelers over here either but if you have an airbrush you can use Alclad II Chrome for the wheels...not perfect but it gets very shiny and it's the closest thing you can get with paint. Who knows, maybe Round 2 will reissue the old Ertl IH Transtar II Eagle sometime.

It would have been great if you did the Tyrone Malone Bandag tires as well Ben...many of Malones trucks can be built with current and recent truck kits, you have the rims and they are top notch, but the tires are hard to come by as the original AMT kits are harder and harder to find and costs a fortune. Possible trucks to build except for the AMT Malone kits are the Boss Truck Of America W900, the Defiance Freightliner, the Mama Truck K100, the Old No 8 K100 truck with the living quarters trailer, the W900 Whale Truck with reefer trailer, the No 13 KW W900B, maybe the Hurricane W900 if you are good at scratchbuilding and modifying...and some more.

Nah, it's not as cool as the other Malone trucks but he got both the Defiance and the IH transporter at the same deal. On this picture you can see the Defiance Freightliner and the Smokey Bear Corvette on the lowboy trailer behind the IH and you can get a glimpse of the Hurricane KW on the truck bed. I also read somewhere that the Defiance were not used that much as the Allison engine didn't cooperate and didn't run well all the time, so it was mostly displayed on a stand with the front wheels up in the air.

Nice work as allways Alan. I have tried BMF for masking when I did stripes and it works well without bleeding...a bit expensive maybe but it works fine and you get sharp fine lines. One thing tho'..you have to use regular masking tape a bit away from the actual line, then the BMF right at the edge where you want the line to be andmake sure it's overlaping the regular masking tape some, otherwise you can get in trouble when you want to unmask, but with the overlap you pull up the masking tape and the BMF follows so you can get hold of it and it's easier to take off. Another way is to mask as usual and first paint the stripe with the same color as the base coat, or you can even a clear coat, this is to seal the tape, when that paint has dried you paint with the color you want the stripes to be, that way the under bleed will be the same color as the base coat...or clear if you use that.

Not the exactly right models but maybe this might give you some hints...the S 2600 series is a long hood set back front axle chassis.

Have you seen this Alan?? https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=858253740869448&id=189062841121878

Have you seen this Alan? https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=858253740869448&id=189062841121878

Very nice work, I'm looking forward to your updates

Yes it does...I just checked. For some reason Revell has labeled the newly reissued "Will Do" Wrecker with the Historic Series logo...I didn't think the the original "Can Do" kit was that old, but it came out 1993...so it's 21 years ago.

Yes the KW K123 for sure has baby moons as well as regular drive hubs, same as the W925 kits. I have bought a couple of sets of machined aluminum baby moon caps for trucks but I don't recall where...it could have been Saurkrauts.

Could be 1979-84.

Cummins 300...well the 300 only tells it's a 300 hp engine, most likely NTC. An adjucated guess would be that the rear suspension is leaf springs If the tractor is a single drive with no tag axle it's not a heavy weight hauler as there are limits on how much weight you can have per axle or axle combinations on the roads...and for a single drive axle without a tag axle it's not that much, maybe somewhere around 20 000 pounds, 10 US tonnes or slightly over 9 metric tonnes, so they are more of a lighter duty truck. So as Aaron says, most of the single drive tractors with no tag axle hauls double or triple short one axle trailers (commonly called "pups")...or lighter single trailers...and the 3 axle trailer in your picture could as well have been empty...otherwise it can't have much weight over the kingpin due to the weight limitations for the truck tractor wich is somewhere around 30 000 pounds gross, (15 us tonnes or 23.6 metric tonnes) in this configuration. I did a google picture search just now and most of the pictures I found of ABF single drive trucks hauls double or triple pups.

Yes it looks to be the 108 inch cab, it also looks like it's a K100E with square headlights and a more squareish grille. I can't wait to see your progress with this.

I did some research and have found out that the 1967-82 Kenworth W 900 short hood is 63 inches and the 1970-82 extended hood is 74 inches so the difference in real life is 11 inches. That difference in 1:25 scale is a touch over 11 millimeters, I measured the hoods from the 3 kits we are talking about and the Revell short hood is 61.6 millimeters, the AMT short hood is 61.3-61.4 millimeters and the Revell AG extended hood is 72.2 millimeters, all 3 measured without the grille...so you can do the math yourself. If you want to cut down an extended hood the cut should be just behind the front fenders so they are the same on both hoods...and the difference in taper on the top of the hoods isn't that bad, maybe 0.5 millimeter between the hoods at the same place lengthwise where the cut would be, so it would not be that noticeable. So of course you can cut down an extended hood to do a short hood if you want to....and yes...you have to move the cab forward the same amount the hood is shorter.

The tires are not the biggest problem, it's the rims...mostly the rear...that doesn't look that good as they are much too shallow to look convincing.