Mike77

Outstanding detail! I love the way you were able to weather it to give it the look of an old warhorse that's seen a few miles. Great job!

If memory serves, the 1/16 Peterbilt and Kenworth Aerodyne kits were reissued by Revell/Germany, but I think it was in the late 80's or the 90's. The white Peterbilt in the larger box was one of them, but I don't recall the box art on the KW. I'm almost positive there have been no reissues since as it was in the early-2000's that I was doing my customs and none were available in stores, Ebay was about the only source. As to people not buying them when they come out, part of it is the limited appeal of 1/16. As to what I perceive as the recent rebirth of the truck model hobby due to the reissue of so many kits from the 70's in all scales, I think the model companies are reissuing them in part due to the need to survive and also because they finally realized that all of us who built these kits 40 years ago as kids are still around. Some "grew out of it" and some are lifelong model builders, so why not give us what we want. Personally, if I could afford to, I'd be hoarding these truck kits while they're in stores and relatively inexpensive. Once they discontinue them the prices will start to rise on the secondary market, and before long we'll be saying (again) "remember a few years ago when that kit was in the stores?" I honestly doubt we'll ever see our old favorites reissued again in these quantities, so all I can say is get 'em while they're hot!

Thanks! I wish all those chrome goodies were available on the aftermarket back then. Most of it wasn't that difficult to make, but the full rear fenders were a bit of a chore to make out of styrene.

I always assumed the parts were dipped like a metal chroming process, I didn't know they're sprayed. Either way I think it's just a BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH shoot with resin. As for my avatar pic, I'll never tell! (And no, it's not Phoebe Cates! )

I had a few resin 1/18 blower bodies chromed there and they came out fine. I think the main problem with resin parts is that different people use different types of resin, so there's often no way to tell how well the plating will work with a certain resin. Too many people think there's only one type of resin and if the parts don't come back perfect they blame it on the plater and not the resin. I try to avoid resin if I know I'm going to need a part chromed, but often there's no way around it. In a case like that I know it's a gamble and I certainly wouldn't blame Chrome Tech or and plater if there's a problem. If Bob doesn't like to plate resin parts I can certainly understand why.

I've used Chrome Tech USA for about 15 years now, still do. I've never had a problem with them. In addition to plastic model parts I've had diecast car wheels chromed there...

I'll expect a royalty check in the mail...

I stand corrected, I just found a file deep in my computer with some more pics of "Big Red"...

The striping is slightly different but I think that's the only 1/16 I ever built box-stock, they just beg to be customized!

Thanks! I needed a Halibrand-style wheel for the car so I took the centers from the American Racing 200 "Daisy" wheels that came in the Big T kit and reworked the spokes to make them look more like Halibrands, and then put the centers into regular wheel outers. Not perfect but they worked for me.

Here's a 1/8-scale '63 Corvette Grand Sport I did awhile back using a Monogram 1965 Corvette kit as a base...

Very cool, great work! I've always loved the Transtar II, to me it's an iconic part of truck history.

Maybe word got to him that he's been "busted" and he disabled the commenting feature, I don't know. All I know is taking credit for someone elses builds isn't what this hobby is all about.

Thanks Tom! I recognize your moniker from the Diecast Pub, that's a cool looking project you have going there. I'll be starting my wrecker project next week and I'll be posting some in-progress pics as I go.

Thank you! I went through at least a couple of Aerodyne sleeper tops on that one!

Thanks for the info William!

Yeah, that's the drawback to using fenders with them. No one will really know you're using super singles unless you point it out.

What size are your fenders? Mike

As a huge fan of the original pro street look from the 1980's I'd love to see this one when it's done. Can I ask where you got those wheels?

My 1/16 set arrived today and they're awesome! I did some research and from what I can tell real super single tires have a tread width of about 17". These equate to a tread width of about 20", so it you're a super picky builder and obsess about stuff like that these might be too wide for you. As for my plans, I'll use two of them as-is on a lift axle for my wrecker project, and the other two as front floatation tires. I may narrow them a tad for the front. As far as I know these are the only wide tires made for 1/16 trucks so if you think you might want some I'd recommended getting them while they're available. In addition to the tires themselves being very well made I highly recommend the seller as well. A special thank you to William for bringing these to our attention and providing photos!

Thanks! The only other pics I have of it are one alongside another big KW, and then after I "took it down a notch" and replaced the big sleeper with a regular one...

I have 2 local Walmarts as well, I'll have to check them out. The price seems reasonable. The only other store that sells kit here is Hobby Lobby and their truck kits are $30-$40.

That's cool, I haven't seen regular plastic models in Walmart in years. Was it reasonably priced?

I built these back from 1999 to about 2004. I built a few and posted a couple of photos online somewhere, and a guy contacted me about buying them. I didn't have a lot of display space but I enjoyed building, so I sold the ones I had already built to him. Then he started asking for certain rigs in certain colors and styles and was willing to pay the right price for them so I built more. Keep in mind this was about 10 years ago, and I hadn't built any since. Recently I started to get the urge to do another Pete wrecker (bigger and better this time), and I started browsing the web for ideas. That's when I came across this guys Flickr pages and saw my old trucks. Sadly as people were commenting on how much they liked them he was taking credit for building them. I know once I sold them to him they became his trucks, but it's still pretty low to take credit for someone elses builds. Anyhow, I'm just in the planning and parts accumulation stages of my next build, and after a decade it'll almost feeling like I'm starting over in the hobby even though I started model building as a kid in the 1970's, mostly Corvettes and big rigs. I just recently discovered these forums and already I've "met" some great people, seen a lot of outstanding models, and gained some valuable info. Are you sorry you asked now?

Here's a 1/8-scale IROC convertible I did several years ago...