Fabrux

Something I've recently tried for the first time is melting some scrap styrene (like little pieces of sprue) in liquid glue (like Tamiya Extra Thin). It will turn the styrene to goo and you can apply it like putty. Once the glue evaporates, you can sand it just like the surrounding plastic and the "filler" becomes part of the structure. I was having a similar problem as you with the roof on a 33 Willys kit. I plan to strip all the putty off and try the melted sprue instead. YMMV.

Even if you were to combine the two, you would end up with a truck that was never produced. The full metal sided Avalanche didn't come out until the 2003 redesign of the pickup line.

Going by the Manitowoc logo on the side there I would say it is one small part of a very large crane. Any more pieces in the yard there, Clayton?

Stick a fork in this one, it's done. Under glass thread here. Interior shot: Finished chassis;

Finished this one up. Build thread is here I hadn't originally planned on using the Desert Rat decals, but I goofed up and got a glue spot on the driver's door. So, the decals serve as a distraction.

Thanks, Dad! Managed to get most of the paint work done today. By the time the paint was dry enough to handle it was too dark to take any good pictures, but I did manage to get a few shots in primer. It was satisfying to see it all in one colour.

Looking good! Inspires me to get back to my own wrecker project. Small nit, though: the truck is actually a 79-80; the box is mislabeled.

The number one reason my builds get stalled is definitely lack of focus. An idea will pop in my head for something else and I'll move on. The number two reason, especially this time of year, is paint. I can only spray outside where I live and its too cold to do so now. I can paint in my dad's garage, but my parents live 20 minutes away. So, I usually get something prepped for paint and try and paint everything in one go. Sometimes I get several bodies ready to go to get agead.

Okay, I definitely have to get my hands on one of those!

The way I build is such that I rarely can build anything straight out of the box. I have to change something, for whatever reason. It's a compulsion I can't shake, it it affects the speed at which I build greatly...!

I finally managed to get some good pictures. I've also added a black wash to all the panel lines and grilles. I've been trying to get the hang of this wash thing, may have finally figured it out.

Ha! I forgot about this thread. I guess I could've put my Scout in here...

Can't say I'm surprised. Those actually look to be the same lug-less wheels that are in the Bush Baby Courier kit, only those ones aren't plated.

Man that's fugly. Not Chevy Reaper level of ugly, but getting there.

Okay, I took some pictures of current progress with my proper camera rather than my phone. Since the last update I've smoothed out the new rear cab wall and scribed the panel lines. I tried to take a close-up of what I did to the portion of the seat backs that can be seen from the back window, but it turned out a little fuzzy: And, again, a little fuzzy but shows the back of the cab: And here's the back half of the frame with new crossmembers and bed mounts. Don't have anything done for the fuel tank yet. I guess I really need to take some good pictures in the sunlight, but it was -16°C today so no outside pictures!

For the purposes of this project, I will be proceeding with the bed as depicted. I do have a number of these 1/4-ton sized beds, however. At some point I will attempt putting the Datsun wheel arches on one and painting the bed to match.

I am another one that keeps all of my boxes. The boxes for the models I have built and on display are in plastic totes under my basement stairs. My living arrangements are seemingly never permanent, so I need the boxes for moving the built models to the new place. When the time comes to finally buy a house, I may consider tossing them in the recycling, maybe saving a few of the more interesting ones for wall art.

I don't know how yours is going, Steve, but I have one that is about 85% complete. I just can't get that last 15% done!

I must admit, with the re-issue of this kit I'm surprised there haven't been more of these on the go. A search for Datsun yields few results; I guess this little guy isn't that popular! This current project has its beginnings about seven years ago when I built it up as so: It was pretty good for my skills at the time. After I built this, I moved a few times and with all the packing and un-packing of my built models, I noticed something on this build each time that I wish I had done differently. Last year, a friend of mine gave me another one of these kits boxed as a snap version. I got to looking and reckoned I could build a longbed version out of the two kits. Let me tell you, it ended rather disastrously. So now I had two kits, without beds, and a bit mangled. In my searches, I only found reference to one other builder that separated the cab from the bed and now I know why: it creates a lot of issues! My club's annual New Year's Challenge is on the go; I already finished the Scout II and with a few weeks to go before the judging, I thought maybe I could squeeze in another build. This simple kit fit the bill and I dug around in my stash to figure out my options and came up with this. California Step Side! I figured if the conversion bed was good enough for a 620, it was good enough for a 720. The above pictures were taken last night as I was getting things sorted out to make sure it would work. Today was a productive day, although the end shots of the mock up don't look too different from the above pictures, even though there was a lot of work to get to that point! I drilled out the wheels and grabbed another one to turn into a spare. The pictures turned out kinda fuzzy, so I will take better ones in the morning. To get to this point, I cut everything out between the frame rails from the cab back and rebuilt it all. I also built the rear cab wall and for the first time tried using the sprue + glue mixture for filling in gaps. Going to let it sit overnight and try sanding and see how it turned out.

Thanks! This is neat stuff. Not too sure about the using cloth part, though...!

Man, that's a lot of axles! Certainly don't see that around here.

The Bricklin always has a special place around these parts. My father-in-law actually worked in the assembly plant. Funny thing is, even though they were built here in New Brunswick, they were not sold in Canada.

Thanks for the comments! The 6 is an AMC 258 out of the AMT Pacer kit.

Is there only the one page, Gerald?

You would think that DeLorean would've learned from Malcolm Bricklin's failed experiment.