Western Star 4900 FA plow truck

[BK9300]

12 hours ago, Biggu said:

Every update is a gem, Brian. Great stuff !

Appreciate that, Jeff!  Painfully slow, but still moving ahead.

[BK9300]

Between the other stuff I'm occupied with these days, I did get to do a little more prep work for painting and eventually a bit of priming.  Done with the grey primer on the hood, cab and day panel and into the white primer, similar to what ended up being done with the sander, before applying the finish colour.  Still missed some glitches on the cab, that stood out worse with the white primer, so had to do something with them, too.  Also, got most of the cab's 'chrome' parts primed and ready for the Easy Chrome black undercoat.  Still have to do that test run with the chrome, first.

 

Had a good afternoon in the paint booth - not totally clear from the pics, but two coats of Tamiya fine, white primer now on hood and day cab panel (cab has one coat but is back in the house, to fix a couple more things).  Stripped chrome bits for the cab have been primed, along with the plow light housings, the two small sections of 0.2 mm styrene for the inner fender flaps, and the visor for the cab -

 

I thought I would be able to get the second coat of white primer on the cab today, after filling in some small gaps in the top edge of my firewall modification.  But, being a bit impatient and trying to fit too much into the time I had, I started to work the putty before it had hardened all the way through.  So, now I have to let it set up more, and then fix my fix!

 

I also got to spend some time thinking about the front grille and grille surround.  Had initially wanted to have grille bars detached from surround, like on the real truck, so grille bars wouldn't bump into front plow lift arms when hood is displayed open.  When I put everything together today, to look at how to do it, it quickly became obvious I had a problem.  Real truck has rubber baffles around the rad sides, and some very short angle brackets to attach the grille bars, just a bit proud of the rad.  I didn't pay close enough attention to how close the grille bars are to the rad on the real truck, and the way the engine, rad and hood assemblies come together in the model, that gap would simply be too much, if I made the grille bars flush with the grille surround.  So, I'm going to reattach the grille bars to the surround, and limit the hood opening so the grille bars stay just clear the plow lift arms.  The hood will still open most of the way, and there is a small bonus to this problem as the transmission cooler will now be visible when hood is open.

 

I just need to run three, thin strips of 1.5 mm styrene along the horizontal bars on the back of the grille, to reattach it to the surround.  Then this bit can be primed and chromed, too.  Was able to remove a few things from the list of outstanding items to finish, today, and only added one thing back, so, good day - take care, and hope the summer is going well for everyone!

[BK9300]

I got a bit more painting done today.  Second coat of primer on the cab and then I painted the inside of the hood.  Still looks like the grey primer, but its a bit darker, closer to the unfinished inside of the hood on the real truck.  After, I had some over spray to clean up on the outside of the hood and it made me realize I had better mask off the inside of the hood before I paint the colour coat.  I had wanted to not mask it off, to try and reproduce some of the colour coat overspray on the inside of the hood of the real truck, but, based on what happened when I painted the inside of the hood, I just might make too big a mess to recover from.  As it is, I will need to do one more coat of primer on hood, after I mask off the underside.  I might have chickened out, by masking off the inside of hood, but better safe than sorry, at this stage!  Maybe I can apply some over spray after all is painted, using low pressure on the air brush and well thinned paint.

 

My putty mess from yesterday has been fixed - at least as well as my patience allowed me to!  Cab is ready for colour coat -

 

Will need one more coat of primer on outside of hood, after masking off inside, to deal with sanding off the overspray from the inside.  Then it will be ready for colour coat, too.  I'm pleased with how the slightly darker grey shows up the inner hood bracing.  Still need to paint hood support pads a flat black or rubber black to finish them off, and add the inner fender well rubber flaps -

 

The little grommet on the front, inside of the hood (there's another one on the opposite side) will be to support the wire runs to the plow lights

 

Hope to get to colour by mid-week.   Take care!

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 03:44 AM by BK9300
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