Rockford

Excellent job so far. Sorry to hear about your treatment, hope it does the trick without too much hardship.

What a great little unsung hero. You've done a great job on this, very tidy. These were good looking trucks. Liked the integrated sleeper they did too, bit of a predecessor to today's equipment.

That's looking great mate. Well done. Looking forward to seeing it all come together.

Some great touches there! Why don't you try polishing your tanks? I'd use wire wool then Solvol Autosol metal polish for chrome bumpers etc... works great. Would look sharp and no painting.

Good idea on the flap mount bars because if they get caught on anything (which they always do) they can move instead of snapping. That's why I modify mine. The kit versions are too fragile.

You put such effort into every little piece of this build! Just fantastic, Professor.

So that's 4ft of boom to accommodate wherever you display this behemoth! That's going to take some space! I appreciate your dedication to this build, it's remarkable!

Excellent work. Looks impressive.

Good looking build there mate.

Clever stuff mate. Onward and upwards, as ever.

So well done, excellent scratchbuilding, inspirational.

Got sick of looking at the missing roof so used the offcuts of the Aerodyne cap to fill the void. Once it's hardened up I'll get filling and sanding, filling and sanding, filling and sanding. At least it looks whole now.

Finished my transmission. Just shaped little bits of plastic shrapnel to form the range-change and splitter cylinders and the remote shift housing. Quite happy with it. Used the one from the LTL9000 and some photos from the interwebs for reference.

I know exactly what you mean.

Stay drunk for a few days so you can't function.

Just fantastic work!

Just brilliant stuff. The hood is already better than any paint job I've ever done.

Great idea on the beads for lights. I'm might look for some myself. Nice paint jobs, just steel yourself to stay away from them now, I never can.

Isn't that something else!?

The shortening of the cab exposes what passes for a transmission in these kits, it's just a relief of the lower edge which is ok in the as-built configuration. I wanted a more realistic appearance so cut the kit piece out. I was going to try and use it for this stage but it's so poor that I ditched it and used the one from the Peterbilt 352 Caboverdose. That one isn't brilliant but it is much more in proportion. I levelled the top surface and then built up layers of offcuts, there's a piece of red chassis and two black mudflaps in the main casing, then a little tower of chassis & cab shrapnel for the bell housing. Bit of filing and shaping, added a top cover and it looks like a Fuller. A few added details to the rear casing, then a selector housing and we're done!

All very well done. This will be really impressive when you complete it.

What a brilliant "bin wagon" as we call them in UK. Well done.

The utter brilliance continues!

Impressive scratchbuilding here! Such an involved project. It's fascinating to watch.

Had a proper session at the bench yesterday. Got my wheels painted so they look like whole units. Cut the transmission out for remodelling. I only want one exhaust stack so cut the air intake out of the frame and mounted one from a 352 where the second stack was. Then i had to replace the missing support bars with brass tube. The frame for the intake and exhaust clips to the backmof the cab on this kit, so I made brackets and chassis mounted it as per the real thing. Spent a few hours rounding off some 1mm square rod, slicing it into tiny flakes, dropping them and crawling around on the floor looking for them and gluing them to the chassis as bolt heads. Helps the appearance no end. I wanted the rear of the frame to be left open like i did with Sundance so I made some upright sockets for the mudflap mounts and put my mudflaps on a chunky paperclip. Finally I filled and sanded the frame where there were sink holes etc... and rounded off the top and bottom edges of the frame rails. Not sure what I'm doing with fuel tanks yet, they're just for posing.