Rockford

The piano hinges do work but I can imagine it would be a tremendous task with all the doors you have there.

Been there, or put it in a box and shelve it because just to look at the thing gives you a nosebleed! You didn't give up though and look at the results. Great looking combination.

By the way, I look at my models and am disappointed, we all see the flaws, not the good bits.

I'm pretty much a blank sheet on 3D printing so I have nothing to offer other than I suppose you need to start with the best surface finish you can get. I know there's different media you can use, each with their pros and cons. I really admire your work Jurgen [almost to the point of envy!], your Peterbilt looks like a Peterbilt! You created it yourself and you can go pretty much anywhere you want within the hobby, all I can do is butcher someone else's work to make a variation on their theme so you're miles ahead of me. Keep going, you add more to each build you do.

Impressive work! Great looking company rig. I can only imagine the stress and struggle you had to get it looking that straight and clean.

They look excellent quality, ready to paint right from printer! Is there masses of clean up to do to get to that stage?

Looking great, keep up the good work.

Very good idea, making the conversion. Looking at your previous job it will be a clean looking Job. Twinsticks on YouTube loves Hayes rigs and Mike the Truck Nut on YT, his dad had one doing logging in BC. I'll read the history on the company later. I have family in BC so I always like the connection.

On a separate note, use Tamiya masking tape! I've just gone to put new socks on and look what was stuck on the bottom of one of them, a piece of Tamiya masking tape! It survived the washing machine so it will easily cope with keeping paint at bay.

I think it looks the business with the AMT Trailmobile reefer behind it.

Right, I've got this to the point of paint, so I'll have to firstly, work out what colour I'm going to paint it and then wait for suitable conditions. At the moment it's very damp and cold here in Blighty. This kit is quite poor in rendering the Freightliner cab, but with the mods I've done it is much better, still not right but definitely looking more like a Freightliner. I reversed the cab lock handles because every truck I've seen has them pointing down when locked and I'm beginning to think that the only one that has them pointing up is the AMT kit and that's where I must have seen it. The linkages are very fragile so I'll attach them immediately before I paint. Also made a visor out of ali sheet. Roughed up the tyres removed the mould separation line in the tread. Started painting the interior with a Humbrol Matt colour and it is awful stuff. Stirred it for ages and it's still watery and refusing to dry. I'll just have to be patient and recoat a few times. If the weather stays garbage I'll have to think of something else to start. ?

Nice little touch!

Your builds always put a smile on my face! You're so inventive and fearless. The chrome does look really good. I've used it over grey primer with fairly good results but I may add that coat of black in future and see what it does. Are you thinking of a trailer for this?

Grand little kit is this. Going to look good.

Wow. It's such a brilliant design it's not going away soon. Ed Cole used his experience from Cadillac to improve the design of the Chevy V8 and look what happened! It's a beautiful piece of engineering. I am fortunate here in the UK to own one and I often look at it and in awe, what a design.

Good idea.

Brilliant paint finish. Are you making it a daycab tractor?

Nice shovel. Are you going to weather it?

This video has some pictures of the steering box at about 23 minutes. It looks like a non-power steering box on the kit so it doesn't look exactly like the one in the video because it has power assistance. It's added to the top of the box where the yoke from the column enter the box.

You are charging along with this one mate, excellent job.

Stacks will look great, should really enhance the looks.

Must be strange attacking something you've had all those years. Seems like it came apart ok. This is your penance then.... Cab looks great. Did you strip it back to bare plastic, polish what was already there or overcoat it?

That's a proper factory paint scheme isn't it! USA trucks looked great then. Excellent job.

You're welcome. I've since found out that it's a 1954 Lorain MC540 so it is 40 ton, as I thought. How it ended up in Douglas IOM I really can't imagine. There's some close up photos on Flicker from 2011 so it's been there for some time and still appears to be mobile, they move it around the island for boat lifts. I've added a few more photos of Douglas for you. The prom and the harbour. We go every year for a meeting so I don't take many photos. We had blistering sunshine Friday and Saturday then on Sunday our plane couldn't take off because of the severe gales across the runway at Ronaldsway airport.

I was in the Isle of Man this weekend, it was fantastic weather for the first time in ages, but walking along the harbour in Douglas, the capital I spied this on the quayside. Couldn't really get any closer as the dear wife wasn't cooperative. I know it's a Lorain of about 35-40 ton capacity by the number of axles, but other than that, I'm an ignoramus. It's one of the many old cranes left on a quayside for lifting boats about. A company called Woolfendens in Liverpool had a few Lorains in the 60s and 70s, I can only imagine they were ex US military based in the UK.