KJ790

Haha, yeah but Gary is a busy guy. I know how it goes, my latest build took a couple years to complete. I know Gary is a very busy, and Jeff has been working on other builds along the way (he has posted a few on here recently). I know Gary is still working on it because he had me design the tires for it 3 months ago, and the other day I saw the mixer barrel for it.

The turnout looked to be a little smaller than last year, I think the weather kept a few people from coming out. There were only about 30 big rigs. I asked Gary about the mixer, he laughed and said he's still working on it.

The show was great today! Lots of great builds and good company. The weather held out between Utica and Syracuse at least so my drive wasn't bad at all.

It was pretty common on the two stroke detroits. The supercharger was necessary for the engine to start (since air had to be forced into the engine right from the turn of the key), and the turbocharger was used to increase power. The turbo charged engines were designated with a "T" at the end (such as 8V92T). A "TA" on the end meant it had a turbo and was after-cooled.

I did it once. I took the V8 from a GMC astro kit, added a turbo from my parts box and dropped it into a snap kit Peterbilt 359. I will have to get some pictures later.

The rims are from the Can-Do kit thanks to Mike77 on this forum. The tires are my own which I sell through http://kdhumphr.wix.com/double-take-replicas

All of these heavy hauler builds lately has me itching for a build. I need something to pull the lowboy I just finished, so I thought I would make a heavy hauler from a snap Pete. I am thinking I will cut it down to a daycab, add a drop axle, move the fuel tanks forward, maybe even modify the cab and hood to be a short hood 379. One thing I need to decide is what tires I want to use on the front, Highway tread: Or a heavy duty offroad tread:

Not yet. I will have this one there at my table. I just ordered a bunch of frame rails yesterday, they should take a few weeks to get to me. Jerry Reeter from modeltruckin.com has also agreed to make a set of decals to go with it.

The pricing was on the first page of this topic:

I am waiting on new masters for the brake drums and tires, I'm not happy with the ones that I used for this build. I should have those in 2 weeks. At the same time, I am going on vacation for a week to visit my father in Florida. When I return I will be making molds for the brake drums and tires, and will start casting. My plan is to have some kits ready to ship around the end of March to early April. I have started casting some of the other pieces when I get free time to get ahead a little bit.

I do not have any fenders for it, those are just extra D-rings for chains to hook to between each wheel. It would be very easy to put fenders covering the wheels using some flat styrene though. Diamond plate styrene sheet would look great there!

As of right now there is no hydraulic detail in the detachable neck. As I mentioned earlier, I had to leave some details out to keep cost down. I plan on offering that as an additional item that can be purchased separately if the builder chooses so. This leaves 3 options, buy it as an add-on, build your own detail the way you want, or box the area in with covers like many trailer have to hide the hydraulics.

I'm actually working with Jerry Reeter from Modeltruckin.com on some decals to go with this. So there is now a chance that I may have some decals to go with it.

Tyrone Malone Bandag tires are being cast now!

I already have 1/25 low profile tires. I have had a lot of requests for 1/16 low pro tires, but I'm not sure that I can make them for the price that people want to pay. Urethane rubber is pretty expensive, much more so than resin. For a 1/25 scale tire it isn't bad, but for a 1/16 scale tire you end up using a lot more rubber per tire. By the time I cover the cost of material, the cost of the master, and the cost of the mold there wouldn't be much room to cover the labor in making them. I feel like $4.50 per tire would be about as low as I would be able to go, and I'm not sure if people would pay that.

Go to truckpaper.com and look at what is for sale. A lot of them have good interior photos.

Decals most likely won't be included unless I can hook up a deal with someone who can print them for me. For this trailer I used O-line reflective tape and a few warning decals I had left over from some Moebius builds.

I just put a kenworth K123 model on the deck and nothing flexed at all, so it is good for that much weight. I wouldn't put a dicast model or anything really heavy on it without some reinforcement or support under the front.

The deck itself is pretty stiff since it is all I-beam construction. The weakest part is where the neck detaches from the main frame rails. It would be easy to support it here on the main frame rails without being visible. If you glue it together so that the neck no longer detaches then it might be a little stronger too.

Still have a few finishing touches to make, but it got above 0 degrees today and I had to take advantage of the heat wave:

That would be great Jim.

Not for a few weeks. There are a few parts that I want to remaster and make new molds of, and I am going on vacation for the first week of March. Once I return from vacation I will get to work again and start putting kits together. I hope to have them for sale by the end of March.

Almost done, just have a few more details to finish up. I decided to shoot some pics with 2-hole rims as well as 10-hole alcoas.

Can anyone measure what size the tires need to be? I may already be casting tires that will work. They are for a 17.5" rim in 1/25 scale, so that would work out to about the right diameter rim in 1/32 scale. However, I need to know what width you guys are looking for.