cifenet

Amazing teamwork in action here! That tank resin looks awesome and now we all know how it got created and the story behind it. Keep up the good work!!

Sophisticated work and amazing result! I must say it is very unique and one sweet looking wrecker. Great craftsmanship building this truck this good!

Superb work, the frame looks great so far! And I almost smell the diesel fuel coming out from the gas tanks!

Sparkling blue is sharp on this one. Good work coloring the door trims also!

This is almost 1 meter long? Wow, that’s some length. I guess that is the definite advantage designing and printing your own parts. Those hydraulic shocks under the ramps are nice touch, good details!

The side stance is looking very nice here. Did you scratch build the fuel tank? It is nicely done. And I like how you used those I-beam looking base to support your parts and mock up. Very handy!

I was preparing for the contest mentioned above and could only make minor progress on Peterbilt 359 before this update. I used clear smoke paint + flat black paint mixture to imitate diesel soot here. For windows trim, it is easier to mask it with a template. I made this template by tracing the window opening first. Then cut the masking tape using the template to attach... I know some folks also use a black Sharpie pen to color the trim and do very good job. To making things interesting, I am painting the center panel of the hood with bright metallic silver. First a gloss black coat for the base goes on here. Then metallic silver coat on top. For the metallic finish, I use low air pressure on my airbrush and I slowly mist from 5-6inches away from the surface. That is why you see large "over spray" around the masking paper. For the lacquer paint I use, I don't want to apply wet coat for the metallic finish (the paint will pool up), I need the paint to dry quicker on the surface, and hence I mist it from some far distance. With the windows trim painted and the hood split trim painted, the truck is getting detailed little by little. I have been playing around with the tint level of the windows. My first try was too light and now this second attempt looks too dark and green. I am going to remove and re-do... Not only I removed the tint, I cut out the driver side window so I can display it as rolled down half way. I just thought this type of detail will make the build more interesting. I mounted my luberfiner (it is such a cool word) and A/C unit on the top. You can see the tinted windows rolled down here. This is the tint level I am going with now. Now here comes the hideous side; I mounted the air canister and stared at it for a long time... Have you seen the air canister this big?!? It too TOO BIG, I thought. But then again, more I look at it, it may be okay. I do not know at this point. I am willing to RE-DO the air canister, but I am also getting lazy again today. I am going to wait a day or so and decide...

IPMS Roscoe/Turner "Indy Invitational Contest & Swap Meet" event was held yesterday (north of Indianapolis, IN) and I participated the event by entering with several models I have including some trucks. It is one of the largest events in the Midwest and even though it was raining all day, so many folks showed up making it a very entertaining event. I believe there were probably 200-250 models on the contest area (my rough estimate). The swap meet was just as amazingly large and super fun to browse. So many kits to browse and opportunities to acquire! Some sellers would entertain offers and others would give out huge discounts. I did buy several model kits/paints and the prices I paid were more than reasonable. 😁 (note: I blocked out faces for obvious reasons) You can get some good discounts, you just have to ask and find out. As the event went on, more sellers were willing to unload unsold kits and you could definitely find bargains. I think the early birds will get to buy the rare and hard to find kits, and the later comers will get the deals. And even you don't get to buy anything, it surely is a fun activity going around checking out all kind of model kits. There were some good truck models on the contest table. THIS IS NOT MY BUILD (I need to make sure I do not take credit), I don't know who built this Ford truck (could be a member here?), but this one caught my eyes. I thought it was very well executed. Good details, beautiful paint finish, and clean/accurate assembly work. What a gorgeous build it was. My trucks didn't win, but I got lucky and I was able to take home the best automotive award with red Enzo Ferrari. I was secretly hoping my Peterbilt 359 would make it instead... 😁 I think there is already uploaded Youtube showing the entire event, it is definitely entertaining to watch.

Now the frame details coming alive. Fantastic to look at all. All the plumbing work showing off, I like it!

Haha, I am also curious what you will build, Landon. Another Kenworth? I am hoping to build a trailer, but I am not sure exactly what and how yet... Thanks for taking a good side on this for me, Helmut! 😄 Håkan, always feels great getting compliment from you!! 👍 Thank Jürgen for the helpful tip! 👍 Your advise is a great one for sure and it would have helped in this case. Now looking back, I should have done just that. I actually use "clear" to seal minor masking edges before my second color coat, but I got too lazy and trusted my ability (or inability) to mask which failed... Again, appreciate your feedback and it is a good one!

Gary, I didn't know you are working on multiple projects at the same time. 👍 This is something I cannot do, I am bad at multi-tasking when it comes to scale modeling~ Curious to see how your custom 359 will come out to be! Thank you and checking this WIP and appreciate your kind feedback, Jay! Thanks, Jeff! Hope your schedule frees up and that you get to enjoy the hobby again~

No doubt it can’t be fun doing this type of work, but the tracks do look real and quite detailed!

Brilliant! It is coming out very nicely. I really like the orange color choice also, it goes very well with this truck.

Wow, this js very painful to watch (I mean this in the most positive way), so many little details and repetitions required! But the effort is very rewarding here, it is turning out to be incredibly awesome.

Looks very promising, Jeff! The heating method did the trick! Fenders wrapping the wheel quite nicely here~. And the wheel looks beautiful btw.

Impressive stuff you are generating here. The whole setup looks super massive also! Nice job~

Anyway you build it, I know this one is going to be special. And very fun watching all your custom parts being put together and then you repeating the whole process again w different combo till you find your sweet spot. I am jealous of all the parts from different MFG companies you got going. 😁 I need do my research and explore what is out there~

What a sweet truck! I can see extensive customization effort went into the truck and it is looking awesome!

1991 version looks good too. Everything looks like operational! Never knew the blades are like that.

My painting activities continue today and they are all about laying out clearcoat and polishing them out. Just going through steps of applying clearcoat and polishing. Then repeating the whole cycle again. The hood piece just received the second layer of clearcoat here. Starting to see deeper surface shine and I think one more session is going to complete this. This is after the first clearcoat and first polishing session on the sleeper. You can see from the photo, I took some paint off while polishing. This happens often for me. I just need to perform touch up on these spots and be more careful next time. Again, the same story goes for the cab. During the polishing stage, I took too much paint off. This is after applying the second clearcoat and waiting to dry. Then I will repeat the polishing work again. You can see I repaired the paint issues here. The cabin also received two layers of clear here and waiting the paint to completely dry. Then I will polish the surface for even and deeper shine. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attach anything and anything external till the end of polishing process and this makes everything difficult. I must rely heavily on the use of CA glue/epoxy and no mistake is allowed at this point (otherwise I need to rollback what I did including painting and start over). While my second clearcoat is being dried, I resume my work on exhaust pipes. The exhaust pipes pictured here are from the kit and while they are absolutely usable, I decided to build my own. Working with various aluminum tubes, it was quite easy to construct exactly what I was looking for. I made my own exhaust using the aluminum pipes here. The photo-etched detail kit includes mounting brackets for the exhaust as well as the exhaust shield. Spent some time studying on how to put these together and found out they are quite tricky to attach and assemble… The exhaust shield wasn't helping me either, I had to keep it rolled up for sometime before I can use epoxy glue to set its position. The one advantage of using aluminum pipes is that you can polish them with sandpaper. They produce very convincing metal shine. I tried to quickly build one, but this took some time... I also de-burred the pipe ends using a sharp hobby knife which made them look...sharp! I built the exhaust using my own fabricated parts knowing what I had to do to hold the screen. I made sure the exhaust is positioned in the center of the shielding screen. CA glue wouldn't work well, I had to use epoxy glue for attaching all of these. Now I just need to figure out how to attach these onto the cab...

What a fantastic blue duo! Great craftmanship, looking mighty good! Both of them~

Landon, thanks for checking on this thread so far and being very supportive! I just hope to not screw up anything serious at this late stage. 🤞 Thanks, Brian! My chrome parts are basically painted with metallic silver/aluminum based paints (not really chrome, i.e. silver-chrome) which is much easier to paint/handle (but not quite reflective). I hope to try some of those "mirror"-like chrome finishes though. I know that Revell now has a spray can version which I think fantastic (but pricey) and should be easier to get the quality result. Thank you, Scott! Appreciated!

Sweet looking trailer, Jürgen! Nice work putting all together and the hood looks great also.

Now that you lay out what you have accomplished in the "aerial photo", all I can say is you have done brilliant work so far!

You are making rapid progress on this, Gary. Great start and the truck is visually beautiful as is already!