BK9300

Thanks for the compliment, Ken - new ideas for things to add seem to keep coming!

Jürgen, you're making fantastic progress! It has to be very gratifying to design and build your own kit(s)! It may be my imagination (or less than perfect eyesight!), but does your white filament print a bit more smoothly than the darker filament? Well done!

Very thorough on your thought processes about difficulties that you found in laying out your build. Interesting to follow and take note of!

I agree with Steve - very fine printing and cleanup - excellent paint finish, too.

Rare event in North Vancouver here yesterday - 8 inches of snow, so spent the morning on the end of the snow shovel! Did get a few hours in at the bench this afternoon, mulling over the hinges that I need to make. The brace, hood and cab are out in the shed with another thin coat of putty setting up. While thinking about the hinges, noticed the front grille surround on the kit doesn't have very good locators, come time for it to be glued on, so I decided to 'flange' the inside perimeter of front hood opening, like a real hood is. Only difference is, I attached the flange to the inside of the grille surround to better position the surround when I need to glue it in place. In preparation for work I need to do on the hinge, I removed all the chrome and drilled out the rivet holes around the outside of the surround - have some Top Studio rivets to use after grille is re-chromed. The surround is taped to the outside of the hood at the moment. Rivet holes drilled out - the surround is a tiny bit too wide for the outside edge to edge of the hood, so will do some work on that too, before re-chroming Angle iron flange added to three sides of surround - Now the surround is very easily located in place. I will tape the surround to the inside of the hood and do the slight sanding fitment on the outside edges, bringing them in profile with the sides of the hood Quick session this afternoon, but more tomorrow, unless there is more snow! Thanks for having a look!

That's an awesome looking rig, Ron - I need to check out that designer on Cults!

Thanks, Charles - yes, they don't stay that clean for very long at all, but, everything has to have a 'day 1' look!

Thanks, Scott - were a couple 'moments' early on with the inner brace when just about decided there wasn't going to be an inner brace!

Looking good, Mark - details are superb!

I second that!

Thanks, Francis - I'll have to keep that in mind next time I have close quarters - thanks for the tip!

Your scratch building is very good and seeing the chassis/engine together, all that work is even more evident with the great detail painting - makes all the detail work stand out and be noticed!

Yesterday afternoon and this morning had lots of fiddly stuff going with the inner brace - mostly, because I only have a general idea of what I want to do, but not necessarily knowing how I will do it, so a bit of starting and stopping goes on! Issues with taking measurements and keeping hood square so the brace wouldn't warp it once it gets glued in and lots of checking back to original pics. The result is close enough to be acceptable and that's a good thing! While I was trying to get measurements initially, kept getting slightly different ones, each time I went back. Discovered I was unintentionally spreading the fenders apart while trying to hold the hood and measure. So, I made a little jig out of channel to 'lock' the fender width in place while handling, and taped it in place Some framing pieces of the brace spot glued in place (because I couldn't think of any other way to have one piece stay still while fitting the next piece!) I then glued temporary cross bracing in so the frame pieces would hold their shape when I cut them off the hood Started laying out the filler pieces for the remainder of the brace This morning I was able to start some cleanup and initial shaping - some puttying and more sanding to do once fully set Inner brace temporarily sitting in place - when I looked at this pic, decided it would be a good thing to check what the clearance under the hood would actually be, now that the brace could sit in its final position. I took a measurement from desk top to bottom, rear edge of fenders with the cab/hood in place, then mocked up hood without cab - should be plenty of room to get air intake from air filter over to turbo I'm spending a lot of time 'under the hood', because I hope to display the hood open from time to time. Hood is not exactly where it will end up (its sitting a little high and too far forward), but you can see through grille opening why I needed to separate the grille bars from the surround - bars would have hit the front plow lift arm when the hood is fully open Not totally certain what's next, other than to carry on with tidying up the fabrication under the hood, then a first coat of primer and then the hood hinges, before final primer and paint. Then the cab interior?! Every day gets closer to being done, but still a ways to go. Take care!

Thanks very much, Francis - the reinforcements will look better once the finish sanding, painting and the rubber flaps are in place, so will carry on with the brace!

Thanks for checking it out, Håkan - I appreciate it.

Nice update, Ken and I have to compliment you yet again for the backdrop to your photos - makes it all that much more realistic!

Just a marvelous job, Steve - great to go through your updates! Lots of first hand knowledge being demonstrated here.

Nice looking build, Landon - hope the cleaners know not to move your truck!

Nice, clean build, Scott - it may be OOB, but great paint and a good job of detailing your engine - looks good.

Looking really good, Steve - love the stance and the black wheels and grille. Kudos on the great body work - it looks like it comes easy to you, but, even so, I know its a lot of time and effort (and dust!).

I do remember - I guess I wasn't too clear, above! I hadn't seen any before you posted the pic(s) of the plow truck with these hatches in my thread, a few days ago.

I'd never seen these access doors/hatches in hoods before you posted a pic of a truck with a set - smart idea!

Great progress, Jürgen - did you design your rear ends/suspension, too?

Very nice job - really like how the wood treatment turned out.

Interesting to follow the steps using foil to replicate tread plate. In those areas where you fold the embossed foil from a flat step to cover an adjoining edge, is it difficult to bend the foil and not damage the embossing. Thanks for showing this technique.