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Chariots of Fire

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Everything posted by Chariots of Fire

  1. With severe cold weather my work area has been somewhat on the chilly side. But lately I got back into things a bit with some additional details. The cab interior is done, windshield wipers and hinges added and the pump is complete with the priming valve in place in front of the grill guard. Work has also started on the body. One of two hose reels are ready for installation once the body is painted. Still plenty to go before we can call it done.
  2. That's a good color for the chassis, Jim. Here's another thought for the chain drive. Dry brush the chain with a bit of metallic silver, especially on the sides just to highlight it. Then cover that with a dry brush of gloss black to give it an oily look. NO rust! They oiled these chains on a regular basis so it would not be rusty by any means unless it had been sitting for a very long time. JMHO!
  3. In your photo of the tank and cab on the chassis it looks like the tank could slide forward just a tiny bit. What do you think?
  4. Nice work, Tom! Will you be showing this anywhere?
  5. Those swirls that were in your trunk lid look as if they were part of the plastic like maybe the primer was not thick enough and the plastic is showing through. I've used Duplicolor a lot and I only had it act up on me once and that was when I put the gray primer on a Jeep Grand Cherokee model. It had to be the plastic and not the primer. It was so bad there was no way to even sand it out or strip the primer. That is the one thing I found about Duplicolor for both primer and color. It does not like to soften up for stripping like other paints. Duplicolor primer works well for me and I have used it on kits, Evergreen stock and resin. In humid weather the gloss paint will frost over but that can be polished out. Let the primer dry well before trying the color coat. Also the first color coat ought to be just a misting so that it will hug sharp edges and not pull away. Sand that first coat down to take the edge off. Then apply successive coats until the full color comes out. That's been my experience and unless something drastic happens I'll stick with it.
  6. Now that is scratch building! Tom: That is fantastic. Clean, well executed and the combination of the B Model Mack, the huge tires and that lowbed are just awesome! A fine piece of work!
  7. Somewhere in my file I have a brochure that came from the Mack museum in Allentown, PA. In it are several of the colors that Mack used on their trucks back in the day. Give me some time to dig it out.
  8. Love these kinds of rebuilds! It is as much fun as building a brand new one; Sometimes more fun when you can resurrect a piece of junk into something great!
  9. Square up the sides and back first. Then fit the top. A little sanding here and there may do the trick. Sometimes it also pays to ignore the tabs and pins and cut them off to get the best fit.
  10. You will have your work cut out for you! I'll be watching progress!
  11. Work continues. The cab is done except for the interior details including steering wheel, shift lever, hand brake, hi/li range lever and pto lever. Then the seat will go in permanently. There are some instruction plates that go over the windshield also. Body has been started but not much to show yet.
  12. You do very nice work! Impressive to say the least! You show that a lot can be done with very simple materials and by applying simple techniques. Great job!
  13. Nope. Chevy BV-1001 engine as shown in one of the tech manuals that I have on these rigs. It had overhead valves. Exact same engine that is in the Revell '41 Chevy pickup kit. The oil pan is slightly different shape but that is the only difference that I see.
  14. You're absolutely right. Lots of widgetry to do on this one!
  15. I think the Hale pump in the AMT ALF kits might be a bit big for the front of the truck. At least I would chop off a couple of the discharge lines and go with just one or two which could be coupled to a spreader bar under the front bumper and at the back of the truck that would be used for dust control. It would also need a means of powering the pump for pump and roll operations or it would be useless for dust applications. JMHO!
  16. Thanks for the compliment, Tom. Glad to share all that I can.
  17. Water wagon for construction sites or is this one to be fire related?
  18. The Monogram Mack engine is very nicely done with that Mack emblem and all. The only complaint I ever had was the fit of the hood. Never that great. It takes a bit of tweaking to have it sit down flush with the frame. If any of you went to NNL back in 2007 you might have seen this display. We did six AC Macks all in a theme.
  19. These were post WW1. They came out in 1932 as the result of a conglomerate called Six Companies that asked Mack to come up with a heavy duty rig they could use in building Boulder (Hoover) Dam. It was the first true off-road truck of its time.
  20. When Jeff Harper and I built out Mack AP's a few years back we substituted Delrin chains and sprockets for the plastic drive chains found in the kit. But we took a lot of parts from the kit to do our builds. That is a nice kit to work with and there are lots of possibilities to build things other than the dump truck, logger or tank truck. They were used for just about everything. Here's a photo of the AP so that you can see the resemblance to the AC.
  21. This is the only school where tuition is free! There's no diploma or graduation exercises however. The learning never stops!
  22. Got a bit more done the last few days. With the pump basically done I turned attention to hinging the doors using some small "H" hinges from MicroMark. They are temporarily held together using stainless steel wire. The wire is stiff enough to keep the hinges in alignment while they are being installed. After first securing them in place with superglue I then drilled out the holes in each half down into the plastic and inserted small brass pins. The pins are also superglued in place and then the heads are ground down nearly flat so that the hinge will close without binding. I used the back of an Xacto knife to scribe out the doors. This takes out the least amount of plastic and leaves a relatively clean edge between the door opening and the door itself. Very little shimming has to be done to keep the opening even all around.
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