Force

As I said, I have researched the Duel rig for quite some time and I save every picture I can find, and a man called Cam Lavin who knows even more than I do about this rig has been very helpful with what he knows, so I'm very grateful to him for that. There are some things available to do the Duel rig, both 3D printed and resin cast, but much of it are not correct unfortunately and even the diecast models available now are wrong, some of these things are based on Brad Wike's rig wich often are refered to be "the survivor rig built as a backup", but that's not true as it was built in the late 1990's and has nothing to do with the movie, so you can call it a tribute but it's far from correct, it's even not the correct color as it is painted red oxide primer...the main truck used in the movie was painted gold with a lot of dirt, grease, smear and grime. I have gathered parts for my build for quite some time and some are hard to find, I bought a 3D printed trailer body from Keystone Aluminum Miniatures (now defunct) wich looks decent, but this trailer body is also too short and the cabinets on the sides are the same length, the drivers side cabinet should be longer than the passenger side cabinet wich can be seen in the final crash scene if you look closely, so these things have to be addressed. The cab and hood for the truck I found at American Industrial Truck Models wich is not operational at the moment as the owner Dave Natale passed away some time ago, but it looks like AITM will be back with a new owner very soon, they had two different versions of the hood and grille for the needle nose Pete's, one with a single hinge on top and one with dual hinges, and the dual hinge is correct as the single hinge hood came later. The correct suspensions for the truck and trailer are also available, the Page & Page suspension for the truck I bought from Pavel Behensky at Strato Models but it's also available at Czech Truck Models, the torsion bar suspension the original trailer had is available from Auslowe, it had a Kenworth torsion bar suspension wich I learned from Cam Lavin. The wheels I have found from several sources, but I still look for the front wheels in correct size and I got a STL file for them but no printer, I belive I got the others covered. The engine is another thing, there are no Caterpillar 1673B available in scale wich the engine in the main truck. and a guy I talked to on facebook started to do files for 3D prints of this engine, but it was a while since I heard from him, so we'll see how that developes...otherwise...most likely have to scratch build one. Decals can be found at a few places, I got mine from modeltruckin.com but he recently sold the business to another guy and his website is modeltruckers.com, and I've seen the decals at other places too.

So nice

It would be nice to be able to get the decals. I have the Hot Rod issue where this car was featured and it looked like this.

The lip at the bottom is so it can be used on both the AMT and Revell kits, so it has to be trimmed to fit.

Unfortunately all information on there are not entirely correct all the time, and some info is missing sometimes, I mean some models that share tooling should be on the same timeline...but they are not all the time so it can be hard to find the correct information there. Great progress anyway and I look forward to see the result.

It depends on what you are after, highly polished aluminum wheels are very shiny, almost looks to be chrome...but it's just about taste, I mean wheels that are not highly polished don't shine as much and if they are left alone for a long time they get very dull. But I don't like the look of the wheels for the reason I gave in my last post, the Moebius wheels doesn't look right for this era truck either, they are too modern.

The only difference between the Aerodyne and the flat top kits is the roof section, the rest is exactly the same.

It's a nice model anyway keeping in mind of when it was built and how it was done, it's easier to do one today with all the aftermarket parts around and lots and lots of reference pictures. If you're being picky all the wheels are incorrect on your model, the wheels on the original truck were missmatched all around, the fronts were 5 diamond shaped hole wheels, one black and one white, the drivers side outer drive wheel was a 5-hole Alcoa aluminum (aluminium) wheel and the tag axle outer was a 6-hole steel wheel, the passenger side outer drive wheel was a 5-hole steel wheel and the tag axle a 5-hole Alcoa, the trailer had 6-hole steel wheels on the forward axle and 5-hole steel wheels on the rear axle both sides, all of the wheels on the rig were tube style lock ring wheels. One thing I see on oyur model is the frame behind the truck suspension is a bit too long and the tank trailer is too short, the trailer on the original rig was 38-40 feet long so the proportions doesn't look right. Don't take this as critisism of your build, it's not meant to be, I just observed this. As plan to do one myself I have researched this rig for a long time and have watched the movie (I have it on Blue-Ray) many many times to see details. They used two different rigs in the longer theatrical version of the movie, the extended laundromat/gas station scene, the school bus push scene and the railroad crossing push scene was shot about a year after the release of the original movie was shot with a different truck as the original one was destroyed in the final crash, the original was a 1957 281 single drive with a tag axle on Page & Page 60/40 spring suspension and the one in the extended scenes was a mid 60's 351 dual drive on what looks like a Reyco 4 spring suspension with 5-hole tubeless style steel wheels, the tank trailer on the 351 was a different make and shorter than the original one. Here is a decent picture of the original rig used in the main shoot of the movie where you can see where the frame ends and how long the trailer is.

Nice models.

I agree, they are not the best looking wheels out there. The rears look like the old style lock ring wheels as the "ditch" in the middle of the rim wich is there to be able to mount the tires on the real tubeless style wheels is missing, and I'm not too keen on the fronts either.

Well I live in Sweden and have seen these around as there were plentiful on the roads in the 70's. Some 3D printed Volvo PV Duett and Amazon is starting to be available now on the market.

I've said it before, this is one of the best models of a NASCAR Dodge Daytona I've seen and I really enjoyed the buildup back when you did it Jason. I just noticed one thing I did not see before...I see you used the Dana 60 rear end on your build, the NASCAR Mopar's had the 8 3/4 inch rear end even on the Hemi cars with manual trans, it's lighter and it's easier and a lot faster to swap gears in than the Dana so that's why they used it. To swap gears in the Dana you have to do it in the axle itself through the rear cover and that takes a lot of time, the 8 3/4 inch you can have different 3rd members/gear carriers with different gear ratios ready to go and you just pull out the drive shafts and swap the complete 3rd member as it's bolted to the front of the axle.

The auto transport trailer originally came in 1983 and the Prestige Auto Movers combo kit came 1985 and was originally issued 1984 as the Prestige Auto Transport combo kit, same basic kit in a different box and no car kits included. Originally it seems like Revell planned to do the car transporter trailer paired up with a Kenworth K100 Aerodyne as a combo kit, it even had the same kit No as the 1984 Prestige Auto Transport kit with the Pete 359, the picture in the catalog with the K100 it had two BMW's as a load, but it appearently never materialized. I saw the the Prestige Auto Movers kit on display at a wholesaler showroom wich only sold to stores back in the day, and wanted to get one myself but I couldn't find one at any store anywhere around me...so I bought the kits separate.

Yes I saw that, but I don't know what box the "bent A-pillar" kit came out of, if it was out of the flimsy side opener box I can understand it as these boxes are worthless piece of cheap cr*p IMHO, but it can also happen with the sturdier two piece boxes if they are packed wrong. It could also have happened at the factory for some reason but that should be caught at the quality control if they have one.

No kit should have bent A-pillars, if it does the packaging is poor and so is the quality control, I believe they still do the molding in China. I don't know if the box for this one is the for Revell Germany flimsy side opener box or the more sturdy Revell two piece box, I wish Revell would stop with the worthless side opener box wich doesn't allow stacking as they are flimsy as h*ll and doesn't carry much weight.

Archer Transfers is up and running again under new management as far as I know.

I agree that these type of channels may incurage some into taking up this hobby, don't get me wrong there, they probably do. But as I said, every buildup is the same regardless of model and that's not that incuraging and I would expect a little more from guys that builds 40-50-60 models a year, because building those kind of numbers doesn't make you "experienced" if you do it the same every time without taking on new techniques and try something else, you are experienced at what you are currently doing but will not evolve any further...that's my point. These guys are welcome to do what they want, it's fine by me, but I will not follow their channels as closely as I know what to expect. I just watched a video at the A4 Garage channel wich I hadn't watched before and that's more my type of builds, he looks like he knows what he's doing, so thank's for the tip. I also follow Model Car Muse, Clay Kemp and a few others.

Looks good. I have often wondered why Kenworth decided to put the battery box on the passenger side on the K100C's when most of the engines have the starter on the drivers side, likewise with the air cleaner wich are on the drivers side and most of the inline 6 engines have the turbo on the passenger side...so you have to cross over the battery leads and the intake tube on them. The W900 has the battery box on the drivers side under the door so it's more direct and the K100E's also have it on the drivers side. It doesn't matter but one can wonder why.

The Tamiya panel liner paints are banned here in Sweden and not allowed to be sold anymore, so we have to use different things for our models.

I don't mean to treat him bad at all, I just don't understand the fun in building like he does because I don't see the fun in it, but as I said, everyone have the right to build as they want, and if you put yourself out on youtube you will automatically be scrutinized, good or bad. I don't see much of the basic building techniques I mentioned in the videos I have watched by them, no prepping of the bodies other than washing them, not sanding off mold lines on them or on the parts, no fixing visible glue joints on two part pieces like engines, trannys, rear ends and such, it's not that hard to do if you want to and it lifts a model a notch or two. As I also have said, one doesn't have to super detail to build a nice looking model, build clean and use basic build techniques and put a little more effort in them and they will be better models.

Swirls and uneven colors are not uncommon on kit bodies and sometimes some scratches too because bagging a kit body separate is a fairly new thing, earlier everything was in the same bag except for the glass and chrome wich was unbagged at the bottom of the box, sometimes even the glass was in the same bag as all the other parts and was scratched up too, so that was expected when you bought a kit. These things doesn't matter much, just sand off the scratches and of course the mold lines on the body and paint with primer and paint and you will not see the swirls and scratches on the finished model, so that's not a big deal, but if the body is distorted it's another thing and would be replaced, but you can still expect it to have swirls and uneven colors because it's how the plastic flows in the mold. I never do a build with bare plastic even if it's colored, I paint everything because as I said, swirls and uneven colors are not uncommon on model kits and it never look good.

I watched The Autistic Modeler's last video yesterday where he showed all the models he built this year, he did 64 different models and that comes up to 1.2 completed models a week, I just wonder why one will do that because it's not like the one who builds most models in a year "will win"...it's not a competition, it's a hobby. He doesn't only build newly released models like HPIguy mostly does but he also has some sponsors and get kits for free, but sometimes he do old obsolete stuff from his own "vault", and sometimes he does some kit bashing and some resin stuff...but the building tecniques are the same as HPIguy, slap together as much as possible in sub-assemblies, paint with spray cans (wich is allright by me) and a little detail painting with some brush paint, sharpies and other pens, and put it together, so of course he builds them fast. For HPIguy, I belive he does at least one model a week too, he uses a food dehydrator to cure paint and everything faster so it's for sure possible to do so, HPIguy's channel is a review channel and he gets most of the models for free from Round2, Moebius and other places, but it's possible to do a review of a model and put a little more effort and finess in the build and maybe not built (imho) as sloppy as he sometimes does, I mean an experienced modeler would not build models like he does...maybe a beginner would but not an experienced modeler. I don't mean these guys should go the extra mile and super detail, open doors and trunks and hinge them and all that, just build a model with a bit more prep and use the common basic building tecniques most of us do, and the beginner will of course learn more from it. If I buy a model for $30 to $50 I would build them so they look nice at closeup and not only at five feet, even if I do it faster than normal, slap them together as fast as I can is definately not my cup of tea. The GTO model in my first post above was built straight out of the box in 3 days spray can painting, some with enamel paint was used for detailing, and air drying time included and I even did BMF and painted the redlines on the tires, if I had time to wait for the paint to cure completely I would have polished it too but I only had one week to do it, so no polish as the paint was too soft for that, I don't use a food dehydrator to cure the paint otherwise the paint might have had time to cure completely and it would have been polished, I built it for our local hobby shop for them to display and I did not pay for the kit so it was pretty much like for these guys. But as I said, all modelers have the right to build their models as they like, it's their model, I just think they would do a better content if they put a little more effort in their builds.

Great news. I really miss Dave Natale's parts.

I knew I would put myself in the "line of fire" here with my view of this but it's my opinion and I stand by it. Nobody demands that they should build one or two complete models a week, it's the builders/videomakers choice to do so, but I think slapping together a model in a few hours just because isn't that adjucating to a beginner modeler and they learn all they can from what these videos have to offer in viewing a couple of them, and then you want to learn more and and take a step to be able to build better models. You can show how a model comes together, parts fit and so on even if you put more effort in the builds and build slower and the video doesn't have to be 2 hours to cover that, it depends on how you edit the material as you don't have to show every single step in full, keep what's important and skip the unecessary things. They can easily show some basic tecniques most builders with some experience use like the ones I listed in my post above, it will give the less experiensed modelers more, I mean, I did the Pontiac GTO in my post above in 3 days of spare time total and I had a week to do it, so you can do a nice looking model in a week if you want to, it's just a matter of planning. The sub-assemblys they do are hastingly gone through and they don't even wait until the glue cures, they also put so much together that the detail painting is hard to do and don't look good so that's not my cup of tea, I do sub-assemblys myself but not to that extent, I do them so it's easy to detail paint and detail in general and the end result is much better. If time is the thing (wich it really isn't), I can slap together a car model in one day if it was for that, but it will definately not look good and it's no point of doing because building models is a hobby that's allowed to take time, relax and build and the model can take all the time it needs, that's the reason of doing it. But I do watch some of their videos to see how some models are, especially the ones I have not seen before, I skip most of the buildup and paint process and see how the finished model looks like, but I have been in this hobby so long that there's not much I haven't seen except for the new tool models. HPIguy does two videos a week normaly, one where he shows box contents of a model and one longer buildup video, and the box content videos are the ones I watch most if there is a model I'm interested in, and I only watch the buildup videos sometimes and skip most of the content as it doesn't give me much. But there are builders on youtube that builds their models more like I would do and I enjoy watching them a lot more than the guys slapping together a model in a few hours, it gives me a lot more. And I agree with Bill Engwer here, I can't believe how much glue they use to hold some smaller parts like valve covers, hub caps, glass and such, I react every time they do it. Steven Guthmiller hits the spot right on and I totally agree with what you say, Kurth also has a point

I assume many here watch youtube channels like HPIguys Workshop and The Autistic Modeler and I'm sure there are more, but these two in particular. I see myself as an experienced modeler doing this for over 50 years, and one thing I have noticed with both of these guys is that they slap together the models very fast without much prepping at all, they don't sand off mold lines on the bodies and other parts, don't fix visible glue joints and don't use much of the basic modeling tecniques that enhance a model a lot even if you don't superdetail it. I mean you can build a very nice model quite fast even if you use basic modeling tecniques like the ones I mentioned, yes it takes a little more time and effort but I built a model for our local hobby shop several years ago and did it in about 3 days and used these basic modeling tecniques and only detailed it with paint, and it came out very nice and I'm pleased with it. Both of these guys do a lot of subassemblys wich is fine and I do that too but not to that extent, I for one would leave off parts that will have a different color as it's easier to paint them separately and get to all nooks and crannies, because it's not easy to put together the complete engine and try to detail parts like exhaust manifolds, belt/pulleys and such with paint afterwards. I have watched many of their videos lately and they all are pretty much the same, they are maybe fine for a beginner modeler but you will not learn much, and for a more experienced modeler they don't have much to offer, I only watch them to see what the models they build are like and skip much of the buildup sequence as it doesn't give me anything. But of course, everyone build their models as they choose and have the right to do it, but I think a bit more basic modeling tecniques could be shown and the less experienced modelers would learn a thing or two, because slap together a model in a couple of days and take a lot of shortcuts doesn't give you a better model, and building models is a hobby, not a job where you must get out as many models as possible in a short time. Well enough ranting. Here is the model I built in about 3 days for our local hobby shop and I don't have that many hours in it. Detailed only with paint, BMF and not polished.