BK9300

Thanks, Steve! Patience, well, yes - I know there are lots of pics to wade through, but there is a lot to cover.

Steve, you do amazing work on your fleet of 1/32 trucks - must have an impressive display area!

Looks great, Jurgen - good for another 100,000 miles!

Must have a very steady hand doing the pins (I’ve lost more than a few small parts that shoot away from my tweezers while trying to place them) - and no glue marks - great work!

It’s going to be an elegant beast!

I just took a tour of your YouTube channel, Bob - just amazed at one great build after another - commendable work!

Looking good, Jeff - how much will you be weathering this truck?

Finished off most of the work on the muffler and added screen from Auslowe. Had also been giving some attention to the truck's hydraulic system. The main tank and valve manifold assembly in real life were provided by Del Hydraulics. Again, because I kept breaking the resin hose fittings, I carried on with drilling the fittings out and replacing the pipe portion with brass rod (0.5 and 1.0mm). Several do overs in this area of the work. . . added 0.3mm nickel rod to simulate the sensors on the muffler screen from Auslowe forgot to include a mockup of the hydraulic tank before painting the frame - WS Constellation cab needed a day cab panel from Auslowe; didn't measure muffler correctly and needed to add to top of it before painting facsimile of a ball valve for hydraulic tank painted hydraulic tank, valve manifold, and part of plumbing added drilling resin fittings for added strength more plumbing added started on fittings from valve manifold to plows, sander, etc.; Top Studio fittings with brass rod, Walther's brass nut and flexible hose from Ted's Modeling mockup of valve body fittings fitting on the end of the valve manifold is the pressure inlet from hydraulic pump at front of truck hydraulic tank installed prior to laying out the hose runs I appreciate your patience with all the pics and thanks for looking in!

Beautiful car, Claude

Great progress, Jeff! I get the part about needing it to be in the truck to finish detailing.

Thanks, Gary - appreciate it!

Thanks, Jeff - never had a “seat” in one of these trucks, but I imagine the adrenaline could get up there driving one of them at speed on the highway.

At this point with the pictures, I’m at about eight months into the build (October 2023) but had a break from it for June - August of 2023. Was waiting for some parts initially and that turned into a bit of a loss of momentum. Still, lots of motivation from looking in at the forum and work on the sander had me going again in September. Flow of work was beginning to change from building to painting and detailing. Plans for new work included adding the muffler bracket, the muffler and it’s shield, working on the hydraulic system, finishing the engine to the point where it could be installed, and painting all the attachments. So, more priming and painting – and pictures! frame dusted and ready for primer (rear wheels were going to be primed separately) couldn't figure out how to handle frame and paint at same time, so made a rotisserie could turn the frame 360° I duct taped the rotisserie to a small turntable and was able to get at the frame from all angles, using Tamiya, grey fine primer (supposedly good for the metal bits as well) hard to see, but the blue lines/arrows are pointing to temporary pieces inserted to prevent paint buildup, so the wing plow front mount would still slide up and down, and my future hydraulic lines could thread through their supports painted the frame Tamiya satin black - lots of masking to paint muffler muffler's been painted, but now had to mask off muffler and paint muffler support straps (and other places I had missed on frame - green tape!) the muffler is representative of a Donaldson, mounted on Western Star's muffler bracket and brace Thanks for hanging in there - more to come!

Great start on the detailing, Jeff - for my next truck, I need to learn about plumbing the air lines.

I like the motor detail, the paint job, the "tinned" interior and trunk space - all of it - great job!

Underway! Be checking in for sure

Tough hand to be dealt - hope the Easy-Off works.

Finished work on the conveyor hydraulic drive motor; worked on hydraulic hard lines and fittings along side of sander; fabricated the pre-wet fluid pump box and the valves for the pre-wet tanks. Got a good start on the truck’s main hydraulic tank and valve body manifold; made the exhaust muffler and mounting bracket. Lots of small stuff made here, but took more hours that I thought would be needed! I kept breaking the resin hose fittings from Top Studio, so, I drilled them out and used brass rod (1.0mm or 0.5mm) for the 45's or 90's as needed - used aluminum rod for hard line and white metal pipe fittings from Wild West Scale Model Builders bunch of little items in this pic, from left; pre-wet pump unit; hopper end-gate and lift cylinder; sand conveyor speed sensor; finished conveyor hydraulic motor; ladder; hard line runs; pre-wet tanks and their related valving (and part of an ever changing punch list of things left to do!) some other items added (prior to painting) - main hydraulic tank; valve body manifold (lower left); muffler and bracket support pre-wet tanks and valving mocked in place start of front support for hard line runs two of three hard lines mocked in place valve bodies, hydraulic conveyor motor, pre-wet hydraulic pump unit mocked in place the white metal "T" fittings will be joined by a hose that equalizes fluid levels in the tanks Lots of plumbing to do after painting - thanks again for your comments!

Thanks, Jeff - I do appreciate you following along and your supportive comments. Hope you're carrying on with the project(s) on your bench.

High praise, Gary, much appreciated - I certainly can lose a number of hours in a day working on this!

Started work on the sander’s fender mounted, pre-wetting fluid tanks. Our trucks had a system to apply a spray of this liquid, a salt brine, to the sand (sometimes the salt as well) as it fell into the spinner chute, in an effort to make it adhere slightly better to the road surface – traffic and big trucks could quickly blow the sand out of the travelled portion of the road. Adding the brine to a salt application at the spinner could help the salt get into a soluble state quicker and begin working on compact snow or ice quicker Patterns for the pre-wet tanks - one on each fender of sander assemble tanks - the sand conveyor drive motor has been started; the square and rectangular blocks represent plastic electrical boxes for the sanders/plows lights (brake lights, flashing lights on wing plow, etc). A portion of the sand conveyor is seen in upper right filler spouts and caps for tanks added; most of ladder finished - needed to add stair tread to ladder steps and used CTM mesh tank mocked in place; ladder taped in place with lower portion unfolded lower portion of ladder folded up sand conveyor hydraulic motor mocked in place had to have a shovel at the ready! more on the sander in the next post - thanks!

Excellent job, Robert - well detailed!

Great detail work on your engine and interior!

My apologies, Jeff - terrible mistake - looking at one of his earlier posts. Won't happen again! Regarding the measurements, I keep using my Sketchup model for a reference - the Sketchup model was made from actual measurements and some of the items I did find online

Hey Gary Jeff (sorry) - there were no D handles on the screens of the truck I took pictures of and it didn't have the chain protector you describe. Inside the hopper of this truck were four side to side braces - two just under the lip at the top edge and two lower ones, about half way down the sides. Seemed to me that these braces were providing support to keep the hopper from bulging in the center - could be wrong though!