highway

Hmmmm, sound's like a challenge for Harry!! Now will he take the challenge??? It's Feb 4, so you have a few months, just remember I like rooster cruisers!! (By the way, borrowing internet from a shipper in Buffalo NY right now.)

That's kinda funny, I have the same kit as well, and the box opens exactly as Mr. Duff describes. It sounds as if Mr. Duff and myself are the only two modelers in the world who can correctly open a Revell/Monogram clamshell self degrading box. Oh, and Mr. Duff, I prefer clear packaging tape to repair my boxes. I might be from WV, but duct tape just seems too "redneck"!

It seems most of the replies are teenage mistakes, just like the mistake I made in my senior year of high school. I thought it would be cool to have Monogram's 1/8 scale 79 Trans Am sitting in the rear window of my 1:1 79 Firebird. One wonderful May afternoon I came out after school to find the T-Tops and top of the windshield frame sitting on the dashboard, and learned sun+glass+heat caused by sun+glass=melted plastic! I also learned about 13 years later that it also equaled a $100 dollar mistake. That was how much it cost me when I found one open but sealed inside to replace that kit at a hobby shop!

So, has this made it to "Under Glass" yet or is it still in progress? I'm on the road a lot and haven't been on in quite a while.

I just happened to notice the bug shield on the box art, a little of Stepp's lives on. I'm almost certain that Stepp's also operated a wrecker maybe a little smaller than "Can Do" that was named "Will Do"!

That reminds me of another country crossover song!

Well, my friends, I just wanted to give you all a small update on progress not necessarily on the build but more like life will soon allow me to resume working on this big baby again. I have been spending my weekdays with my 1:1 baby... ...and weekends (except for this one where I was sent to Florida instead of being home ) moving into my new house (half a duplex) that I'm renting with my girlfriend Jennifer. I have slowly been moving the model collection out of storage and went to my friend's and finally brought the big Ford back home! It was good just to temporarily unpack her and mock her up for my friends i was staying with and Jen, none of them had seen it except for pics. I have some work to do in arranging my basement into my new model room, but the plus side is that there is already a work bench in the basement that just may become my new model bench. Stay tuned, and progress will be slow at the start because I don't have internet at the house yet, but as soon as I play a little catch up from the expense of moving in, internet will be on and then progress will hopefully get better, especially after I can get an order for some goodies from P&P Resin Works!

Yes, and even in states in the description it's an EMPTY box. Also, for those of you wondering about phantoms of your own, in the description the seller states he has no idea what the label is on the bottom. He didn't make this box.

Yes, but if you listen to the entire song, it is also referencing a severe WINTER storm, not tornadoes and warm weather.

How about this for crossover country?? Cowboy Troy has a style called "Hick Hop" and has quite a few songs performed with Big and Rich.

HMMMMMM, with Harry wanting more chrome, I'm beginning to think maybe he might be a chicken hauler at heart!! On the colors Marshall, I don't know what paints you used (spray or airbush) but a suggestion to put in the ole mental file cabinet would be lighten or darken the one color to make a slightly contrasting color. This is just my personal taste, but I prefer darker frames than the truck, so maybe a couple drops of a dark red or black (I'm far from an expert in paint mixing ), just something to darken up the main pink, may have worked out. Sooooooooooooooo, what are you going to build me for my birthday!?!?!?

HMMMMMM, Chris, I wonder where that idea came from?!?!? I plan (if I ever get my truck community build back on track here) to build just that. This will be my trailer though... Just as a point of reference too, through my research on the General, it could be hauled as a single unit one just one truck. The weight of the engine and tender are just over 44,000 pounds, and even though I don't think it would fit in my box trailer, the light weight of my 1:1 is 33,000, so I would still have 3,000 pounds to spare before I hit 80,000 pounds.

Actually KJ, those style of fifth wheels are still used today, and Richard, the style of fifth wheel plates in most of the kits are a Holland fifth wheel, as seen in this pic I found on the web. The other big maker of fifth wheels are Jost, and I believe that may be what is on my rig, and it has the slider rails like you described with the rail and pin setup. If you look carefully at the fifth wheels in the older AMT kits, you will also notice a bump at the top, which is to replicate Holland's adjustment bolt. Also, just from personal experience, I prefer the Holland fifth wheel. They seem to hold the kingpin tighter than other brands.

Oh, almost forgot everyone, other than being out this weekend, everything is going good with job and home! I went to just being out during the week and home every weekend, but obviously someone (and not the dispatcher either) forgot that and sent me on a run to Florida for a Friday delivery! Anyway, I'm stuck in Florida for the weekend and they got me a motel, so I have some internet this weekend until I have to pick up the other half of my load that should have been loaded today if it wasn't for the load broker goofing up the times and the place being closed when the broker said it was open. Other than that, I have been on the fast track thanks to some of the best paychecks I have ever gotten driving a truck to getting my life back to normal finally! I have operating wheels again thanks to none other than my dispatcher who I'm buying his 1983 Chrysler New Yorker off of (yes I still have my dually, it's still sitting in the same driveway it has been in for almost 2 years!) and me and my girlfriend Jennifer have been spending the past couple weekends moving into our new apartment (half a duplex actually), which just happens to be right across the street from where I was staying. i don't think that I have mentioned Jen before, but we have been dating since mid July and she is just a complete sweetheart, and she has been through some very rough relationships in the past that I'm not going to go into detail about, but one cost her custody of her 9 year old daughter. The plus side with not only us being together and living across the street from where I was staying, my friend Jon that is like a dad to me and his wife are also her daughter's grandparents and guardians and they live across the street too! We are getting to see more and more of her daughter and when we were shopping a few weeks ago, I found models at one of our local Walmarts and she wanted one! She picked out a Revell snap tite Mack firetruck and when I get home, we are going to spend some "daddy-daughter" time working on it together. Jen is also interested in working on models with me too, so hopefully one day we will all be a happy model building family! Oh, and speaking of that, being the great woman to me that she is, Jen is letting me have the entire basement of our new place for my model room! The only place not mine is the area where the washer, dryer, furnace, and hot water heater occupies, but every other square inch is mine!! Now I just have to get time to actually figure out where to put everything and then I'll be back to building on the weekends when I'm home.

Yep, me too! A few weeks ago I was in a T/A in Perrysburg, Oh and found even old timers have seemed to throw professional courtesy out the window! A driver was in front of the shop and appeared as if he may have been waiting in line for a bay, and I was just trying to find the exit (first time I was ever in that particular T/A) when the next thing I know I have a trailer sitting in front of me, he was backing up! The reason I didn't know he was backing up was that he didn't bother with turning on his four ways before backing up. I said "I guess the courtesy of turning on your four ways to warn other drivers you are backing up has gone out the window" to him on the CB and he starts accusing me of flying through the parking lot at over 25 miles an hour. I said "Funny, I guess 10 mph is flying in the parking lot now huh?? I don't ever go over 10 mph in a truck stop parking lot." Then he said, "Well I guess I should have turned on my four ways before backing up, but you know, I just don't really care". That's the whole problem with the industry today, too many steering wheel holders who don't care! Anyway, enough of that and time to get off the soap box, I did get my baby back, just to have her break down again a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it was another air issue too! The air dryer decided to go out, and the stupid roadservice mechanic that looked at it wouldn't listen to our mechanic and just bypass the dryer and get me on the road, but instead first put a new high pressure pop off valve and governor on the compressor, and after that didn't work, he said it needed a new compressor! Our mechanic back at the shop sent the fifth wheel wrecker out to get my truck and bring me another truck (which I ended up breaking too! ) and towed mine back to our shop. When I finally talked to him a couple days later, he said all he did to fix the problem was bypass the air dryer and it was fine, I could have been on the road in 30 minutes! Now my baby has a new air dryer and two new (to it anyway ) air tanks that are not rusting through! I still have a little leak though, our mechanic accidentally hooked the leaking drain lanyard back up to the one tank, but it isn't a major problem driving down the road, just sitting overnight it will lose most of the air. And I still have your number, if I get that way, you'll know! Thanks Charlie, and PM me your number, I get up that way from time to time. If I remember correctly, Marlborough is outside Boston, right?? I haven't gone that way yet, but we do have a regular customer in New Hampshire I have picked up at couple times already.

I never thought of it that way JT, and with the lack of all the extra hydraulics, easier to maintain too. I guess in the long run, the wasted space wouldn't be much of a big deal when you take the cost to maintain all the moving parts like on the Revell carrier. That is very similar to the one I seen on the road, too. Maybe I seen it on it's way from Walmart!

It's still one fine piece Tom! I'll give you a little tip for the place where the interior snaps into the cab, just in case you have any more of these in your stash or the Pete 359. I'll usually mask the inside of the windows and snap the interiors into the truck when I paint the outside, then let completely dry, then remove the interior and finish it. That way those pesky snap points are the same color as the cab, and though there will still be a little seam around them, at least they are the same color and finished the same as the rest of the cab. The Pete at least has smaller points and trim around the points on the outside, so I use a little different technique with them. I will put bare metal foil on the tabs and paint the BMF red and BMF the trim on the cab. Instant red work lights!! The same idea for the battery boxes too, a little BMF on the tabs and it hides the snap tabs.

Exactly, just like in my case, I'm driving truck and I don't have the luxury of a smart phone or mobile internet. My schedule means I may not even have time to get internet time at a truckstop. Today I'm lucky, I'm stuck in sunny Florida waiting til Monday to deliver, so I have the luxury of motel WIFI, but even when home, I haven't been getting online. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, if you PM me and I don't get back to you in a month or two, I'm busy making sure you have groceries on your table!

I'm not sure Tom, as it's been a long time since I was in my logger kit, but I do think the instructions offer help in how long and how to build the frame extensions needed for the trailer. If I remember correctly, the extension is not that big and is more or less to "box" the end of the frame rails for the pintle hook to hook the trailer center beam to the tractor.

Yeah Tom, nice job! If you see six million flaws in it, that's 5,999,997 more than I see! The only ones I see are the snap attachment points on the battery boxes and in the rear of the sleeper that are common to this and the sister Pete 359 kit, some seams and sprue attachment points that are hard to hide without a complete rechroming or repainting with Alclad, and still a little hint of the seams in the tires, but that still doesn't mean this looks like one fine build!

Nice start, JT, but let me help in your decision on ramps, NO!! I just happened to see one of these exact style haulers on the big road the other day and it is just like the Revell hauler, it's meant to be just a normal trailer. I have to say, compared to the designs like the Revell hauler where there can at least be a nose of a car on the fifth wheel plate on the lower deck, this one doesn't seem to have been as well thought out. That's why I remember seeing one just like this one the other day, because when I seen it pass me, the first thing that went through my mind was "That seems like a lot of wasted space on the lower deck"! If I do remember correctly though, JT, with a small extension ramp on the top ramps, I think the one I seen had five cars on the top and three on the lower deck.

Well, so much for keeping me moving, I'm enjoying (yeah right!) some down time in Florida. I have had an air leak for a few days but it has been one of those "Where the BLEEP is it coming from!?!?" deals and was going to baby it back to the shop since it was not causing any big deals on the road, just losing air parked while the truck was off at night. Well, I got to our "dropyard" here in FL and the owner of the company met me there and we looked everything over. Well, he tracked it down, a hole rusted in the tank itself! We then came up with a plan to temporarily patch the tank and pick up a load in Ocala, but as I said the other night, that load got cancelled. Sooooooo, the next morning, since my dispatcher couldn't find a load coming back close to the home terminal, the owner (which splits time living in OH and FL) decided he'd have me come back to the FL dropyard and leave my truck there and use his truck that he was going to deliver the load to Miami with Monday so he can get a new air tank on my truck and I can deliver the load. So I had to leave my baby behind and have his truck (and mine is better ) and dispatch said get a motel room for last night and tonight before delivering in the morning. At least I did meet the owner finally, he's a really nice guy and even was telling me how to get to the beach if I wanted to spend a little bit of time there while I'm here! Hopefully by the time the I deliver in the morning and probably reload something back to the north, the boss will have my baby done and ready for me to head home.

Awww, sounds like little Jakey woke up on the wrong side of the sleeper that morning!! I think in my whole 15 1/2 years I've spent driving a truck, this might be the first time that I have ever been called a renegade trucker. I guess that's the price I pay for having chicken lights and chrome! I guess that means all renegade truckers have over a million accident free miles (100,000 safe driving award from Werner Enterprise during my time there), obey the posted speed limits, haven't had a ticket of any sort in any type of vehicle for going on 10 or 12 years now, and have NEVER had a log book violation or any other DOT violation through their career. I was joking with Wayne and Marshall because we have all worked for Werner Enterprises, the originator of electronic logs! I just don't have their stupid Qualcomm looking over my shoulder anymore, and it's nice to have no one telling me how to drive my truck. If taking time wasted at a shipper or receiver out to add a little time I know I can still make driving and making it another 100 or so miles down the road for the day is so wrong in your eyes, then so be it, but any "creative writing" I may do is because I know I can do it, not to benefit the company and put anyone, including myself, in danger. I'm tired, I stop, simple as that. I don't keep pushing myself beyond my limit. There just might be times my limit and the 14 hr clock have different ending times. Thanks, Marshall, and just as it says in my signature line, "If you bought it, a truck brought it" and "Without trucks, America stops"! I'm from the old school, if I see a driver needing help sliding tandems, I offer. The new breed of driver nowadays sometimes makes me embarrassed to say I'm a trucker, because a very large number don't even have the courtesy to flash their lights or say on the CB "bring it over, you missed me" or even move over for a broke down four wheeler or big truck on the shoulder. When I started driving in 98, it was fun out here, but now it's just a job divided between the old school driver that is disappearing and the new school that just out for themselves. Oh well.....

That would be embarrassing Wayne, but you forgot JB!! I need to see if I can get mine turned up some too, especially on the power side, because I don't think the old girl is giving me everything she can. I have a twin turbo 465 Cat and I've driven 470 and 500 Detroits that would outpull this thing! I'm usually loaded with over 40,000 lbs and unless I keep the rubber bands tight, she won't pull a hill for nothing. Some more speed would be nice too, some of the trucks are wide open and this could be a triple digit truck if it wanted to be, but even 70 or 75 would suit me fine. Even at 68, I still have enough to pass them slow Werner trucks!! Also, on the ironic side, tonight's internet break comes from the Petro in Reddick, FL! I was just in your neck of the woods at a little drop yard we have in Palm Coast, and then they sent me over here to pick up a load that cancelled after I was almost here. So now I'm just hanging out until morning for them to find me something to head me back to the OH yard and get the truck in the shop for some repairs and service.

I honestly have to say Chucky, you hit the nail straight on the head. Even though I have been in way over my fair share of those not so glamorous fleet prime movers, I prefer the Lonestar over the Prostar just because I like the flashier owner operator rig. That is even the case at my current job, the very small fleet I currently drive for has a mix of Freightliner Columbias, International Prostars, and International 9900i's, and a few 9400s. I'm happy they put me in a 9900i rather than the Prostar, even though my truck has 687,977 miles as of tonight in Ocala, FL and is an 06 model, not to mention a small casket midroof sleeper. Sure, the Prostar would probably turn much tighter, be more roomy, and they do look nice, the company has them all painted white with blue fenders, they don't fit my personal preference. Now will that stop me from buying the Prostar kit, no. I may even buy two, one to go with my Lonestar and one to do as a company truck and give to the company to display in the office. Of course, I have also thought of buying and building a Lonestar for them too, and telling them that my next truck can be just like the model!!