Chariots of Fire

I hope that this kit gets reissued pretty soon!

Hey, Bob: You need some license plates for that rig. HCT-728 would be good, eh?

Here are the basics of making the hinges for the IH cab doors. Three pieces make up each hinge: a half round section of brass tubing, a piece of brass flat stock and small brass tubing for the hinge points. These three pieces get soldered together as shown above. An even smaller piece of tubing joins the two hinges together so that they will operate in unison once they are mounted. The completed hinge is mounted inside the door and against the inside of the cowl at the door jam. The interior door piece now covers the flat section of each hinge piece. That ultimately will be finished off so that the only thing visible will be the hinges themselves. In the photo above there is a piece of tubing visible in the edge of the cab with some putty underneath it. A hole was cut in the cab here and in the lower part of the fender so that a piece of tubing the same diameter as that used on the end of the hinge pieces could be inserted. They line up with the door hinges when all is in place as shown in the cab interior closeup you see above. When all is said and done this hole will be closed up and sealed. The hole in the fender below has been trimmed to the shape of the fender. The small hinge pin goes inside this tubing, up through the jam and into the tubing in the cowl. When all is completed the pin will be inserted and then sealed off with superglue so it will not fall out. A bit of touchup will make the hole all but invisible. The door in the closed position with the hinge pin protruding through the tubing. The pin would be cut off below the top of the brass tubing and will not be seen after final assembly. You can also see a piece of plastic strip stock on the leading edge of the door. A similar piece is needed at the top of the door to fill in the gap there . A small piece of strip stock glued to the inside of the cab will give the door something to close on and will keep the opening closed up with the doors are in place. The door opened on the hinges. The leading edge of the door is trimmed very thin to allow it to move past the edge of the jam. A bit of trial and error is needed here but when the door and jam are finished off the clearance will be sufficient. Now for the second door! Always fun when you have to do the same procedure a second time but in the opposite hand!

Working on the door hinges right now. Got one side done so I will take some photos and post them with a description of how it was done. Door hinges are very similar although I used a larger piece of tubing for them. How to get them in place and get the door to open and close at the same time was a challenge but I'll go through it.

Very nice work, Jan. I especially like the Autocar logging rig.

Yes, that is exceptional work. Nice and neat and not overly done. Great weathering techniques. Wonderful series of photos.

Note: This is now a new topic in the "On the Workbench". The build of the brush truck will continue there.

Now that the Loadstar dump truck is finished work has begun on a second Loadstar, this time as a brush truck. There is still one in service in the next town over so getting measurements and photos will be easy. I will be posting photos and information on the build as I go along. Here are some beginning photos of the work to cut open the cab and create working hood sides. This rig was originally built by Maxim Motor Co. of Middleboro, MA back in the early 1970's. It was recently rebuilt with a new poly tank and a reconfiguration of the body. Short rigs like this work easily in our type of wooded terrain. Here's the beginning of the build. The doors were cut from the cab by patiently scribing the lines with the back of an Xacto knife and a small razor saw. They will have to be cleaned up and the edges brought back to fill in the door opening. The hood was cut into three pieces with the center section to be permanently secured to the cowl and grill. The hood sides open butterfly style. Hinges were made for the hood sides using slices of brass tubing that were soldered to some flat stock. On the opposite end of the tubing small tubing (0.018" diameter) was soldered for the moving part of the hinge. Inside the hinge is stainless steel wire that connects all of the hinge pieces together. The hood sections had to be trimmed to thin sections where they move against the center piece in order for them to clear it. In order to be sure that the hood placement is right, centering holes were drilled down through the back of the center piece into the cowl. A similar hole was drilled into a piece of strip stock that is glued to the inside of the grill and up into the center piece from below. With locator pins in place the center section is locked in and adjustments to the hood sides can be done. The right side is pretty good as is but the left side needed some tweaking at the back and along the bottom to make the fit against the cowl and fender.

After cutting out the doors and separating the hood sides from the center section it was time to figure out how to best make up the hood hinges. On the real truck they are not very sophisticated and just some curved flat stock that is made to move with the hood when it is opened. At first I tried bending some brass strip stock to make the curve but that meant making four hinges with identical curves. Not easy in this scale. So I sliced some brass tubing and soldered the pieces to some brass flat stock. On the opposite end I soldered some 0.018" dia. brass tubing. Inside the tubing I can insert a piece of stainless steel wire that just fits the tubing and is very stiff. So it is relatively easy to get things to line up properly. If you look close in the photo above of the real truck you can see the hinges that attach to the hood and the center piece. Now comes the fun part; getting the three pieces to fit together and at the same time allow the sides to open. Some thinning of edges and tapering them was necessary to get them to operate but they will open. Here is the hood upside down with the four hinges in place. On each hood side I added a small strip of plastic stock to mount the flat part of the hinge on. I drilled two small holes through the flat hinge part and into the plastic stock and then through the resin casting of the hood. Small pins were inserted in the holes and were superglued in place. The ends of the pins were cut off top and bottom and the ends on the top of the hood were filed smooth. On the center section of the hood I glued pieces of 0.030" x 0.040" strip stock. Against the outer one I laid the middle portion of the brass tubing that just fits between the two hinges. It was superglued in place and another similar strip was laid up against the tubing on the other side. This secured the tubing in place and gave a permanent location for each of the hood sides. The stainless wire slides through the two hinges and the center tubing to hold every thing in alignment. In order to set the hood in place to check the fit I drilled a hole on each end of the center section. On the end next to the windshield I continued the drill down into the cowl and further into a small piece of plastic strip stock below. A pin is temporarily inserted in this hole to hold the back of the center piece in place. At the front I glued a similar piece of strip stock under the center section next to the grill. I drilled another hole up through the strip and into the center section of the hood. A pin was inserted there also. Now I have a stable arrangement for checking to see if the hood side close smoothly and that the bottom of the hood edges fit against the top of each fender. On the driver side I had to adjust the bottom of the hood with some strip stock to get a good fit. Unlike the hood when it is one piece, cutting it apart requires some refitting due to the hinges and the separation of the three sections. Some details will be added to the underside of the hood pieces similar to the actual hood.

That's a nice rig. I agree; you did right by the rear fenders. Makes it look like it should look. Great colors too.

A fine piece of work all around! Well done!

Thanks, guys for the kind comments. To those of you who may have or will be picking up the kit from AITM if you have any questions about it give me a shout.

Hi, Mike. PM me or e-mail me.

That is nice work! Nice color too!

And another build begins. I don't have any specific information yet on the truck itself. That will be forthcoming. However, I do have a photo of the rig to be built. Originally built by the Maxim Motor Company of Middleboro, MA, it was recently upgraded with new body and bar work as well as a new paint job. The upgrade is more in line with current practices of shortening up the rear of the body and making it higher. The reason is to allow the truck to transition from dirt roads to the adjacent woodlands without bottoming out. Gone is the concept of a low rear step where the crew would ride. As with the Loadstar dump I will be posting in progress photos and some how to's along the way. On this model the doors are going to be opened as well as the butterfly hood. In the photo below you will see the right side door has already been separated from the cab and the hood sides have been cut free of the center section. It was a pretty easy thing to do albeit a rather tedious one. The resin casting scribes well with the back of a sharp Xacto knife and a razor saw. Real care had to be taken around the corners of the door and where the door line is rounded near the bottom of the windshield. With the doors free, they will be sanded smooth inside and made more adaptable to the inner door panels. There was a bit of a learning curve with the vacu-form machine to get a nice clear windshield. I found a source for good clear plastic that is pre-cut to fit the machine and the results have been pretty nice. Once trimmed to fit the windshield just pops into place and no gluing is necessary. Dave Natale did a great job of casting the windshield trim without any flaws and that made the fitting of the windshield real easy. The benefit of the vacu-formed windshield is that there is no stress on the plastic and with a good fitting buck for the plastic to form against in the machine, all it needs is trimming around the edges. In the photo below you can also see that the grill was opened up as well. Again Dave Natale did a great job with the casting by leaving just a thin skim coat of resin on the back of the grill. It is easily removed with an Xacto knife and then the opening can be cleaned up with a small flat file. I also set the floorboard/firewall in place as it comes as a separate piece in Dave's kit. The opening between the cab rocker panel and the floorboard will be filled in with plastic stock to stiffen the cab and make for a clean fit for the separate door. Six spoke wheels are used on this truck. The fronts are covered with a full hub that covers the inner workings of the all wheel drive feature of the front axle.

That is super excellent work! Thanks for taking us on the ride through the building process. Very impressive!

Hi, Mike. Thanks, the next one will be a brush rig. Next town over has one and that will make the building much easier. I will be able to get all of the photos and measurements I need to do a good build.

I can't say for sure but I think most were gas powered. And perhaps more of a competitor for the F series Fords. I'm no expert in those sorts of things.

Here you go, Brian. It's a bit tight in there as you can see. I used the IH Scout engine as it is typical of the one IH used in the medium size trucks. The automatic transmission was cut off and was replaced with a standard one that is much smaller. I de-chromed the valve covers in hopes that the "International" would show up better but it didn't. The script is so small it sort of got buried in the paint.

Final touches were put on this build last nite so I'm calling it done. It was a good exercise in working with the resin casting. On the next one I will make a few changes that will enhance the build a bit more. But here it is ready for work!

Ok, We're done. I think this rig is ready to do some road work. Just have to go and get a little cold patch to put in the back and pick up a small roller! The body and its details are now done. Some mud flaps were added to the rear, some license plates and a short square shovel hangs from the front of the body. And we added some traffic cones so that when they actually do some patching, traffic will keep clear!

That's a neat comparison. Here's another one that Jeff did. An early Federal that was used by the Cape Cod Shipbuilding Co. The company is still around building fiberglas boats. During WWII they built boats for the Navy. 1/25 scale Federal from photos found on line and one early Cape Cod Ship photo that showed some of their detail.

Found one at a show and it was a mate to one I have in the parts box. The brackets are soldered wire. PS. The next one will be red!

The last couple of days were spent making up the lift mechanism for the body and the hydraulic cylinder to raise it. After much trial and fit the lift mechanism was finished up. It took some adjusting to get the body to raise all the way and at the same time have the lift settle in between the frame rails without cramping. I ended up having to cut away some of the differential to allow one side to drop down. Guess I won't be driving it too far! The cylinder and piston are brass tubing and aluminum tubing. There is a stop on the low end of the piston and one on the upper end of the cylinder that keeps the piston in place. The hydraulic line fittings are bead details from a craft store. The two circles on the ends of the body are for reflectors. They will be painted silver and then topped with clear amber on the front and clear red on the rear. The body has now been painted and the cuts that had to be made for the tailgate locks have been filled in with sheet plastic and sanded smooth. The only thing that shows now are the ends of the locks that keep the tailgate closed. With the body up the tailgate lever can be pulled, the locks raise up and the tailgate opens.

I can't imagine doing this one in 1/160 scale! A friend of mine did this one in 1/25 scale a number of years ago from drawings that he obtained. It took a lot of study just to figure out where everything needed to go. It is scratch built.