Rockford

Love these old 'shakers. Such a shame the big fleets like CF have disappeared.

Very tidy job you've made of that. It's going to look great. It's a very rewarding thing making something from scratch isn't it?

You're doing a great job on this kit, just as you did on the Transtar. It will be an impressive and distinctive truck when it's finished.

That's looking great mate. You're right, it is finally good weather for painting over here in GB. I'm sure your paint job will turn out great.

Today's project:- scratchbuilt a radiator. I used the AMT 1/25 kit for reference, also searched for 1980 W900 radiators for sale and truck auction sites. Used plastic card mainly and built it up in layers. Had to notch the bottom corners to get round the hood brackets. Header tank is 4 layers of card with one slightly proud to form the seam. Opened the hole in the fan shroud and inserted the edge of the cowling. Looks ok and the hood still closes.

I keep looking for updates on this project. Good to see the colour going on! Can't wait to see it finished. Force makes a good point, that it is practically impossible to form an opinion on a colour from the TV screen or stills, probably because there was so much intense artificial lighting being used. Sometimes it looks really dark green and other times there's a like a golden tinge in the colour. Yours does look great though. Keep up the good work.

After all my work yesterday I went to bed and started checking some things on the interwebs and found that I'd made the hood inserts the wrong shape. I'd copied the AMT 1/25 shape but looking at Twinsticks Garage's truck I realised that the line sloping inward is straight. So, 6:30am Sunday morning whilst making breakfast I removed the wrong ones, cut some new ones and got them fitted. TBH it will make shaping the hood easier, looking at the real things there's a gap between the bottom of the hood and the cab. The insert fills the gap.

Terrifying day today, I could not put off separating the hood from the cab any longer. I could ruin my all my work if I get it wrong! Carefully made the cut with my razor saw. I just cut straight because I knew the inserts for the air filters would have to be made up anew. I removed the inserts from the hood and, cut new ones from card and attached them to the cab. Added a drip rail to the top of the firewall. I'll have to trim the lower rear of the hood so that it passes the air trunking ok as it tilts. AMT didn't anticipate the hood tilting so the angle is a little too sharp. Fabbed some engine mounts and dropped the Cummins into place. Looks great! The hood closes almost perfectly. I might just have to raise one cab nount a touch to get spot on alignment. With the bumper and grille in place the hood tilts to the perfect 90 degree position.

The tyres on the Revell kit are indeed unbelievably bad. Hard to conceive how someone could look at that in the factory and say they approved of it for production. It's not as if they've never seen a tyre before is it? This build is becoming an epic! Great work and well done for detailing your steps. You keep saying that you're a novice, well in choice of kit only, your abilities are excellent.

You're giving this your best efforts. Great to be able to print your own stuff to sort the problems out.

This is one worth watching.

Trying to be methodical in my approach to opening the hood. I carefully trimmed the cab mounts I'd fitted until they just sat on the cab floor. I then cut the fronts off and glued the bottom piece to the chassis. This ensured that the cab assembly sat level supported from front to back. I then glued 2.3mm tube in place, two on the hood, two on the chassis, and pinned them together using a large paperclip. The theory is, when I part the hood from the cab it should be correctly aligned. It's a bit terrifying but if it goes pear shaped I can always glue it back together and use my Cummins elsewhere.

Thanks sir, I'm sort of resigned to 1/32 because of space constraints but I do enjoy the challenge of making these things credible. I'd much rather work in 1/24 or 1/25, so much more choice.

Thanks Ben, can't wait to see your 1/32 build. We're a small group.

Thanks Ben Next job, back to the W900 and work out how to open up the hood and keep it looking straight.

Thanks Justin Although I have to jump through hoops to make these snappers look half decent they build square and straight which apparently, the AMT General or Bison doesn't, but many seem to end up looking good. I hope yours comes together ok. I built one nearly 40 years ago and was always very proud of it, but it's too long ago to recall what issues I had with it.

The daycab of my two Bisons is all but done. Added my licence plates and bingo plate, rear lights, got the sunvisor to fit by shaping it around the three middle clearance lights, piped in my luberfiner, added some perforation decals I'd drawn up to the heat shields, and greased my fifth wheel (because a clean one ain't making any money!). He's already been busy with various loads. I've got to give it some badges on the hood and a company name. I've sat him next to his brother Longshanks, who he donated his sleeper to.

Scary moment today. Took a cut-off wheel to the cast-in sump on the chassis. Cut went well. Dropped my Cummins in and it fits really well. Cab still goes on ok. Can't believe I've now got a 1/32 truck with a complete engine! Now I've got to fine tune the cab mounts and build a set of hood pivots that I can position before I part the two. Hopefully the cab and hood will remain aligned.

Thanks very much. I did similar with this. Started with a basic box and built layer upon layer. I'd like to see your KTA.

How's that for 3D printing!? All I did was type in 'Bison' and hit 'Ctrl+P' and look what happened! Anyway, enough garbage from me. Here's one of my Bisons on the cusp of completion. There was a visor I made for it but for some reason it no longer fits. Mind you, it looks good without, one of the few trucks that do. The other is the R Series Mack. Got a bit of fogging on the rear window from the superglue but never mind. Made up airlines out of elastic thread, draped them over the pogo stick and then used super glue to fix them. Added a grab rail from a paperclip. Just a few final pieces like license plates and rear lamps. I might put decals on the heatshields to mimic the perforations. I'm glad to have brought it back from ruination and got him back on the road again.

Looks like I'm committed to doing so now. I'll have to open up the chassis first and seat it in there, then work out my clearances etc... I can't believe I've been working on this truck since February!

Oh, that does look good. Like the grill work.

Now starting to fit everything. Had to use BMF on the grille shell and headlight bezels because they had gone black in the sun. That ultra bright chrome BMF is not easy to use and not the greatest when it comes to adhering, but I managed it. Added a white stripe cut from a leftover decal sheet to part the gold and the brown. Added my rear drive hubs. Test fitted the stacks. I'm fairly happy with it.

Thanks gents. I think you will see that I put it in Under Glass because it has taken on a life of it's own as a sub-project. I just thought I'd better post a "finished" picture here. So now it disappears under the hood of my W900 never to be seen again.

Thanks for your kind comments lads. I still look at it and think "did I do that?"