Plastheniker

Nice colour combination and very good detailing. The bigger Italeri wheels really improve the appearance.

Evan, Daniel, sorry for my late reply! Both pictures are excellent. Indeed they show two LP 333. The blue one is an early model, the green one is a late model. The most obvious difference is that early models have two small roof hatches and no ventilation hatches in the front end, and that the late models have one large roof hatch and two small ventilation hatches in the front end. As Evan said the green vehicle is Mercedes' static museum exhibit. The blue vehicle is fully roadworthy and appears often during major vintage truck events. As far as I know it is also property of Mercedes. As mentioned I took two additional pictures of the chassis from underneath. Please note the rear axle design. The halfshafts and the carrying axle are still separated. Mercedes preferred this conservative design on their heavy trucks until the seventies. Then they used planetary hub reduction axles. BTW in the meantime my model became the cover picture of the German Modell-Laster-Forum. I would like to recommend it to you (I think I did it once before), particularly if you are interested in European trucks. It is a small but excellent forum only for converters and scratch builders. I don't know any truck modeling forum of a similar standard. http://www.modell-laster-forum.de/

I am always delighted to see a really unusual model. I didn't even know that this resin cab existed. Very interesting!

15 years? I think you have what is takes to become an outstanding modeler. My models weren't half as nice when I was 15.

As always a very clean build of yours and a really unusual idea to build the container equipment fully working - excellent!

Interesting conversion, I really like the workhorse look!

Thanks for the latest comments! Sean, total agreement, the quality of a model should be t h e criterion for the response. In reality, I am afraid, things are pretty different. After joining/observing car and truck forums in America, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Austria these seem to be the more important factors for the response: Models of domestic 1:1 makes are preferred conspicuously. In some forums foreign makes usually get hardly half the response of domestic subjects, and Japanese cars are almost ignored. The less popular and familiar the original vehicle, the less the response for the model. The smaller (than 1/25) the scale, the less the response. The older the 1:1 vehicle, the less the response in many cases. IMO skill level and execution are of subsequent rank. More or less this true for nearly all forums I know.

Thanks for the recent feedback! I am really pleased with the response for a subject that presumably most of you hadn't even heard of. If I can take pictures of the interesting chassis from underneath during my next photo session without risking to damage the model I will post one or two pictures.

Well done Helmut, the DM 600 looks good in any combination. Good to have the reissue.

Looking at the result it is hard to believe what you started with.

A perfectly clean conversion! The reflecting black paint would make any surface flaws conspicious where you had to fill and sand the seams. Excellent work!

Thanks again! It may be interesting that Mercedes modified the twin steer layout for the tractor LPS 333 by setting back the second steering axle. While the normal LP 333 was dropped when the a. m. restrictions for weights and dimensions were canceled after a few years, the twin steer layout was continued for tractors for almost 40 years. It was so popular because it reduced tire wear, gave more directional stability and made tire punctures less dangerous.

Thanks for the recent replies, you really make me blush! Yes, I use to detail the chassis of my truck models completely as far as the details might become visible when the model is turned upside down, i. e. I always replicate e. g. air and brake lines, hydraulic lines, as well as linkages for clutch, brakes and gear shift. I don't spend any effort, however, for things that will remain invisible in any case. The a. m. Büssing pictures show the Büssing chassis from underneath and may give an idea what I mean. The Mercedes L 10000 and the Büssing required approximately one year each, i. e. approximately 1000 hours. As mentioned the LP 333 required approximately one and a half years, i. e. approximately 1500 hours.

Thanks for the comments! Here is a nice picture of the 1:1 chassis. It shows that the twin steer kinematics made an otherwise rather simple chassis pretty complex (and the chassis of my replica too).

Hi, When I showed my first two scratch built German vintage trucks in this forum in 2013 and 2014 1937 Mercedes-Benz L 10000 Scratchbuilt 1/24 http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75830 Scratch Built 1951 Büssing 12000 U13 6x4 Underfloor Engine Truck http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=82042 there was more response than there is usually for European trucks. Maybe there will be also some interest in my latest scratch build that I finished some months ago. In 1958 the German Transportation Department reduced the maximum dimensions and weights of brand new trucks. The official motivation was accelerating road traffic but the inofficial motivation was providing a competitive advantage to the state-owned railway company. At any rate all German truck manufacturers had to re-design their heavy trucks. Mercedes-Benz decided to offer the first German twin steer truck called LP 333. Coevals found that it looked so odd (to say the least) that it was nicknamed "Tausendfüssler" (= millipede). Despite its odd appearance it became a sales success, and though originally designed only for the domestic market it was also sold in many other European countries. To my knowledge only four LP 333 have survived. One of them, a late model, is displayed at the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart. The original 1958 LP 333 looked like this: When I started my model I was aware that building the cab would be laborious and difficult, because almost every surface was curved into all directions. The deeply recessed, angular windscreens would not make things easier. Nevertheless ultimately everything became even worse. Approximately one and a half years of almost daily work. was more than any other of my former projects required.

Colour combination (white and blue will never fail), paint scheme and paintwork execution look perfect.

Very attractive model of a beautiful 1:1 truck. The casting seems to be better than the casting of an AITM B-cab that is still in my stash.

Very clean build, another example that very often simple paint schemes look best!

Thanks for the comments! When spraying metallics I always use Humbrol enamels. Humbrol offers only pure flamboyant colours so the modeler has to mix the desired shade himself. Most of their metallics, but not all, are so glossy that no clear is necessary.

Very nice interior and excellent foil work particularly on the rear chrome scripts. I see reflections of fluorescent tubes on your paintwork. I never got satisfying results when taking pictures under such lighting, because even the best paintwork always looked poor and most colours were badly distorted. IMO the best lighting are 2 or 3 daylight energy saver bulbs 40W or 60W: direct lighting for solid paints, indirect lighting in an improvised photographer's tent for metallics (in order to avoid the out-of-scale look of the metallic particles).

Not really my favourite kind of 1:1 vehicles but beautiful execution and perfect photography!

I suppose it is the bright photography lighting that makes the paint look much glossier than it really is. Military modelers know this problem. Here even the tires reflect the bright light. Dominik, what about embedding this model into a small diorama? I still remember your fantastic Citroen Fourgonette, you have obviously a particular talent for small dioramas.

IMO at least as good as her first build. Paintwork and particularly the interior are perfect.

Indeed, a very unusual subject beautifully executed as all your models are. I never saw something similar in any forum.

Hi, In the late eighties and nineties Italeri released a series of vintage 250/275/365 Ferraris. Most of them were also sold by ROG. At that time these kits were well-priced and offered excellent quality. However they showed the same conspicious and incomprehensible shortcoming: The wheels were much too wide. The least that the modeler had to do was reducing the width of the rims and the tyres. In those days the Italeri plastic spoke rims were not bad by comparison but the spoke thickness was still completely out of scale. Therefore I replaced them by home-made wires as usual. Apart from the wheels this kit is highly recommendable . If you can still get it you won't be disappointed.