muleskinner

I am Bill Bitner's father who built the self loader and gave it to him on his birthday, which he built onto the International ERTL model truck. I have an interest in old loaders, yarders, skidders and such which were used in the logging areas of the Pacific Northwest.

Being someone who has worked in the woods as a logger, driven various types of trucks and was raised most of his life around this type of equipment I decided to take up the art of Scratch building these units, as they are, a vanishing breed around the Pacific Northwest and other areas of the country due to the economy, environmental impact, and other incursions which have almost brought the logging industry to a complete stand still and sent it spiraling into the annals of the History books.

Most of the models which I build are in the scale of 1/25th, but I have built down as far as "N" gauge, as like my son I am also an N Guage model railroader, building mostly in Nn3 narrow guage, with the use of Z Guage conversion to N Guage scale.