Chariots of Fire

First, cut the frame rails away from the sprue that is holding them together. Even that may help to straighten some of it out. I agree with everybody else. Run the frame rail under hot water until it begins to bend a bit. Do it just a little at a time. Another thing you could do would be to tape the rail to a strip of hard wood and drop it in boiling water for just a few seconds. The stress will come out of it and will adapt to the wood. Then run it under cold water to set the plastic. Unwrap the frame rail from the wood and tape. If you can do both they should become much more adaptable to putting together. I try and attach all cross members to one side first making sure they are at right angles to the frame rail. Do this by setting the frame rail up on a flat surface so that it will be straight. When the glue is set then attach the other rail making sure that as you do the frame does not develop a curve in it.

Try the 1950 Chevy suburban resin pop. You might be able to adapt the back to the '41Chevy cab.

Ok. I'm with you on this one. "Git 'er done!"

I hear you. Not easy when working with some materials to make it look right when it has to be in scale. If you've had any experience at soldering brass that might be a good option. The parts to be joined look easy enough; especially the long horizontal bar and the vertical pieces that hold the mirrors.

Your work is well done should be a great final product. Once suggestion if I might? Your extended rear view mirror assembly looks quite a bit out of scale. In comparing it to the photos of the real rig I think it could be made much finer, especially if you are using brass and aluminum stock. (JMHO)

AW c'mon! That's the real thing isn't it?? Fabulous work!!

That's a nice build. I like the shots that are out in the brush country. Cool!

OH, man! I don't envy you on your driveway. When we had our place in Maine I had the same problem. I knew every time we went there I was going to have to rebuilt the 300' driveway. Deep crushed stone finally solved most of the problem in the worst areas. Love the work on the crane! I will be following along.

Pure craftsmanship! Outstanding!!

Keep us up to date, please!! I like what I'm seeing!

I think the latest versions are closer to the grill in the photo of the real truck further up the page. There is a significant taper from the outside of the headlight enclosure to the lamp itself. Perhaps a bit more in that area. Other than that it looks pretty good!

That's looking nice! Tractor came out great and I really like the shade of red you used. Can't wait to see how the dozer comes out. As an aside have you ever tried the Tamiya weathering powders? They do wonders for making paint look worn just in the right places. They also bring out highlights, which on the dozer, will really stand out.

Very nicely done! Clean and neat!

Simple solution is to go to Micro Mark and get some of their smallest H hinges. They work well with all sorts of vehicle of your era. I've used them on plenty of truck models that would have the outside hinges. Hard to see but here is one example.

Just these two that I took while building the model. Seats were painted with Model Master Blue Angels Blue. Dash the same. Then I made up some checkerboard blue, gray and yellow seat covers on decal paper and added them to the seats. Seats were then sprayed with Testors Dullcoat. A Molotow pen was used to highlight the dashboard, door handles and window cranks and the center of the steering wheel. Lower door panels were masked off for a light ivory accent.

I had it from June of 1956 to about December of 1958.

Yes it was a dummy spare on the trunk. I had a good time with it. Didn't have to take the bus to school anymore for my last 2 years of high school.

Back in 1956 this was my first ride. A 1953 Ford Victoria was bought for $1000. I built up the Lindberg kit basically stock except for some real small changes here and there. The kit came with spotlights which my car did not have. I made up some decals for seat covers and added some exhaust extensions. The car had whitewalls but not real ones. Back then "Porterwalls" were common. They were just round flaps of rubber that fit between the rim and the tire sidewall. All it took was to deflate the tire, push it away from the rim a bit and put the white wall in place and then re-inflate the tire. Fender skirts were real common. Mine were mostly like the kit pieces but they covered more of the wheel well opening. Other styles fit outside but mine were like these and fit flush with the opening itself. Model Master light ivory was used for the body color. Krylon dark blue was used for the top and spare tire. That's my original license plate number on the rear. Not exactly the best build in the world. Mine is usually in the truck section with some scratch built stuff. But I couldn't resist giving this one a try for old time sake.

I have measurements on the M-715 body and cab. Took them from an actual rig that was converted to make a brush truck. This was the result.

I'll be there. Looking forward to seeing you.

No, I have an old program that is vector based unlike Paint that uses pixels. That way the line work gets smoothed out and very small details are retained. I do have Corel Draw on this computer but the old one seems to work just fine.

Just go to donmillsmodels@aol.com. He can quote you a price and will mail out an order to you.

I have an old graphics program from Micrographx. I had someone e-mail a photo of a city seal they wanted made into a decal. I downloaded the image into the computer I have the graphics in and then into the graphic program. Many times I can just grab the image and reduce it in size without doing anything to it. On the city seal it came out perfect. Probably could do the same with what you show. I can create a box the size of the image that is desired and then just grab the image and keep downsizing until it fits in the box. Detail generally is retained quite well. Printing is done on my ALPS printer on clear decal film.

Easiest way I know is to use soft wire and wrap it around a piece of solid tubing to get the diameter you want. Wrap it tight and with no spacing. Like has been said above, slide it off the tubing and pull it to stretch the wire to the size coil you want.

Long time to set up but even at that handling it will eventually dull it down to a gray tone. Best to do it last and then not touch it at all. Other than that, great stuff!