fractalign

I do have a photo bucket site although I have not used it since last year, I am either looking at using file size reducing software, or re using my photobucket account. What ever is easier.

This is a shot of the rear wheel. Unfortunately this is the only photo I was able to upload. The uploader has blocked all my other attempts to upload tonight. It claims all the files are too big despite uploading bigger files on previous occasions. Not sure what I will do if this problem can not be rectified. I hope the problem can be sorted out as I had a lot more to show. Since it is blocking all my attempts at uploading any other images, I will describe what I have done. The wheel in the image is a new master. I was able to mould the other master yesterday and a cast a couple of wheels. I was reworking the master this morning due to some flaws around the rim and the shape of the holes. I ended up damaging it due to the under coat weakening the structure. Rather than try and repair it, I took one of the casts and machined it down until it sat neatly in the tyre. I was originally going to have two masters. The male with the lugs and the female with the holes to allow the lugs to slot in and lock both wheels in place. In the end I released I could use the one wheel by simply changing around the lugs them selves. The hub in the centre will be placed on the top of the wheel when it comes time to mould it. Once that is done, I will mould it the way it appears here for the outer wheel. I also made another hub face with the holes to accept this one.

Hey Guys. Is anybody else having trouble with the uploader. It keeps blocking me, telling me the file size is too big, when previous larger files uploaded just fine. Can anyone shed any light on this ?

Hey Guys. I was supposed to be working on the hood, but have not had time. I figured I would work on the wheels until I finished them, then I can at least say I have something completed. And I can say that will be the next couple of days.

Wow this takes scratch building to a whole new level !

Hey Guys. I just got back today. While I was away, I was able to pickup some goodies from a cool little hobby store including a couple of kits. The other thing I picked up was some half round. The smaller rod will be to make the swage line along the hood, which I hope to do tomorrow.

There are plenty of flaws too !The old lugs were wrecked from the over spray so I sanded them down and added these ones. To get a smooth finish around the perimeter I will dab some more white primer around it and sand it back when it dries. Then I will mask off the lugs and put a final light undercoat over the surface, lightly sand it back and the wheel will be finished. This will be my last post for a week, as I will be away, when return I will wrap the wheel up and move onto finishing the cab, hood and grill.

Hey Guys. The wheel is nearly done. The holes are starting to look more uniform. I have been using the single punch to get a consistent finish on each one. I also changed over to a white primer so that I can see the flaws easier.

Hey Charles. You will be pleased to know I sanded them off earlier today. I came up with a simpler solution.

The other thing I did was machine the underside. This side will be the visible side at the back so it needs to be as smooth as the other side. I will need to make up the hub and stud assembly as well. I will also need to make up the rim as well. But before I do any of that I will need to get the remaining two holes looking like the other three.

Hey Guys. I managed to find time to do some more work on the wheel. My main concern was getting the holes consistent. Well three of the five are consistent and the other two need some minor work to get them in shape. I used a single wheel punch rather than the whole wheel press to get the holes to this stage. I also gave the wheel a light coat of primer. For the other two holes I will most likely use the same primer but use a small brush to lay it on. I will allow the primer to dry a bit before I use the press on the remaining two holes. Another thing I did was join the outer rim. You can see how much better the wheel looks with the light finish. Its also 1000 times better than my first master.

I have to agree, my favourite trucks are all pre WW2. This build is certainly one of the most impressive to have graced these pages.

I get all my supplies through Barnes products, Pinky Sil, Its called Pinky Sil because its mixed as two parts with a red and white silastic rather than a regular catalyst.

Over the weekend I managed to cast up the two sets of fenders as well as a few sets of brakes and tyres. There will be a lot more needed but once the wheel is finished I will cast up several versions of it as well, with and without the studs so I can get all the wheels and tyres cast up.

I used my electric drill as an open ended lathe. I found that when I pushed the wheel to the base of the drill bit near the chuck, the wheel was very stable. There is quite a knack to machining. Too much pressure and wear will be uneven if it flexes. With a stable base I did not have to worry about this. As well I machining I also used a lot of undercoat to saturate the face. This was to get the holes more uniform and smaller as well. More primer and more machining was needed to get the surface to this stage. Comparing the new master to the previous one shows how much closer to the 1:1 this one is. The holes are bigger and the actual surface face is smaller. 1:25 scale so it sits comfortably inside the tyre. The trim that makes up the inner and outer rings for the rim is a lot neater too. The inner one is made from round plastic tubing and the outer one is sheet styrene. Next task will be to join the rims together and continue to refine the holes until its finished.

Having looked carefully at the wheel I realised the master was all wrong and I would need to start again. I have lost count of the number of scratch built wheels I have created only to find they were no where near accurate. This time I was going to make sure I got it right. The first thing I did was draw a circle into the styrene with a compass. The pivot point was enlarged and I used Fimo to shape out the punch. This was cut into five sections and these were place evenly around the perimeter of the circle and glued into place. The circle was then cut out and the wheel press was complete. This press was then reinforced with thick balsa wood. More Fimo was roughly shaped out and the wheel press was pushed into it to give the impression. One this rough shape came out of the oven the machining began.

Without a doubt the hardest part of this build has been creating the wheels. Here is the 1:1 I am referencing. You can use all the images in the world, but nothing is better than the real thing when you want create an accurate replica

Hey Guys ! I have been slow with uploading progress of the build so I have a quite a bit to show. tonight I started work on the sides of the riser box. Here you can see the position for the steps have been drawn in place. I will be using very fine box tubing for the actual steps themselves

Talk about high end, this build is on another level !

Sounds exciting, can't wait to see the results !

Thanks for the feedback guys, all this has been a walk in the park compared with making up the wheels, now that has been a nightmare ! It will be worth it in the end though.

The other thing I decided to do was use the standard front fenders rather than the modified pair I was working on. The modified set had the filler compartment added to it which was proving messy. The fenders shown here are actually the first set that I cast. I will cast another two sets of these over the weekend for the other two trucks and that problem will be solved. Next task will be to finish the hood and grill.

Because this project has been taking me so long I have resorted to a few measures to speed it up. I was going to scratch build the grill using lengths of plastic tubing. These were not fine enough. I had some spare 32 Grill inserts laying about. On closer inspection, I worked out I could use these instead. The plastic tubing will wrap around the perimeter once the insert has been reshaped and lengthened to suit the 35 Grill shell.

I took a completely different approach with this one. While the original was done in stages, for this one I wanted to simplify the process. To do that I used old office paper to make up templates that were wrapped around the front of the cab and cut to shape. Once I was happy with the template, I layed it over the styrene, traced around it and cut the styrene out to the same shape. I wanted to get the bulk of hood shaped from the single piece. This was quite successful up until a point. The more pressure I used to try and get the piece shaped to fit around the front the more it wanted to snap. I heavily reinforced the inside of the hood with body filler which is visible in the gaps at either top corner. I did this in preparation for the heavy sanding that was needed to get the shape right. The corners themselves came about by accident. I was staring at a plastic spoon and then it dawned on me. These would be perfect corners, problem solved. I still have a lot of finishing to do on it but its 100 times better than the other one. It wraps neatly around the front of the interior bucket unlike the original.

The solution, make a new one.