Rockford

Boards look good. I used exactly the same on my 1/32 flatbed. The natural difference between the beards is realistic. I used black duct tape on mine to bind them together, made them easier to handle.

How are you going to do the white pinstripe around the front fender opening? I'm thinking about it on my 1/32 Aerodyne and I'm not sure what approach to adopt. Do your decals have them on the sheet?

You've put together just the right mix of parts to capture the 'look' of the actual truck. It sits right, the wheels and tyres go well, really well done. I can almost hear Sonny moaning at Will "I've gotta make the payments on my truck!"

1993! Wow, that's some stalled project. It spans two centuries. The tree your popsicle sticks are taken from wasn't even planted then. Well done for getting it going again. It will look good with the real wood decking.

Tanks look very realistic, I've never heard of the paint you used. Straps are good too. Good to see some plumbing going on too. You realise how old a truck this kit is depicting when you see those fuel filler necks. In the early 70s they went to the recessed type of fuel filler. Cue Force with the day and date... ?

AMT instructions, wrong!? Never! Looks great though. The ali on the tanks looks very realistic, that's why I thought you'd taped them. I saw someone did a box van with ali duct tape on the site.

Built my second brake chamber and actuator assembly for the opposite side. Fitted them to the brackets I attached to the stub axle. Look ok. Then I realised that I should have just said that this was a 'no front brakes' truck and I could have saved my energies.

I was watching an episode of Movin'On the other day and I noticed something I've never seen before. The mudflaps used to come and go throughout each episode but in the episode 'Fraud', they uncoupled from the trailer (that was so obviously going to suffer some disaster because it was old and white, not their usual silver Fruehauf box), and the mudflaps were stowed behind the fuel tanks in a similar way to how they'd be at the rear of the chassis. They must have added extra brackets so that they could just pick them out of the rear ones and move them forward, otherwise they'd probably get lost. I'm not saying that you need to do this, I'm just expressing how unbelievably boring I can be.

Hang on, these tanks have moulded-in straps don't they? So I'm assuming you have rubbed them out, but what have you wrapped the barrel of the tank with? Looks like ali tape. You're hiding your light under a bushel mate. Please, do tell.

Looks great, a faithful old workhorse, used and abused. Well done.

Just, wow, really.

Looks great to me! Paint is my nemesis, I hate it. Your results look excellent.

Your usual brilliant work sir!

Opening the hood on this truck has caused a lot of work, piping, a whole engine, radiator, steering etc... but it's also made the atrocious Monogram hollow tyres all too obvious. They're normally hidden in the dark under the cab but not here, what to do? I only have one spare Monogram tyre so that's a non-starter. However, I do have about twenty spare AMT tyres. I tested sizes and an idea ? came to mind. Using a marker pen as a spindle I cut a sidewall off a tyre. It dropped straight into the Monogram piece. With a little trimming it sat down well. Then I took an AMT inner and wheel and filed it until the backplate came off and it was just a rim. Glued it all in place. Looks ok. Not perfect but it's better than the original mess. Once painted they should blend in better. Turned my attention to the front brakes. Turned a chamber out of chubby sprue and used 0.5mm wire for the clamp ring. Cut a bracket from 90° angle and 2.3mm hollow tube. Shaped a slack adjuster from scrap. Just waiting for it all to set before I fit it.

Looks great, you'd never imagine that's scratch built!

Now my trailer fix is quelled for the time being (I've just bought two more, what's wrong with me!?), I turned my attention back to the W900. Just did some necessary things that don't really stand out but make me feel better. I added the brace from the firewall to the radiator and the hood supports on the firewall. To simulate the main loom into the cab I bound about 20 lengths of cotton together so it looks suitably messy. Added heater hoses and hoses to the water filter. I tried making mirror arms from aluminium wire but they were a mess so I'm going to resort to using the mirror arms off the Snaptite T600.

Nice clean looking rig. I do like the Fords of this era, including the cabovers, very much underappreciated.

Here is the Monogram Fruehauf Reefer from my 'Two Reefer Trailers' WIP where I finally worked out where the ride height problem lay. Another plain white box. I can't bring myself to livery them up, I love the stark white sides and anonymous look. I'm thinking of something though. This unit doesn't require as much fettling as the AMT Trailmobile but a few things did help. I made the landing gear operative, altered the reefer from the 'aero' version to the old metal casing Thermo King NWD30 sort of thing and printed relevant decals, added airlines too.

Just looks fantastic! All your hard work has been rewarded. I especially like the different metal finishes you have, as things would be in real life. This is really a kit to be proud of. I wish I had the money, the room, the skills, patience and the time to do something like this myself. Other than lacking those things I've got it sorted! Next question is... any trailers on the horizon? PS: where did the Titan90 come from?

Thanks for all your kind comments gents. As I've said before, I love the plain white or silver van trailer, such a staple of the American trucking industry. This kit is on eBay quite frequently. It's cheapest from the model railway suppliers who sell the version that came with the Volvo N10 tractor. They sell it as a piggyback unit. I'd like one of those kits but the shipping and customs charges to the UK just price it out of reach. I wouldn't advise anyone to venture into 1/32 if you don't have to though, stick with 1/25, you're in a much better place with that scale. It does seem that the golden age of trucking coincided with the golden age of truck modelling. The majority of what you see on websites such as this are kits manufactured or engineered in the late 70s or early 80s. That's my era, I left school in 1980 and went to work for a fleet of 200 trucks in Liverpool, UK. I just don't get as excited by the modern stuff, as superior as it is, it just doesn't have that brutal beauty of the older stuff.

Good start. Nice Cummins. Looking forward to your updates. This is one of the few 1/25 kits I hope to build. It was my first 1/25 kit about 45 years ago. Didn't know what I was doing.

Great looking fleet truck. I like the cut-off front bumper. So many fleets did that. I believe they thought it helped fuel mileage.

Very nice and very different!

Very sharp build. Like the trailer too.

Finally finished something, one of my two reefers I started last year. This is the AMT Snap-Fit reefer trailer. It's typical AMT fayre in that it's awful in many ways but the subject matter makes it still worth the effort. The sides of the box are fantastic, all the rivets and beading is so well cast, mesmerising! The rub-on decals are a new thing to me. I only used the licence plate. Altered the spacing of the rear axles to sort the underscale issue with the tyres, also narrowed the track. Made mudflaps from electrical tape. Dropped the ride height. Added working landing legs. Added marker lights all around. Did someone plumbing on the rear tandems and the reefer including the repeater lights for the driver's mirror. Added some decals I drew up on the laptop.