redneckrigger

FINALLY found the time and energy to get back to work on this build. Roughed in the front and rear suspensions and all of the crossmembers. Also roughed in the engine mounts and the creeper transmission and mount. Got down to take some photos of the real one as well. My gun shop is going crazy right now, and added to deer season, available time to work on this is about non existent. Add that to a nasty bout of builder’s block and its sure been a while! Hope to keep it going now. Need to figure out tandem front axle steering next

Just got caught up with your build here, Charlie...............as always, totally amazing. Haven't had time to do anything on my bench, but am completely enjoying what you are doing on yours, and am learning yet more tips to help when I get the time, someday, to drag myself back to the bench. Keep it going Charlie.......................priceless!

Beautiful work, Charlie, and a great tutorial as well. I've never tried Alclad, but I have airbrushed Molotow, and am very pleased with it. Carry on!

My garage now houses a 1991 Mustang GT hatchback 5.0/5 speed, a 2012 Chevrolet K2500HD extra cab pickup with the 6.0, a 2000 Harley Davidson Ultra Classic, and the latest addition two weeks ago, (birthday gift to myself), a 1995 Corvette , LT1/6 speed Z07 coupe. Everyone is flat out fun to drive.......................just not enough time to drive 'em all, every day!

Have been totally tied up at the gun shop all summer with all that is going on........working harder than we ever have in these unprecedented times and uncharted waters. Absolutely no time to do any building. Teaching safety classes at night and falling asleep as soon as I get home. Only good part is the addition of a new toy to the garage.....a 95 Corvette. But no time to drive it! Hoping soon to find time and energy to return to the bench.

Love the hoist engineering! And the truck is pretty cool too! Awesome work, Charlie!

Found some bench time.........roughed in the rear suspension. The axles are old Mark Savage resin casts, and the walking beam is a modified AITM resin. There is no spring or air suspension on this crane, just a super heavy duty walking beam. Lots of bits and pieces and several cross members to be added, but it’s looking the part quite well.

My six year old grandson Avry is totally enamored with the Titanic. He has books, videos and all sorts of data about that great ship and it’s sinking. He actually knows facts about it that I had never heard of. So, when he asked me to build him a model of it that breaks in half, I of course said sure! Then I had to figure out how to deliver! Off to the hobby shop, and got the Revell Titanic. He worked with me as we assembled it, and he actually painted the deck and I let him operate my airbrush to paint the black on the hull. Then I got out the Dremel and a cutoff disc and chopped her in half. Gouged a gash in her bow, and made it so it would hook together and come apart easily. Gonna give it to him tomorrow night. Was a good build for me as Avry helped me, but it served as a reminder of why I like building trucks!

Finally got enough parts together to get this show on the road! Laid out all the dimensions on the bench, and made up the frame rails and front and rear crossmembers. The frame is a double frame and is very heavy duty. The tires are 14.00 x 24. This is going to be a huge build!

That is VERY nice work! Love the engine, as well as the cab!

Hi Pat, those come from Jamie at Moluminum. I sand them on a piece of sandpaper on a flat piece of glass to get the openings to show. They are superbly done resin.

Fantastic Charlie! It is always enjoyable to watch your builds. What with everything going on right now, I come home at night and collapse, BUT, I always spend time here on the forums, watching builds by incredibly talented friends....................and you always lead the way sir!

You've been BUSY!!!! Great work!

Absolutely stunning work sir!!! And the engineering put into this is beyond belief! The hydraulic and air fittings look like the real thing............................incredible!!!! WOW!

Wow.............you're on a roll! Beautiful work. And GREAT subject matter!

Simply stunning!!!!!

Yup, as a retired paramedic, I've seen it too......................flashing lights in WalMart for example. Even our ambulance lights can be disruptive. Epilepsy is a very real and serious disorder, misunderstood by many.

For sure..........the Cummins needed a twelve foot long shoehorn to get it in! I actually swapped one years ago in a fire department tanker.................what a ROTTEN job. That old girl was about 18" short of qualifying as a cabover!

Thank you............and thank you for the lead on the 73 Grand Am!!! It's a small world!

Used to drive one of those exact trucks with a flat bed on her hauling hay in from the fields about 50 years ago. Amazing thing is that old truck is still around and in better shape than I am. The grandson of the farmer still has it, and actually has it for sale at this moment in North Adams, MA. If that one you are building was a faded green flatbed, I'd swear you had a shrinking machine!

Absolutely phenomenal work sir! Superb details, and wow, what a total package! Thank you for sharing the build. Incredible.

Mocked up the radiator, inner fenders, radiator overflow, windshield washer tank, and air cleaner to check fit. Added the fuel tanks, air tanks, battery box. Time now for wiring and hoses, making the hydraulic cylinder and cab details. Now it’s easy to see just how tight these old girls were under the hood. Yikes! Brings back lots of bloody skinned knuckle memories!

Beautiful work Charlie. You definitely have captured the "look" of that old girl.

Yes sir, that works. But for THIS old guy, when trying to find info about a certain truck, and wanting to search old posts that I may have already seen, now it is impossible as the truck content is drowned out by the cars. And to what end? Nothing for the benefit of the hobby, IMHO, but rather to make the site appeal more to someone's sense of order. Again, just my opinion.

I fully understand the reasoning behind the combination of 1:1 trucks and 1:1 cars into one section. Makes sense from an operations point of view, at least to someone who does not think of trucks as an entity deserving of it's own thread. However, when one looks at it from an historical perspective, WAY back in the day when truck kits were first introduced, they hit with a splash, and then were slowly gentrified into a mish-mash with cars, industry wise. And they darned near disappeared completely. We are presently in the middle of a resurrection of truck modelling. Truck modellers strive for extreme accuracy of a prototype , in my experience, more than car builders. Please don't take that away from us. The Truck Stop was an invaluable resource for all things in the 1:1 truck world, and was highly used, by myself and almost every truck modeler I am aware of. Now, to find one thread, it is endless scrolling, as trucks have once again been overshadowed by cars. This is not good, IMHO. Please reconsider this move, and perhaps just make one section "The Pit Stop" for cars, and one section "The Truck Stop" for trucks. This really should not affect the way that the forum is used by smartphone users, and it will not affect the operation of this forum in the least. It will also go a LONG way to providing the all too valuable, and now lost, (or at least HARD to find) resource that the Truck Stop was. We have already lost a HUGE resource when we lost Hank's Truck Forum and his photo site. To lose this now too, or at least make it impossible to use, is a double whammy the truck modelling community does not need. Knowing that management knew that the elimination of The Truck Stop would be received negatively is a given. But to assume that users would use tags and keywords to make the truck content stand out is foolish, IMHO. And to make it easier to search and group together would not be necessary if you left the two topics separate and already together within the topic. Look at this group, and see the age demographics. It is, at least in my mind, a bit of a stretch to think that we are all savvy enough to use keywords and tags. To be honest, tags are the metal things on the front and rear of my truck that tell the state it's registered in, and key words are the words I yell out loud when I lose my keys. The rest of the changes are fine, again IMHO, but the conglomeration that resulted in The Truck Stop becoming largely invisible is not acceptable. Thank you for the opportunity to vent.