cifenet

Great color and paint work!

Ah, my bad! But looks great with bright color!

Wow, it looks like it just came out of a truck factory tuning shop with nicely modified body kits! The paint is sleek and smooth too. Now it is ready for some heavy pulling!

That wrecker part is looking very sweet. Like the color combo too. And love your organized trays on the back! While you are at it, can I take two set of wipers, three seat belts, and one air filter to go?

Looking better and better as you are adding details! And that red frame is screaming! Good progress so far for sure!

Your story is very familiar to all of us! And the courage to know "when to stop and redo" is something we all need. I can already see your methodical approach and fine tuning efforts on the 2nd cab! Nice going!

That is freaking awesome! Love those photos. Thanks for sharing the history. BTW, Nice touch on the brake lines, I like how they hang down, looks like the real thing.

Very cool progress!

This is the fun stage where slowly the truck is coming alive! The exhaust shields and pipes look fantastic here. Very realistic. All of the small details look great too.

Superb! I think this will turn out amazing!

The color looks great and nice job on the bed cover!

My update: Polishing work still on-going and the third coat of clear applied. I am quite satisfied with the shine and glossy finish here. Normally, I would want to apply an additional heavy coat of clear, but I think this is enough... From the frontal view, the truck is looking super massive with its high roof and this has to be my favorite view of the truck. Next, I went through some frustration dealing with aerodynamic parts. All of the aero parts had bad pin marks and I fixed them multiple times. My issue: once I filled and sanded and confirmed that they are okay through my naked eyes, the surface defects would show up again as soon as painting session started. I would sand them off and repeat the whole process only to find out I still have problems. I think the main cause was that my sanding sticks gave up on me; I should have replaced them with a fresh set. After fourth attempt, I think I have something acceptable to work with. I was going to NOT mount these out of my frustration at one point. I also painted the mirrors here. Another challenge I am dealing is the visor piece being transparent. I used "smoke" color as my primary color, but my airbrush spit something bad and now it is ruined. I will either strip off the paint and repeat, or just simply spray over with solid black. I hate stripping paints, so I am leading towards to adding solid black finish. No one will know it is supposed to be semi-transparent anyway! Once I was satisfied with the final clear coat finish on the body, I began painting the black trims including the window moldings. The toothpick is a good tool for this type of masking job and I also use pointy cotton swaps to seal the masking tape edges. Of course, a sharp knife blade is must here. Talking about the toothpick as a tool, I also use it often to paint parts. Here, I painted the "AdBlue" tank cap using Sky Blue color. I think it is a close match. Unless I am building military subjects, I think most of my paintings are done via an airbrush. I would only use a brush to paint if parts are small and delicate. Oddly, toothpicks see more action from me than paint brushes! I painted this with a toothpick also. It is more of transferring a small amount of paint rather than brushing which works quite well. Now there are TWO big problems with this kit which I am trying to solve. They need to be addressed if I want my cab to tilt forward and back. I explained the problem in one of the previous postings. Unfortunately, the kit requires you to select either the open or close position and your truck is stuck in that position forever. In order to allow the cab to tilt, I will need: Condition 1: to allow the upper grille piece to open and close Condition 2: The Condition 1 above needs to be in "open" position first. And then the cab ALSO needs enough clearance space between the cab itself and the lower grille piece so cab can tilt forward. I was able to resolve Condition 2. I addressed the tilting the cab problem by introducing a vertical movement of the cab. The hinges were modified to allow this movement. Again, a quick solution was all I was looking for and this was how I did it. Now I can pull up the cab to create clearance space ( + 3/8 inch) to tilt the cab forward. The Conditon 1 is still in Working-In-Progress and it is to make the upper grille piece to flip open/close. I am going to come up with a design so I can slide out the grille and flip up. I CANNOT simply add fixed hinges here because the grille piece needs to come out first to flip up (another clearance issue)... Hopefully I can provide more details in the next update on what my solution is going to be. The trims are painted and the truck needs its interior now. Also, the Benz emblem was added. I painted it in chrome to make the logo stand out, but it really doesn't. Still many parts left to attach and assemble!

Hey Steve, knowing all the great builds I see here, that is a big stretch for sure! To be honest, I wanted to build something quick over the holidays so I can feel accomplished, but it is dragging now. When I was young, I remember building a kit and finishing it in a same day, but now it is never a possible... Thank you, Mathias!! I hope the European truck is something of interest! I know the subject isn't quite popular as Mack or Peterbilt here, but I really enjoy the modern look and configuration on these!

I like the whole setup, your implementation on this is great!

Now that is quite unique! Interesting project you got going and the build so far looks great!

Like what you did so far, the color is very vibrant too including the two tone wheels!

Yeah, the truck is looking pretty cool right now. And I know things will only get better as you make your progress. I noticed you have extensive Model Master paints on your shelf, hope you have a plan once things run out. My favorite semi gloss black paint is from the Model Master’s acrylic series and I am still upset about it. There are places willing sell online, but now they are asking $$$ for a little bottle….

They are fantastic! They also have that old fashion look which I like!

I am able to put about 60-90 minutes of work on the truck each day for the past week or so. And I can do this while watching TV, so I am multi-tasking. Getting ready to apply clear coat. I studied the panel edges where I need to spray "extra" clear coat layers so the finish won't wear off from parts being touched/handled. Masking work #1: To clear coat the entire area except headlights. Masking work #2: to paint the headlamps with silver. Masking work #3: To paint the grille with semi gloss black. Multiple masking jobs were needed to take care of the front grille/bumper piece here. My first clear coat session was success, I will allow the parts to dry completely. The golden rule that I follow is to spray in multiple sessions starting with a light coat or two. Then medium coat is applied and then finally heavy wet spray to finish it off. And do sand/polish as needed between the coats. Lastly, I can bring out the surface shine by polishing. Unfortunately, when I was polishing after my initial clear coat, I scuffed too much on several areas and now back to paining again so I can clear it again. Things do get simpler if I am planning to build an aged vehicle, then it is all about weathering without this clear coat and polishing business. I want this to shine, so I must go through the procedures to clear coat! Additionally, the truck is no longer French registered, now it is Danish! Worked on the tail lamps also. There is orange clear in there somewhere, but it is not showing up... And P/E backing was also used to enhance the light pattern. Tail lamps mounted, and Danish rear license plate attached. I am trying to stretch the intake pipe location (circle) by wedging a sponge next to it. I think I mentioned in the previous post that this intake mount was a blind assembly. The location does not align with rest of the pipe configuration on the cab, hopefully this can fix it. A tough decision was made to not drill out those small vent holes on the grille. I really wanted to drill them out in the beginning, but then I realized that as soon as I make ONE mistake drilling incorrectly or drill it with different spacing, it is GAME OVER. I did 3~4 attempts to fill those with a black panel liner from Tamiya and I need to feel good about not ruining it. Added small amber lights and also clear UV Resin was used for head lamps and driving lights at the bottom of the bumper. Nothing to hide, a close up picture! My first clear coat is applied and minor polishing work also done. I am planning to apply another clear coat tomorrow (if everything is dried well). I still need to paint the aerodynamic pieces, but they have horrible sink marks which I am still working to putty...

Thanks Steve! You are right, European trucks do seem like very space conscious. I know typical US trucks are known for its substantial weight and size, but I think some of the European trucks aren't far off. Maybe it could be an interesting topic for discussion, comparing US trucks vs European. I must admit, I am liking this one a lot! Appreciate your warm compliments, Gary! And thanks again for keeping up with this build, I really value your feedback and having interest in this European truck build! Good to hear from you Mathias! I hope to complete this soon now that I am at the last stage of the build. Thanks again!

That is a good looking truck already! Great prep work and good start of the build!

Better be safe than sorry for sure. Usually silver shades do well against glossy black as base. Nevertheless, it came out very nice. I can definitely see blue tone and it really is a nice color you got there.

Nice weathering, I think you did a wonderful job!

Awesome job finishing this very well! Pete looks massive and all muscle, I really like what you did here. Great start already for the year 2024!

Simply amazing... Bravo!