Fat Brian

I bought a Mack AC off ebay last night so my wheels should be here midweek, I also rebuilt the frame out of smaller square stock. Once I get my rolling stock in I will be able to set the ride height and really make some progress.

I was just about to post that I had just bought that kit for about ten bucks, thats the chance you take not posting it on ebay.

He made it to just about when the power really starts to come on.

I've gotten started on the real bed, the white parts will be rusted with Sophisticated Finishes rust patina kit. I'm not super happy with the frame, I might redo it. The engine is complete except for the accessories and exhaust, I'm still trying to find a transmission that looks right, beefy but not really huge. I traded for some Pegasus wheels that kind of look like semi wheels but I think I want to go with the spoked wheels from the Mack AC kit, I just have to buy the kit I guess.

The running gear is typical Pete stuff, I think the prototype had a old style mechanical 3406 in it. You could start with the Revell snap kit since it has the correct engine and rear suspension and just scratch the cab. It's mostly flat pieces, even the main windshield pieces are flat.

Gee, I can't imagine why.

While I was at work today I was driving down the interstate and noticed an unusual looking cab over approaching in the oncoming lanes. It was faded orange and the closer it got the unusualer it looked, I had never seen anything quite like it. After a little searching I found it, a Peterbilt 372. Yikes!?

Find a local place that does window tinting and ask them if you can buy one square foot of mirrored tint. They might just give it to you if the have some scraps laying around but it shouldn't cost more than a few bucks.

That should be fine, the Duplicolor is hotter then the Testors so the Testors paint is unlikely to lift it. You should test it on a scrap piece to be sure.

If the can feels like it still has paint in it you can switch the nozzle from another can and try again or soak the clogged nozzle in paint thinner for a day or so to try to break down the clog. CAUTION: if you switch nozzles from a different color spray it away from your project until the paint sprays the correct color, if the switched nozzle has been previously used there can be paint still in it from the wrong color.

If the chrome is still good on the parts the most common method is to spray the chrome with candy yellow or orange, it depends on the gold tone you want. I would test it on some scrap pieces since you are trying to match your wheels to see what gets you closer.

Marbling is when a body is molded in a color, like the body in that kit is blue, and there are swirl marks in the plastic made as the mold was filled. Plastic can have a "grain" to it caused by plastic flowing in different directions meeting meeting each other in the middle of your body panels. Some paints follow this "grain" and cause a problem called "ghosting", where artifacts from the plastic cause imperfections in the paint.

I reworked the wrecker part, I wanted it to be more like the pic above but I want it to appear as if it would really work. I'm goint to cut the verticle white bars off level with the top of the cab once everything is getting closer to its final position.

The easiest way to lower this kit is, for the front, to cut off the pins that the wheels snap to and move them higher up on the little circle. You can get a few scale inches that way, if you need more you can add a piece of flat plastic that extends higher that the circle to get even more drop. You can also change the track width the same way, since the wheels you are going to use have more negative offset that the kit wheels you can add plastic to where you cut the pin from to move the wheel closer to the fender lip if you need to. To lower the rear you need to cut the leaf springs off of the axle and put a little block between the axle and spring to move the axle up into the rear subframe. If this is unclear please don't cut anything, just ask and I will try to post some pics.

That is a beautiful car, where did those wheels come from?

Thats cool.

I have to agree, for $17 you get a complete engine and can put it in any kit you want. They have a few options of valve cover and intake plenum configurations to help you fit it to the car.

After doing some reading on Mr. Potter he was an amazing man. He was the kind of genius that is frowned upon in todays college obsessed society, a man who actually knew how to do things and used his hands and aquired mechanical knowledge to build great hings.

You need to build the experimental W-43 Olds hemi for this car. The block is a standard Olds 455 piece with four valves per cylinder hemi heads. It never went into production but is rumored to have pulled almost 600hp on the dyno.

If you can find a set of Super Swampers from one of the Aoshima Toyota 4x4 kits they fit the wheels in the Monogram kit nicely.

It depends on the type of paint you used. Normally rubbing alcohol is the best way to remove adhesives but depending on your paint it might be like wiping it with paint thinner.

That is really nice.

I went to Hobby lobby with my wife, she wanted a book about drawing faces so I checked out the models and found Revells 50 Ford F-1 2n1 truck marked down to $13. When I got home I realized it was the version with the Ardun heads for the flat head so I will be going back tomorrow and buying some more. I also picked up the Hurst Olds with their 40% off coupon.

The wheels I tried to strip were from the current issue of the Freightliner Dual Drive kit so they were plated with pretty current techniques. Sometime in the 2000's AMT changed their plating process because their plated parts went completely to junk and still aren't as good as they used to be. The undercoat is always too think and has runs in it now. Something is definitely different with the undercoating now, today I needed to strip a valve cover that is at least twenty years old and I got it almost completely clean to the bare plastic with hand sanitizer. Like you had said the chrome was gone in minutes and the undercoat came off after an hour or so. I don't know, more research is required.