Muncie

The standard sealed beam U.S. headlamps are 7" round and 5-3/4 round. Same for the European halogen lamps with replaceable bulbs. (so the 6mm lens may look OK) However, the model car headlamp sizes in kits seem to vary a lot. A Brief History Of Sealed Beam Headlamps In The U.S. (carid.com) Put me on the list for some good aftermarket lenses. CTM aka, Czech Truck Model has some replacements that look pretty good and are available for reasonable money from the usual truck model vendors. Your Local Hobby Shop may have some accessory pieces in the Gundam section to do the job.

For a heavy-duty truck, standard wheelbase is a grain of salt thing. The spec sheet will have a standard wheelbase, but heavy-duty trucks can be ordered with almost any wheelbase in one inch increments. The standard wheelbase is for a truck without any options. Add a sleeper on the order and the wheelbase is increased. The wheelbase may be a later modification. When trucks see a few years, they start getting modified for a second or third owner The pictures in the other thread show a big gap between the cab and the front of the trailer like a sleeper had been removed.

That is very cool! factory fresh.

Looks great, safe travels Marc.

Thank you SteveG. I'm looking forward to the Chevelle AWB kit, especially with the vinyl tires which I see as good news. The plastic two-piece slicks always had a taper and the plastic two-piece fronts had no tread - just a draft angle to get them out of the molds. Sometimes, depending how my day was going, they were difficult to assemble. Hoping the vinyl tires will be available as a parts pack. I don't think this size has ever been available in vinyl and they can be used on many other cars. One less thing to tool if more new AWB and drag racing kits are in the pipeline.

Sorry, not much help here... Had to get a Krylon spray can last week for a different project (not a model car). I tried to match an old can of Fusion 2328 Pepper Red. Krylon was bought by Sherwin Williams a few years ago but the local S/W store had only a small selection. The local big farm and home improvement stores that I tried didn't have Krylon and were completely changed over to Rust-oleum products. A big box store had a few cans - it looked like they were closing out spray cans altogether. They used to have a 60 foot row of spray paint. O'Riley's and NAPA had only a small selection of Krylon. After checking ten places, NAPA had Pepper Red but with a new number. I'm hoping it is close enough.

The camper probably never existed... but it looks like one that I'm sure I saw in an advertisement in the back of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazines back in 1963. Yeah, I don't think I would trust my memory 60 years either.

Thanks James, Tim, and all the rest. Looks like it's going to be a good year. Round 2 is doing a great job with their philosophy on reissues of old favorites. The Ford pickups even have new separate bumpers and grille in place of the old one-piece units.

Very nicely done, great use of a cool kit with color selection and different levels of shine. I can remember building one of these on a Christmas morning... it was a long time ago.

Curt Raitz, you can PM him here on the forum, still has the CD with all issues of Motor Racing Replica News. MRRN is well worth having as "An historic racing car journal for model car builders" Published by Mike Quaterman in 1991 to... I think the magazine had about 30 issues. Each issue contains well researched technical text with lots of drawings and photographs of race cars - sports cars, Indy, some are then current, and some vintage. North American, European...

Each time you post the latest work, I look, I close my eyes and chuckle under my breath because this must be impossible... can't be real... I open my eyes and look and still in my total disbelief, it is real!

Agree with your observations about NHRA - they have almost completely lost my interest. I remeber that I could go to a regional race and see competitive local pro-stock and funny cars that were run by people that I knew. Now, it's just two mega pro-stock teams

lots of custom options add to the variety. The older triangular emblem was used all the way up to the change from White Freightliner to Freightliner - 1975ish in U.S. 1978ish in Canada. it was the standard emblem on COE's. The rectangular grille emblem was standard with frontal engine air intake and the triangle emblem was standard with other air intake systems (stationary stack(s) back of cab, breaking air, etc). Or, you could order the frontal air emblem/grille as an option with the other air intakes, until Freightliner made it standard on all COE's - and then no more triangles. Based on the options in the AMT dual drive kit, things like the early design fabricated under door & ladder steps, the initial on the sleeper curtain, and dual exhaust... I believe it was a Freightliner show truck with some pre-production parts to give the customers and dealers something to look at. Such a truck would not have the wedge brakes like the AMT kit, but that was a carryover from the CF single drive.

I remember listening to a commercial free FM station in my younger days - good rock and roll, album cuts and full album previews late at night in the times of LP records - very cool! Not a college station, but they didn't play the same things every other station played. The alternative link. But, it was at a time when not very many cars had FM radios. There are still couple of commercial free FM stations getting by in the area that I can think of.

be slow, careful, and cautious - most lacquer thinner now days is mostly acetone and it will attack the plastic. If it gets too much (any?) on the plastic, it will shrink or leave a mark that will only show sometime after paint... Lacquer paints can be used on a kit if the paint is made for plastic kits (like Tamiya) or a proper sealer is applied before the lacquer (not trying to get into that question again)

AAARGH!, I've been there, too. Might be easier to grind it out and reapply the putty closer to the shape that it needs to be.

If you are looking for attachment/structure as well as shape, consider an epoxy putty. There is a brand, A+B, Comes in two parts in white packages, A on one, B on the other. Unfortunately, it's a large quantity and relatively not cheap. It has many other uses. It will stick to many materials and is darn near permanent when it dries. There may be smaller packages that I haven't found. You tear off how much you need, knead the two parts together until it's completely mixed. It can be worked and molded wet (will even cure underwater). Mix it up, use some water and mold it into shape. You don't get much time and it will dry hard as a rock and ready for primer. Not easy to sand if it's even possible. Best to keep your epoxy a little under where you want it and use a spot putty or thick primer to bring it up to final shape. It's been a long time since I have used it so there may be new products out there. I noticed a two part epoxy putty in a more reasonable quantity at the local hobby shop in the gaming /figures section. I don't know it if works the same but I suspect it will.

In an area like this - recessed with a curved shape and inside corner, it pays off to mold the filler as close as you can instead of piling it on. Just a finger wipe will do and will eliminate a lot of sanding.

Claude, so true, and well done!

My first look, I thought I was looking at different models. These are all very impressive transformations! Very well done.

For sure, there is a lot of commonality between the different Freightliner COE cab models. Freightliner was more of a custom truck builder during these years and their market share was on the low side. Production volume was pretty low. This page is probably from about 1975 before Freightliner dropped White from the nameplates. The 21 Series is probably somewhere shortly after Freightliner stopped building non-tilt COEs about 1958. Freightliner's changes were more evolutionary than following a model year schedule. And they maximized existing tooling instead of making changes that would require a total production line make over. Even the FLC conventional cab that appeared about 1975 is more of a variation to the COE than a unique model.

Thanks Tim, Always look forward to your annual report. Good to see you spent some time n the basement.

I go with what Steve says, what he says is right on about Duplicolor 1699 and it is also my choice. I've learned a lot from his posts. Primer sealer is a barrier layer and will seal color if it has enough coats. I did a not very scientific sharpie test for another purpose. The sharpie bled thru 2 to 3 coats, but 5 to 6 light coats if left to dry properly stopped it. 1699 goes on so smooth that it did not need sanding. (enough coats that you cannot see the color below plus a couple more for good measure.) But if it is sanded, it should get a couple more coats before final color. Basically, it's following the method in the paint manufacturer's instructions that was used for the old automotive primer sealers that I started out with model cars a very long time ago. Automotive primer sealer is actually a barrier between whatever sins or materials are below and the final top coat colors. At one time, auto body shops had to deal with refinishing cars painted at the factory with enamel (sometimes with multiple color replacement panels) using the new lacquer paints. The lacquer could damage the enamel below so Primer Sealer was cheap insurance to having an unhappy customer come back. Ditzler had a primer sealer that you could poor into the gun without thinner, would dry quick, didn't have to be sanded and was inexpensive. Haven't done that kind of project in a long time so I know little about the current materials in the body shops today.

To paraphrase things a bit, land speed cars running at SCTA Speed Week and the USFRA World Finals events have competition numbers and class designations. I think they always have. With several hundred cars at speed week, it would be impossible to sort out the cars without a number. They aren't always easy to see but they are there as required by the rules. The graphics can be the size of a door or as small as a parts decal. Sometimes difficult to find. The only exceptions that I can think of are if the car is just out for a photo shoot before it makes a run or the car is still under construction and not making a run. It is very rare and expensive for somebody to build a car and run it by itself for a record. SCTA and USFRA crews (mostly volunteers) have lots of people that spend several long days preparing the salt and setting up equipment before an event. That would be impossible for a single car unless it was very well funded. If a competition model is being presented without a number, documentation would be a great idea. Documentation is a good idea anyway depending on what IPMS requires or suggests. ,

That's fortunate - A two in one 1971 and 1972 kit with parts for both Road Runner and GTX seems more possible. I prefer 1971 but I'm aware many others would like the '72. Decals for emblems and side marker lights works for me - I would remove them anyway. If it could be a rebody on the 1971 Charger chassis - so much the better. Just spit balling a few ideas...