highway

Yeah, me too! I seen a similar Ford cabbed Sterling like that a year or two ago, but never the Dodge. Guess I better start following the medium duty trucks a little more!

Yeah, and no harsh chemical fumes, either.

I can't help you with the before shots in relation to the chrome stripping uses, but the first pic was from a Monogram Ford T-Bird stock car and that was the result after 3-4 hours in the Power Dissolver. The other was after about a week, it was something I knew was going to be stripped, but a "dip it and leave it" deal.

What are these "instructions" you speak of? I don't think I have ever heard of them!

The easieat way to do lettering and badges is to use Bare Metal Foil, oftenly reffered to here as BMF. Another way you could do the lettering and badges if you don't care how shiny the lettering is and if you have not mastered using BMF yet is to use some chrome silver paint on the lettering or badge. After you have the chrome silver painted, paint your body as you normally would. After your color coat has dried, CAREFULLY sand the color from the raised areas of the lettering or badge, and that should leave the chrome silver paint underneath showing though. If you try this method, as I said, sand CAREFULLY so you do not sand through the chrome silver you are trying to expose, or, worst case, so you do not sand the lettering completely off.

Me three! I'd say make the two matching sister trucks.

Yeah, a nice teal or aqua green might really set the truck and trailer off.

Oh, and by the way, that bottle in my first pic was $2.62 at my local Walmart!

It is also VERY good for stripping chrome as well! I stripped these to bare plastic in about 3-4 hours: And these had sat for about a week in it, and what you see was all by the Power Dissolver, I (still) haven't touched them!

I'm not trying to start a fight, Jim, but the reason I said that I'm waiting for more entries is that some may not have the ability to be online every day. I believe Eelco mentioned that as well, some of the entrants may only come on once a week or so, so they may not even post their finished builds until this weekend. I, like I said, am not trying to start a fight, and for those who have posted vote, that is your choice, and I respect that. I'm just holding my vote until more entrants post so everyone has a fair chance.

Excatly, Mark. It's just like I told Nick earlier in this thread, GMC stands for Generic Made Chevies!! Actually, Mark, GMC and Chevy are also unique in this area. They are the only Big Three manufacture to still offer any larger than one ton medium duty commerical chassis trucks. Ford (I think) may still offer the pickup F550, but it is still just a heavy duty pickup and not built on a medium duty chassis like the GMC Topkick and Chevy's version that I can't remember the name of offhand. Ford sold the medium and heavy duty truck lines to Freightliner, who rebranded the line to the Sterling truck brand. If you ever get a chance to see a Sterling truck up close, the Sterling badge was designed to fit in the void where the Ford badge was previously, thus changing the Blue Oval to a Silver Oval. I also do not remember Dodge ever offering a medium duty line, execpt maybe in the 60s in the era of Dodge semis. If you are in the market for a medium duty chassis nowadays and don't want one from a heavy truck manufacture like International or Mack, your only choice is the GMC or Chevy.

Well, if you don't want to send it to Joe, you could send it to me. It would look good pulling my Galaxie trailer! On the serious side though, are you planning a small race team with it? You could paint it and the trailer to match the car if that's the case.

It looks like your off to a nice start.

Oh, and an idea for the taillights, what about the Grote style taillights in the Italeri kits? If I remember, the Petes don't have them, but every other Italeri does, you could swap the Super 40s in the Pete onto something else.

That looks good, Ryan. Those aren't the kit logs detailed, are they? If they are the real things, I need to visit that tree!! That's one thing holding mine up is finding a branch that looks like a scale log, most I've found here so far has smooth bark on the limbs small enough to be scale logs.

Didn't Revell of Germany do a flattop KW cabover K100 at one time? That could be a possibility.

Thanks Dennis, and since I was planning this paint job from the start, I'll probably just bite the bullet and spend the extra and get it from the one place here locally. I may end up finding a better color choice I'd be happy with, but I doubt it.

It's nothing against you, Eelco. I just think everyone should refrain from voting like I'm going to do until more do have a chance to post their work.

I think with only 8 of the 51 entries posted so far, it is too early to place a vote. I feel it is only fair to the other builders who have not posted the finished builds yet.

Well, after driving all over town today, I have good news and bad news to report on the paint situation! The good news is I did find a local store that, even though they don't stock the DupliColor Mirage, they can order it in from their warehouse for me. The bad news is it would cost me almost double what I seen it priced when it was still readily available on the shelves!! I'm still considering having them order it, but I may just say the heck with it and come up with another color for it, even though I really wanted to try the Mirage paint on it!

I think it would be great if you would do a "How To" on the license plates. Would this be possible on 1:25 scales as well? I think maybe a "How To" on the dipstick, especially the fill area, would br informative as well. I would be tuned in to both!

Yeah, great mind do think alike! And obviously, my great mind doesn't think too clearly sometimes! I just checked DupliColors website in their Mirage line: http://www.duplicolor.com/products/mirage.html and found out I goofed!! I was thinking the Red/Blue, I think I was getting the purple from the Purple/Green because the thought had gone through my mind of trying ghost flames with that! I think the parts store just isn't stocking it, but they ain't the only one in the area. I'm going to check the other stores the next time I do some running, probably later today.

Chris, are you living inside my head!??! That is EXACTLY what I was planning! Well, sort of! My actual plan includes a trainload (pun intended!) of other models along with the two trucks. My vision has a police escort at the front, then an escort pickup or van in front of the lead tractor with the engine itself on it, then a chase vehicle and another escort vehicle between the two trucks, then the truck hauling the tender, then another chase truck and another police car bringing up the rear. It will probably be quite a while before I get started on it, though, but when I do, you'll see it here! And yes, I already have the General!

I found why the IMG Code is not showing up for you, Richard. I checked my photobucket link options and found the problem, you have clickable thumbnails marked. Here is how you can change it; under the first pic in an album, you will see "Link Options" in blue, click that. That opens another window that gives you the options, go to the "Get link code" tab (if it is not already there, mines goes there by default) and where it says "IMG for bulletin boards & forums", click the box beside where it says "Full size" to check that box. That will put the IMG Code under your pics and post your pics like the ones Rodney helped you out with.

Does anyone else ever have one of those days where you just want to scream at the top of your lungs, pull your hair out, and take a hammer to the latest project!?! WELL, I'M HAVING ONE OF THOSE DAYS!!! I figured since the weather was so nice today, not too humid, bright sunny day, I would stop at the auto parts store to pick up the paint for the truck and maybe finally put something other than primer on it. I get to the parts store and go to the paint aisle, and find every DupliColor paint and primer EXCEPT for what I wanted, the DupliColor Mirage Purple/Red paint I was going to paint the truck! So I took my two cans of primer to the counter, and after helping one of the employees there find a headlight for another customer that he had spent five minutes looking for and only took me five seconds to find for him, I asked the clerk waiting on me what happened to the Mirage paint. He calmly tells me "We discontinued it, sorry." "GREAT!!! THERE GOES MY PAINT JOB!!" I thought, and, even though I already knew the answer, asked him where I might be able to find it. "I dunno." he tells me. So right now the truck will be on hold until I find the paint, even if I have to walk to the ends of the earth to get it! That, or I figure another color I will be happy with, but the Mirage has been the idea from when I cut the first part from the sprue! P.S.: For the faithful followers, NO I'M NOT GOING TO DESTROY IT WITH A HAMMER, I was just kidding!!