Bonneville Salt Flats trio, Checker cab / salt spreader / milk truck 1:87 & 1:64 scale

[Russell C]

Story on these is that back when I first started attending the GSL contest in Salt Lake City, the special Bonneville / Dry Lakes class tended not to have many models in it. I figured I could at least fill it in with one more model each year, and mess with folks' minds a bit with small scale deliberately brick-shaped vehicles.

My first entry in 1992 was a Magnuson models Checker cab. It's a bit on the rough side considering the primitiveness of the resin body. I chopped the top by slicing off the entire 'greenhouse', grinding about an 1/16th inch from the bottom and then lengthening it by adding a cross section in the middle. The windows are bits of black exposed film negative material, the headlight covers are dish-shape pin ends, the grille is bits of model ship photoetched railings, and the tires / wheel covers are plastic 'lathe-turned' on my motor tool (a method I explained in my post over here). I drew the black parts of the flames and the words "Bonneville" in a computer program and printed them out on clear laser print decal material (the "5 piece kit" - 4 wheels and a resin body - came with the other decal lettering & checkerboard stripes). The colors are air brushed nail polish pearl white / purple-to-light blue flame area.

The next one is one of my favorites in my whole collection, built for the '93 GSL contest. It's a combo of the Wheel Works '34 Ford with a Roco salt spreader unit (out-of-production, I think, it's the same as the accessory in the dump body of this other guy's truck). I shortened up the salter body and made the load by forming the basic shape out of aluminum foil over a cardboard frame, which was then heavily sprayed with white paint, followed by a sprinkling of flour and several dry mist coats of off-white. I chopped the cab of course, and the windows are bits of black exposed film negative material. The headers are brass wire formed to shape and capped with a metal ring I found that happened to be the right diameter. I 'lathe-turned' the plastic tires and aluminum wheel covers on my motor tool.







What could be more unaerodynamic than a van? Hot Wheels had a nice chopped top Divco milk truck out in 1999 when I made this one, so I just removed its silkscreen stuff and painted over its pearl white with some nice nail polish pearl blue & magenta-ish red to mimic the Pierson Brothers' 1934 Ford Coupe. All three of these models sit on cheapo craft shop stained pine bases that have "salt" made from dinged-up, slightly dirtied sheet styrene.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Russell C
fixed busted photo links

[Danno]

Very cool models, Russell!

[slusher]

Real nice looking models

[PappyD340]

Very COOL indeed!!

[cobraman]

I agree, very cool.

[Modelmartin]

Digging the Salt Spreader!

[crazyrichard]

whouw and in that scale !! and the salt trower > insanely cool

[TooOld]

Those are very cool !

[Agent G]

I like!

G

[misterNNL]

Great stuff! The salt spreader truck is my personal favorite.

[bbowser]

Wow, I can barely deal with 1/24! Excellent models!