Johnny M

UPGRADE Older stretched 1:43ville now with Earl Miller's beautiful airlines. Johnny

Sweeet! I always loved the looks of those bullet-nose ( bubble-nose?) Petes. You never see them around anymore, probably for good reason :). I drove an H model Mack for a year or so; sort of like that, but not a Pete. Petes were much nicer. Good build. The train horns are a nice touch -- they help keep the lane clear next to you. Johnny

SKILLZ ! Thanks, Johnny

Question: Did you make those white plastic parts yourself? I went back through your earlier posts on this build and saw some of them sitting in a container but I didn't know whether they came out of a kit or you had made them. You must have made the parts for the engine , and they look really well done. Johnny

OH wow, thanks so much for that info and the pictures. Yours are beautiful! I'm going to start playing with that TODAY. It's gonna be a fun learning curve. I totally get it now. Thanks again, Johnny

Here's the new floor installed on my sectioned Wilson flatbed. I went with the hardwood flooring because that's more like what they used back in the day and also to cover up the joint where I removed the 13 foot section from the original 53' trailer. Feel free to ignore what's left of the joint 'cuz we won't be able to see it after I get the trailer loaded. I think I'm gonna go with a load of steel tubes chained down without a tarp for now, I was planning on steel coils with tarps, but I'll have to work on that later in my spare time since I haven't been able to figure the tarps out yet. That's the tape I used to cover the floor. I got it from Amazon, and it works great. The tape is very thin and it conforms to the surface of whatever you stick it on, plus it's not peel and stick -- it just unrolls like duct tape. I haven't tried to age or weather it yet; I'll save that for another day. Johnny

Boy howdy -- lovin' the pulleys and belts on the front of the engine! Johnny

Santucci Construction Co. R Model 1;64 Jersey coal wagon Johnny

"Got some engine work done" Ummm Yessir , I'll say! This is just amazing. I can't stop grinning and looking at the details. Astonishing. Johnny

Here's a 53 foot Wilson trailer that I'm in the process of making into an old-school steel hauler. That piece you see on top of the trailer is the chunk I cut out of the middle of it. By my amateur calculations, it's about 13 feet long, so that would bring the trailer down to about 40 feet, a big improvement. I would have liked to make it even shorter, say 36 or 38 feet, but there wasn't a good place to cut the frame to make that happen, so 40 feet it is. May next job is to make some steel coils for the load. Mr. Dowel has agreed to make the coils, and I already have the chains, but I'm gonna have to make the tarps from scratch. I'll probably try to make them out of foil so the side flaps will drape nicely and then spray paint them and age the color, as I haven't been able to find any store-bought tarps this small. Anybody have any suggestions for the tarps? Johnny

Thanks, Driptroit. Love dem cannonballs! That one was originally a diecast model made by NEO. They make really nice stuff. I've just picked at it a little -- still a lot more to do. The interior's next. Johnny

New mufflers and pipes for 1:64 Cannonball GMC, made from K+S Precision aluminum tubing assortment -- part number 3403, from Amazon, $6.58. I haven't tried to finish them at all yet, just thought I'd send this along today. They come in an 8-pack of small diameters which are just big enough to fit inside the next larger size. Nice stuff, and they are available in various larger-size assortments as well. Johnny

HaHa -- Great stuff ! I could totally use one of them. Johnny

1978 Freightliner calendar art complete with big hair AND corduroy. Johnny

Thanks, Driptroit ! I wanted the old Mercury sleeper look but since I couldn't find a sleeper kit that size (1:43) I went with the tried-and-true white pine and Molotow method Johnny