highway

Looking good JT! It looks like a Schneider trailer! What orange (if you didn't already say) did you use? It does look like Schneider orange, and there are some Great Danes in the van fleet. These followed me to my truck last week: I'm planning on my Smoothie to be a Walmart trailer, and the original to be a decked out stainless for my Ford project. I'm going to be watching too to see how you make the skirts, some of the Walmart dry vans I pull have them on. Also, I agree on not using the kit pull strap, it not only looks "chunky" but a little too long too. The Walmart reefers I pull have much shorter straps. The dry van does have longer straps, but most of the time they are also attached to the inside of the door. Also one thing I noticed looking through my smoothie, the Dane decals are correct for the coloring, red for reefers and green for dry vans, but if any of you are making a replica of a specific trailer like I'm planning with the Walmarts I'm going to build, check the color of the emblem and the emblem itself. Many of the newer reefers have the circular dog emblem instead of the regular emblem in the pic above and in the kit, and some of the dry vans here have black emblems instead of green.

I agree, and not bashing or knocking Moebius with my following comment, but just simply showing another example of the "it's good enough" kits being offered. I just recentlly purchased these two kits, the newly offered smoothside and the original issue 53' trailer. I may not be an "expert" in model making, but when it comes to anything truck related, I know what I'm talking about since I have been driving them for 17 years. The kits themselves are not bad, and the new smoothside is better than the original with the panel rivet detail that the original kit lacks, but there are still some things on both that I would have at least liked to have seen corrected on the smoothside that was not done (and talked about at length in threads) on the original, but the new version still lacks. Other than the original not having any side panel rivet detail that the new issue DOES have, both have great details right next to details that are missing, and this pic I took at work shows two of my "it's not good enough" examples. The first is the biggest issue to me and a few other truck modelers I know, the black area on the refrigeration (reefer) unit is the controls to operate the unit and is what keeps your ice cream cold! The unit itself in the kit is a beautiful replication of the 1:1, except for the controls, there is no hint of this area even as a score line or decal, and before the "it would be too hard to scale" comments come flying, AMT had this detail on their 70s era reefer trailers, even this 1/32 scale! It's a little hard to see because of the angle, but there is at least detailing on the unit to replicate the controls, and in the 70s it wasn't an LCD screen like today, it was gauges and switches. I'm pretty sure Italeri also had this detail, or at least a decal of it, on the American reefer trailer they offered. The other little "good enough" is right below the reefer unit, and that is the air brake (gladhand) connections and electrical connection box in the lower right hand corner of the 1:1 pic. Moebius did an OUTSTANDING job replicating the electrical connection, it is the best I have seen in any scale. The shape and size look dead on to the 1:1, so close in fact that if I could scale down my 1:1 tractor, I could hook it up and go! Oh wait, no I couldn't, because there is no where to hook my air lines to release the brakes!! There are two locating holes that make me wonder if the gladhand details were intended but overlooked somehow, but still overlooked regardless. There are a few other details that I don't particularly care for, like the fixed rear suspension that slides for weigh distribution on the 1:1 (and again, something that can be done in scale because even the 1/32 scale from AMT as well as there other 1/25 scale offerings from the 70s have movable axles) and the air supply tank that mounts to the sliding axle assembly on the 1:1 but to the floor of the kit, but I can modify those if I so choose, but at $50 a kit (which is not far off the foreign competition), is it too much to ask that these details (and the lack of the rivet detail on the original trailer) be included, especially when the box for both claim "Super Detailed"? As I said, I'm not bashing the kits or their manufacturer, but merely stating a point. I feel in the case of these two kits, just as windshield height or some of the other well noted inaccuracies of kits as of late are to car modelers, these are just more cases of inaccuracies to a couple of otherwise fine kits, and examples of "Well, it's good enough". It's not "good enough", the details I've mentioned are details I use every day in the 1:1 world and am trained to pay attention to and inspect during my day.

Nice displays Clayton! When I was still active in shows, which has been many moons ago but I do plan on getting back into it once my big Ford is finally finished, I would display my cars on a mirror I cut to just a little bigger than the car itself and then used the little "tables" they put in pizza boxes in the center to keep the box off your pizza under all for wheels. I also used the clear plastic boxes that toothbrushes came in as another display prop, either the two halves under the front axle and rear axle if I wanted the entire model above the mirror or if I just wanted it angled, I would have the box halves together and under one side. As for trucks, I usually (and what I plan to do under the Ford since it would probably need a 6 foot long mirror for truck and trailer) just cut some small rectangular mirror to fit underneath just to show important areas. And yes, as a teenager (shows how long it's been since I competed in a show! ), I did cut my own mirrors to shape. I found a glass and mirror cutter in my dad's tools and my parents had some square mirror tiles that they had on a small wall in our living room as decoration and I used some of the leftovers for the displays. Oh, and it did help once at a show that I did display them that way, one show that was just for racing cars I walked away with 1st place just because of my mirrors. It was a tight decision between my NASCAR and another NASCAR, and the judges placed the 1st beside mine just because they could see the underneath detail of mine. How do I know this??? The mother of the 2nd place winner was complaining to one of the judges "Why didn't my son win 1st place??" and on and on (while I'm packing up mine right beside her) and finally the judge said "Because we could see underneath his and not your sons." I bet from that day forward she made sure his was on mirrors!

These followed me back home to the truck tonight! The smooth side wanted to come home to the truck so it could see it's 1:1 brothers and what it will be built like! The original is more than likely going to be chromed out and find a happy home on the fifth wheel of this:

That pic should come with a warning, I just ate LOL!!!

Yeah I've been thinking of that, its just finding the time usually. This is one rare occasion that I'm actually waiting for a load, I'm normally buzy from the time I get up until bed time.

The first three months of this year have been a total disaster, and I ended March leaving that behind. The year started with the flu and bronchitis and two weeks later my back threw a major fit related to the compression fracture to my L1 vertebrae in Dec 2013 and was out a total of a month of work. On top of all that and the related catch up on bills, I found out something that ended my relationship of almost two years. I'm not going into more detail than that, but I moved out March 29 and am now staying in my truck until I find a new place and everything else is in storage. Well, almost everything, my big Ford custom project is safely packed in tons of bubble wrap in boxes under the bunk LOL! I'm hoping with my new start and newly found peace and quiet, once I get a new place and get it set up, I can spend my time off getting the custom finished.

Pittsburgh PA has them too.

Hey now, I resemble that remark LOL!!

Yeah, the 44' was the very first release when Galaxie first issued them back in the 90s, then for some reason all later releases were the 38'.

Honestly I would suggest buying a set. I know that Rhino's Model Truck Parts on Facebook sells those style 45 pipes in stainless steel, and shouldn't run you more than $10. I have had my eye on a set of his 8" diameter stacks like that for one of my projects. Those are normally 5" diameter for stock stacks, but he does do custom orders also, so he might be able to make you a set. I'm on my phone so I can't give you a link, but i'll post one next time I'm home and not in the big truck LOL!

I've seen 35 foot tandem axle trailers for local delivery companies.

Terry, they are much better than the 1/25 scale, I have the Dale Earnhardt and Davey Allison versions, both with the matching cars. The only thing I didn't realize when I bought the cars was that the car on the hauler was the Monte Carlo and I bought 4 Luminas!! They were only a couple dollars a piece on an ebay find, so no biggy! The Allison car is the correct one though!

Well Dave, there will be a V in it, but not Ford. I was planning a Buzzin Dozen Detroit, but right now I'm playing around with something with even more cylinders!! I've been doing a little here and there mating two 8V71s together for a 16V71 like the Payhauler haul truck has.

Even though it was not going to be a rat rig, I was planning an Allison in this.... ...but learned a little to late that it wouldn't quite fit without surgery to the already finished cab floor.

Storage shelf above driver's side closet. Control panel for rear HVAC controls. This was on the rear side (facing rear of sleeper) of the driver's side lower closet. The extension above it is the upper storage area. The black box with "Espar" on it is the under bunk heater controls for winter. All that was visible of the heater itself other than the control box was the vent that exited through the rear floor wall under the front edge of the lower bunk. Oh, and by the way, the red lenses on the bunk lights were not factory, I changed them from the clear for "mood" lighting! Dash. The black knob on the right hand section of it is a power fifth wheel release. Instead of reaching under the trailer to pull the release handle, all I had to do was roll down the legs and disconnect the air lines, then get in and pull the knob out and drive out from under the trailer. Hope these help.

Rear wall storage, middle to driver's side Driver's side upper storage Better pic of position of upper bunk, and on window equipped sleepers, it would be just above the window, and the side door from to pic extended from just below the top bunk down past lower main bunk and to the under bunk storage box. Drivers side closet. Continued next post

I have some that I took before I had to give up the 2012 Pete 386 I had with Werner Enterprises. This was the truck, and sorry for some dirt, I found the camera and took the pics before the vacuum came out! This was a pretty basic style setup, but I'm sure the more upscale interiors wouldn't be much different, except with maybe doors on the cabinets. This one only had vinyl curtains across the bottom two closets. Bottom passenger side closet and TV shelf. The curtain in this pic is the main sleeper curtain. TV shelf Rear passenger side upper storage, and this one even though it was the midroof sleeper, had a second upper bunk. It wasn't practical to use though, unless you were short, for a 6 foot tall person like me to sit up with it down a removable head would have been handy!! Rear wall storage, passenger side to middle Continued in next post due to pic limit per post.

Unless it is one that I have multiples of, as soon as I get home! I don't care even if it is an old kit still sealed I pick up at a show or off ebay, the shirk wrap dies as soon as I have it home. The only few sealed kits that I have are multiples, and that is my little way of telling myself that I bought that kit JUST to build the way it is supposed to be, so keep my grubby paws off the parts!! The only time I look through kits before getting them home is if they are open already at a show or the couple of shops in my area that sell parts of collections and/or estates. Once doing that, I even taught the one shop to start looking through kits, I found an old Monogram Lamborghini Countach I wanted and found this when I opened the box: I showed it to the shop manager, and thought he was going to faint or throw up! He looked at me and said "Just take it and I guess I need to start going through the boxes before I put them on the shelf!" At least I got an ugly free paperweight!

Just don't forget your "WIDE LOAD" or "OVERSIZED LOAD" signs!!

Then you don't buy new kits then! Revell may BOX some of them in America, but the bags INSIDE come from CHINA!! I'm sure that the same implies to the Round 2 van.

Terry, can you post a couple of pics of what's in the box of the tankers please? I've always wondered if either could be Americanized, but was never brave enough to actually buy one to find out after finding the box art isn't always what to expect inside. I thought the 40' container would be more or less a straight build from the box art and found the rear suspension looked nothing like the box art.

Maybe the diesel fumes all these years have gotten to the memory cells!!

Later model Macks, like the CH613 that P&P Resin Works offers, had green engines similar in color to Detroit's Alpine Green.