mackinac359

Neat! These remind me of old municipal trucks I used to see as a kid. Tim

Nice detail on the wheel paint. Tim

I mix scale parts on a model and display 1/25th scale trailers with 1/24th scale tractors. There is a noticeable difference but the smaller trailer takes up less space (okay, only an inch or so less). Tim

Nice! There's an old C-series dumper I see occasionally in a town near here, nothing as nice as what you've built here. Tim

Nice custom interior! Tim

Wow! That's a lot of trailer you're building. It looks good. Tim

It was easier to get this back up than find a new host service and transfer the domain names and such. Besides, I'm paid until next year and they will not refund prepayments. Tim

That is the plan...

Talking to other users of the service who have tried the "you owe me" line - the company ignores their requests. This company had a great reputation and service until earlier this year from what I've been reading on line. Now everyone complains about the service and up-time.

The company is Aplus.net

Exactly what I said. It took my computer over 36 hours to re-upload the darned thing. The host service says "we still have some problems and we are working on them."

As of 7:00PM eastern 11/27 my site is back up. There are links that are bad on quite a few pages that I need to fix, but for the most part it is back. If you had bookmarked my site, you will need to re-do the bookmark as http://www.timstrucks.com Thanks for everyone's concern and emails. Tim (this has been a frustrating week!)

The term "Aerodyne" was used by Kenworth as the name for their tall-roof sleepers on both cabover and conventionals in the late 70's and early 80's. Tim

Your hand-painted striping looks a lot better than anything I could do. Tim

Codie Thank you for the kind words on my old KW bullnose. The resin cab is riding on a pretty stock AMT Kenworth K100 Aerodyne frame. The suspension is the KW air ride suspension. I don't have any period-correct photos of a KW. Tim

Cool build! Tim

More pages are returning as I continue to re-upload them I will have to go through all 90 pages and correct dead links and URL errors that point to incorrect locations - that will take me some time to fix. There are bunches of page links pointing to "..site.." links - these pages will load, but are old outdated versions of the correct page. The madness continues.... Tim

The company I pay for server space/hosting made an upgrade to their system earlier in the month. When it came time to upgrade my server my website went Poof! gone. Even though they claim full back-ups and 24 hour customer service, all I have receives is lip service from "technicians" who know less about the server and system than I do. I am having to reload the entire website, over 85 pages and all the photographs. I have been reloading for over 24 hours (keep getting timed out after 3-4 hours) so some pages are coming back. I have no idea when it will be fully operational. Some pages are working fine, such as This one andthis one. But none of my model related pages are back at this time (4:50pm 11/26/09). I have better things to do (like prepare the January Trucker's Corner column) than keep working on this reload. I am not amused. Tim

Fantastic ! Tim

Great scratchbuilding on the tank! Tim

David Thanks for posting! Funny thing about the Ertl IH Transtar 4270, I liked that kit - very fleet like. (even with the 903) Tim

This will be sharp looking as a logger! Nice paint scheme. Tim

It is indeed a real PITA. Cool color choice. Tim

Chris Nice work! Regarding your question on the 357 heavy haul hoods - the one you are building is a 1987-2003 SBFA. In mid-2003 for the '04 model year they introduced a new 357/378 SBFA hood that had more slope to the hood and larger fenders. The actual heavy-haul hood came out in '04 and is much taller than the sloped hood, even taller than the older 357/378 SBFA hood. Here are several photos for reference: This photo shows two 357 SBFA's The unit on the left is a Heavy-Haul (originally called "Vocational hood"). The red unit on the right is an older 357 SBFA. This next photo shows two SBFA's The green truck in the foreground is a standard SBFA sloped hood. The red truck in the background is a Heavy-Haul. Here's another Heavy Haul Here's an older SBFA hood like you are building: I've built a couple of Heavy Haul 357's using fenders cut off a Spaulding resin hood 357 (modern slope hood) grafted onto a scratchbuilt taller hood. The grille is from the 377 kit with a slight extension of the surround at the bottom to give more height. This one was my first attempt at the Heavy Haul hood. Here's the real truck that was the inspiration: My next version of a Heavy Haul was this big tri-drive The inspiration: The 357 Heavy Haul was replaced by the 367 Heavy Haul in 2007 and looks very similar to the 1st version in 2004. When the Heavy Haul hood debuted the cab still had the older style mirrors mounted to the cab, along with the kit style door handles, so if you made a Heavy Haul hood, you could pop it right onto the Italeri cab and have a nice '04/early '05 357 Heavy Haul. Tim

Dave A long-time follow-up to your post - Doug Compton who bought James Etter's work sold to Dave Natale a year or so ago and the items are available from Dave at www.aitruckmodels.com. Another long-ago caster is back now, Illini Replica Conversions is offering some of his old line up. His items can be found on a link from www.aitruckmodels.com. Now, regarding your days at IH, with AMT reissuing the Transtar 4300-Eagle, truck modelers would LOVE to hear detail tidbits and information about the 4300. Tim