purepmd

Hey John, I think you might best your big sleeper 'shaker if your not careful. Very slick. If you don't mind a quick tip; Fiscars makes scissors and roller cutters, like this; They are cheap, and any Walmart craft dept has them. They roll very well against a metal straight edge, and once a little dull, make great creases in thin sheet aluminum and stainless. Way easier than a #11 blade. I have 2, one to cut plastic and one for metal work.

Excellent, just Excellent.

Great save! I like seeing someone bring something like this back to life. Good job indeed.

Outstanding build, to say the least. Great choice of subject to model, + fantastic assembly and scratch building skills, = this truck. WELL DONE! Thank you for taking us along for the ride.

Another fantastic build! The whole DC fleet is outstanding. Well done.

Tom, one of the most troublesome aspects of building my first T600, was getting the hood and bumper to line up right and clear each other so you could raise the hood. Combine that with a wheel base thats a good inch to an inch and a quarter to short, and you have a challeging build. They can turn out well though. I stretched the frame and fairings, built some supports for the fairings, moved the tanks forward, and moulded the grille. Here are a couple of pics to show that it can be done.

Pavel strikes again! Another fabtastic build!

Absolutely crazy about the color combination, very cool. Great stretch, and awesome coversion to the stirrup steps. It just has " the Look".

Hey Guys, Just a few pictures to show some progress. I enclosed the latches and got the doors mounted to the cab. I used some Model Car Garage throttle linkage parts and bent them up to look like the latches on the 1-1 truck. I have trued the door jams and they are the width of a single sheet of 400 auto body paper. I think that will be enough of a gap that once the primer, paint, and clear coat are applied, they will have a very close, and even spacing.

Good looking combo, very sharp. Before I saw the trailer, I thought it was going to be an International Transport rig. They had an owner - operator fleet that wore those colors. Love the sly humor in the moving company name, clever.

I am really liking the color combination you came up with. Looks sharp as a tack! Alan is right, Bare Metal Foil is your best bet after, al-clad. If you do not have any BMF, use Reymold's wrap cooking foil. You can shape it easier, without tearing, because it is thicker than BMF. You have unlimited size availability and it is cheap. I use rounded toothpicks to shape it around small details then carefully separate it from the part and coat the backside with clear enamel for the adheasive, let it tack up for a few minutes, the burnish it down like you would with BMF. These tanks and quarter fenders are done just that way. Good luck.

Oh Ya, thats it! I would not worry about 1 mm. These kits never seem to have the cab sit perfectly level. Better it is a little high in the front, than look like it is not latched dowm in the back. It looks like a restoration you would see at an ATHS show. Well done.

Alan is right, makes a very cool day cab. Got me thinking about what to do with the leftovers from my 110. Attention span...what attention span, lol

Doug, you are right, the doors took a good bit of time. Forming the hinges, building thr latches, and getting the 120 degree bevelled edge on the inner panels was about 3 weeks worth of work. I do not have one of those miniature miter tables they sell in the MicroMark catalog, so I used a 3 sided metal file and a metal straight edge, as the table top, to hand sand the bevelling. As for the head light surrounds, including the detail on the backside, to be seen when the cab is raised, there are 8 pieces in each of them. Again,Thanks to everyone for all the comments and views. They provide a great deal of motivation. Mark.

The people who have responded so far are right on target. You have an excellent skill set base to move forward from. Paint work is very solid, assembly technique is way ahead of the game for a build at this point of experience. It is good to see a younger modeler take up trucks. Do not let the skyrocketing prices discourage you. There are ways around that. A lot of the Round 2 rereleases can be had on Ebay for less than $30.00 + shipping. Sometimes places like Hobbylinc or Tower Hobbies have reduced or free shipping specials. When the White Freightliner Cabover was rereleased, my favorite truck model for my childhood days, I scooped up a case of them, (6), with no shipping, and they were only $26.99 each. The first one I ever laid my hands on cost $3.95 at Kmart. It was a first run kit, that goes back a ways. A lot of Ebayers are parting kits out now. Look for a wrecker body by itself, combine that with the Revell W900, and there you go. Use the creativity you obviously have to obtain your kits as well as build them and you do not have to go broke to keep this as your hobby. Sometimes, combining various kits produces some intersting results. These are both conglomerations of AMT cabs and interiors together with Revell of Germany frames and engines. The basic building blocks to these 2 models were obtained from kits parted out on Ebay, with a cost of under $25.00 each. It can be done on the cheap. With your skills, I would hate to see money be the determining factor when it comes to building what you want, and have a knack for. PM me about KW parts. Best of luck to you. Mark.

That is a whole lot of cool for just 10 tires. Very well done JT.

Thank you Tony. Once the door jams are fashioned, the doors are aligned, and attached to the cab, I will make striker plates, with a small detent, for the spring action latches in the doors to catch on. Combine that with a small bump stop and they will be kept in proper alignment with the cab sides. Here you can see the latches in the doors. To bad they will be covered by remaining inner door skin and some photo etched widgets that resemble the 1-1 mechanisms.

First, thanks for all the great compliments, I really appreciate them. Second, Doobie, I found a set of Beading Mini Pliers, used for making beaded jewelry, and I use those to, first fold the metal strip over a piece of steel rod, the same size as the pivot the hinge will ride on. I use straight pins used in sewing. The chrome plating is very smooth for the hinge to move on. Then use the pliers to pinch the fold tight to the rod. Then I remove one side of the metal strip, just below the now circular fold, then finish curling the strip around the rod to form a complete circle. I made a small jig to form the bend in the hinges, so they would have all the same curvature, at least be close enough to work with out binding. In the picture, you can see some early attempts that, when left double layered, were to hard to get a gentle curve worked into them. In the foreground, you can see a very short, single layer, fully rolled hinge. It is really not all that difficult, it does take some practice. The hardest aspect is keeping the rolled pivot point at a 90 degree angle to the rest of the hinge. It is very easy to get them a little crooked, but if you leave the pin in the roll, you can straighten them out without colapsing the hinge. As i said, it is not that tough, it took me longer to type this out than it did for me to make one, not counting the dozen or so failures first. lol. Thank you for your interest, Mark

Incredible! A scratchbuilt work of art.

This is simply awesome. Your weathering and detailing skills are second to none.

Pavel, JT hit the nail on the head. Your builds are some of the 'must see' posts on this forum. Great paintwork and color combination. Looking forward to more pics. Mark.

'Shaker, thanks for the tip. It really has the same effect as the 1-1 wheels. Definately going to try that out.

This is slick! Modifications are so well done! Single headlights look like they were always there. The design and color choice of the paint is stellar. Period perfect, Well done.

Hey Everyone, I figured it was time for an update. I have been working on some more of the cab details, like the footwells and the storage compartment doors. I used one of the deck plates that comje in the CMT Freightliner sets to make the perforated metal that forms the floor of the footwell. Should look okay once painted. On the doors, I used some of the framework of the fret to form the hinges, and stick pins, with the heads filed flat, to ensure they were narrower that the .060, some model railroad springs, and some beading clamp tubes to form the spring loaded latches that will keep the doors from flopping around when attached to the cab. They will be covered and some details will be added to simulate the real, cable operated latches. In the first picture are some of the prototype parts I made just to see if my ideas would work. The last picture shows the doors with some details added to the hinges. Thanks for all your encouragement so far, it helps when you are on the 8th or 9th failed concept. Thanks for looking. Mark.

Great save! Being an avid fan, and repeat owner, of early second gen Pontiac F-bodies, it is good to see you breath new life into this very cool piece. Sport is right, Starlight black was a no no on 'birds until the Black and Gold, 1976, Pontiac Motor Division's 50th anniversary Trans Ams corrected that, on any measurable scale. Then, in '77, Burt Reynolds turned it into the must have color. Well done.