Rockford

That's a great looking truck. You're doing great work here.

An admirable project. That's small! I'd be scared of dropping it and losing it. I seem to spend 50% of my modelling time looking for things I've dropped.

Interesting subject. I've done similar to diecast cars, adding plug wires etc...

Great build, love the weathering.

That's just amazing work, really impressive stuff.

I said I wasn't going to try again but I did. Printed another set of Winslow stripes, removed the decals I put on last time and hoped it would work. As soon as they hit the water the ink started breaking up in places. Some of it stayed perfect though. The parts that cracked were no longer colour fast, when I touched them against another piece of paper the colour came right off. I think I've got a duff sheet of decal paper so I'm going to see if I can get another sheet from a different source.

Carried on with the wheels today. I used my motor tool with a round stone on to rub the filler down, then gave them about three coats of Tamiya white gloss. Overall result is acceptable. I much prefer the look of the two-hole wheels. Just got to try and find the front bumper now. Can't for the life of me remember what I did with it. The Bison is pictured with the AMT dry van. I added Monogram wheels to this because I got sick of the AMT wheels being so out of scale small. It looks much meatier with proper sized wheels and tyres. The AMT tyres are really well formed and meticulously detailed but they're just too small. They make the trailer look like a roller skate. Moving the axles closer together would sort the look with the original wheels but I'm not taking the risk of trying to separate axles from running gear now.

I've used the template and gelpen method on 1/25 vinyl tyres before now with very good results. Takes practice mind. I don't see why it wouldn't work on 1/32 provided you have the right surface to draw on. I assume you'll be painting the tyre, and I think you'd be ok with a semi matt or matt finish.

I wonder if someone could assist me please? If anyone has what was the old ERTL 40ft Great Dane reefer trailer [I believe it's now sold as an AMT piece], could they measure the dimensions of the reefer unit please, as in the attached drawing? I want to build the old Sentry type of Thermo King unit in 1/32 but wherever I look I can't really find photos that I can scale to measure from. If you could just list the dimensions A to F, that would be great. Sorry to be awkward but I dont want the old style reefer on the original AMT Fruehauf trailer that's been reissued in Coca-Cola colours [other carbonated soft drinks are available], it has to be the Thermo King on the Great Dane. I've attached pictures of the kit I'm talking about. Wish I had one, beautiful kit. Thanks for your help lads.

I emailed Bare Metal and asked if they could advise me on a possible solution. Randy emailed me back in just a few hours, on a Sunday!!! How's that for customer service? He suggested that I'd brushed the liquid decal film on too heavily which has bonded the decal to the backing paper. I never thought that could happen. I might try again.... Glutton for punishment.

To take my mind off the Peterbilt Winslow stripes failure I did some work on the Bison. I built a driveshaft to accommodate the shorter wheelbase. I used various diameter plastic tube over an aluminium tube core. I also decided to make the rear wheels two-hole Budd wheels instead of ten-hole aluminium pieces. I used my motor tool to run two holes into one. I cleaned the shape up with a small half-round file. In the photo the top hole is the raw version, the bottom one is after dressing. Then I filled the remaining six holes from the back of the wheel and just flattened the filler down at the front. I'll rub it down once it's set.

Sorry I haven't replied to your kind comments gents but I've been a bit distracted the last few weeks. You're all very kind. I tried another set of Winslow stripes but they failed again so I added a company decal I drew up on Microsoft Word. That's it with this truck, every time I strip it to try applying the stripes I cause damage so I'm definitely calling it done now.

I've admitted defeat on the stripes. I bought the liquid decal film to match the paper, printed my stripes also some company and mudflap logos I drew up. Gave it two coats of decal film as per instructions and let it dry overnight. First I tried my logos and while they took a bit of getting off the backing paper they went on great. So, time to try the stripes. As soon as they went into the water the black started lifting. Then the dark red started showing patches of white before I'd touched it. I had to throw it out. I used some company logos I'd drawn up myself and they went on great. I don't understand it, why are some ok and others not? Is it the black ink? It can't be as the mudflap logos are almost all black and they're fine! My printer is a Canon inkjet 3100. Is it certain colours? There's yellow and red in the logo I used on the Pete and that is perfect. Maybe the stuff is just not cut out for big decals, I don't know. I've emailed Bare Metal to see if they can shed any light on the situation. It's academic anyway because I can't touch the Pete again. I broke the step and both mirrors stripping it to apply the stripes. I can't risk stripping it again. Maybe it's time to start masking and painting different colours.

New day, new start. I've put too much work into these Winslow stripes to just give in so I'm going to buy the proper decal sealer and have another go. It just looks too good with them. I'm also going to try printing the decal in a two stage process to eliminate that colour shifting you can see in the photos. To build confidence I've gone ahead with applying the blue stripe I printed at the same time for my old 352 that I built in lockdown. I cut around the vent in the door this time so I only needed to use setting solution on the door hinges and lockers. It is a very simple stripe but it worked, it transforms the look of the truck and I feel better about trying on the other truck. Apologies for the terrible protective tablecloth.

What a brilliant looking truck. The story adds so much too! Excellent stuff.

Beautiful truck. I remember when an F10 was the truck to beat. I also remember the little Michelin men on mirror arms. Really nice build.

Thanks mate. I'm sure I'll calm down. I was probably a little too ambitious thinking I could do a full stripe set. There's so many features the decal has to conform to. I might get some of the proper Microsol sealer and try on another truck, but I've decided to leave this one alone.

This is as finished as it's gonna get. I did intend a set of Winslow stripes but they didn't come off so another plain Jane tractor. Lot of alterations and scratch building has gone into this, it started out as the Monogram 1/32 Snaptite kit. I wanted it to look like the AMT 352 Pacemaker truck and I'm fairly happy that I've achieved that look. If you want to see the work that went in to getting this far, please look in the On The Workbench section, I won't bore you with the list.

Well, my Winslow stripes looked like they were going to work. Got the passenger side on ok but the driver's side just went to pieces. The setting solution softened the decal but started leeching the ink out and the black outline started crumbling. I suppose using Tamiya clear to seal the ink wasn't the best move. Incompatible with the setting solution and the decal paper. So I peeled it back off and thought I'll just leave the name on the doors "Ozark Trucking" but then I lost one of the Ozarks!!!!!!! It was all I could do not to throw the cab across the room. Yet another anonymous, stripeless truck. I then fitted the cab steps and broke one. Fixed with super glue but close to deciding this is my last model. I'll post it in Under Glass because any more faffing around and I'll break something else.

Very nice work. Mr Kent and Mr Worthington would be impressed.

That's impressive work. Unbelievable detail!

I've been trying a couple of graphics packages to draw up my Winslow stripes for this truck and I've got nowhere. I can draw rectangles and that's about it. Previously I'd tried using Microsoft Paint, the old program but I wasn't happy with the results, you could see the pixelated steps in the diagonal lines. I used the same program to do the Trailmobile mudflap decals and I noticed that you couldn't see the pixels on those. It was because I'd massively reduced them on printing so they fooled the eye. Why not do the same on my Winslows? I drew a set of stripes as big as I could and then printed them at 32% original size. Then I flipped the image and printed the other side, just altered the margins on the paper so it missed the first image. Results are ok, good enough for me to use. I'm using clear decal paper because the paintwork is white, to get the use out of the sheet I also drew up some plain blue stripes for another truck. I want to let them dry thoroughly, then clear them with a Tamiya rattle can and then let's see how they look on the truck(s). I know you can buy decals but on e you get them shipped to GB they start getting expensive. I've enjoyed messing around on the computer.

Thank Jim Don't beat yourself up mate, I've been working on these two since February! Headache rack? Not sure yet. Long in the distance at the moment.

Now that the flatbed is on hold I decided to deal with something that's been bothering me. The daycab Bison looked good with the long chassis but that wouldn't be the usual thing for a workaday truck, which is what I build, I'm not a showtruck builder. I looked on the interwebs at GMC Generals for sale and looked at the wheelbases. Converting them to 1/32 scale gave a smallest figure of 4.9 inches:- I decided that was too small even for me. I tried 6inches:- Too long, I settled for 5.5 inches which was the Goldilocks figure for me:- This meant cutting 36mm out of the chassis, (Forgive me for switching between imperial and metric) and losing my beautiful hand built driveshaft. I decided to use the driveshaft on my GMC General which has only ever had most of one because it was a used kit off eBay, so it didn't go to waste. I made the cut and fitted some fillets for strength. Added quarter fenders. Looks a proper little chunky monkey now. Still a lot of work to do here but I'm so glad I did this, it looks just right. before I went any further.

Nice job, Marmon cabover next?