Brian Conn

...You captured the essence of a used truck with many unused miles......if I had a dime for every time I've seen this truck in my travels, I would sure have a heck of a lot of dimes.

....Back to the Ford/Garwood it's been a minute. I wanted to show a cable coming off of the winch spool, so I came up with this. For the cable I used a single strand wrapped around the spool and a braided double strand for the length of exposed cable. The cable is 015. round lead wire used in making fly fishing lures. I carved the hook out of a plastic fork. The Garwood hydraulic winch is rated for 8,000 lbs. and the dia. of the cable is almost spot on for 1:25 scale.

I set a goal of having this a curbside build by the 4th of July and I made it!!!!! This is my way of saying Happy 259th Birthday to the United States of America. This build is far from being done, in fact the cab is not even attached as the interior has been barely started and there still is some body work to be done.

Starting to look like a truck...glass and stripe decals are next!!! Studied some pictures of the 1:1 DM 800's smoke stack location and repositioned the kit offering...in doing that I also had to move the battery box and air tank back on the frame. Shot a coat of floor wax thru the airbrush....now it shines like a new penny ☺️

A minor setback..... I never was quite happy with the position of the smoke stack, so I removed the smoke stack and the battery box. While I was at it, I made some cab locating pieces....now the cab sits where it is suppose to. The cab sits on the four vertical pieces that are part of the frame. The kit locating bosses leave a lot to be desired..they are pretty small. I had some Evergreen styrene angle pieces laying around, so I made taller locating bosses...still a small bit of wiggle room left for final cab alignment. I think what I am going to do, unless someone has a better idea, is to attach the completed interior tub to the frame and then lower the completed cab shell over the tub. Edited just now by Brian Conn

Necessity is the Mother of invention I was having issues with my latest build and getting the outside tires to look like they are seated to the wheel while having the proper gap between the tires...here's what I came up with..... These are the old laces out of my work boots. The first thing you do is mount the outside tire. I used canopy glue on the outside (visible) part of the tire/wheel since it dries clear...I plan on entering this rig in future model shows and cant have dried CA glue showing anywhere. The parts of the tire/wheel that are not visible, I use CA glue. Mount the inner tire. Wrap the shoe lace around the area between the two tires...snug it down until the tires are seated to the wheels..you will still have to move the tire back and forth across the wheel to get everything set perfect.

..........DESPITE procrastination, busy season at work, life and recently being a storm refugee I have made some decent progress. As I have stated before my goal is to have this a box art , curbside build (no engine or transmission) by the 4th of July. I will come back to this one later and assemble the engine and transmission, stretch the frame and add the milk tank and additional decals. Got some sticky tape residue to deal with on the hood....used scotch clear tape to mask off the area dividing the red and blue, no problem...used Tamiya tape in other places no problem( great stuff!!),,,,used some expensive blue painters tape...leaves a sticky residue ☹️ The white stripe decals just barely wrapped around the backside of the cab..didn't like the way it looked...so I taped off the the backside of the cab since it was molded white to create white stripes. I do need to go back and do some touch up work with some white paint. Need to put some heat to the smoke stack and straighten it out.

I had some one inquire about the International Harvester milk tanker,,,here's what I have been able to find out about it. It is an ERTL kit from the late 70's But the kit is of a tractor and not a milk tanker...I still have no clue where the milk tank came from....other than that it is the same truck....a late 70's International Harvester S series 2575

Thanks for asking ...my first post to the web since Sunday. Unfortunately bad news...This past Monday we here in Topeka were hit with 70+ M.P.H winds. I now have a tree on my house and power was just restored with in the past hour to my home. I plan on getting back to it A.S.A.P as I still have the goal of having ,at least, a curbside build by the 4th of July. I did manage to get the frame/chassis done paint wise..still have some touch up work on the cab and hood to do.

......Some days its the Gold Mine, some days its the shaft.....today it was the Gold Mine. Went to the Heartland Model Car Nationals in Overland Park, Ks. (Kansas City).....the contest itself is a predictable joke, but the vending area is awesome. My first stop the past few years is the derelict truck area....great for the scratch builder and the prices, they wont hurt. Picked up this unit for $30.00. The milk tank portion will be removed and used on the Mack build. I have scoured the internet looking for a 1:25 milk transport tank with no luck...this is the first one I seen anywhere. Forgot to get a better picture...has a complete engine and transmission. Will have to scratch build the milk pumping portion. Even has the inspection/clean out hatch Not sure yet what I will end up doing with the I.H Its too good of a truck to part out. Got the Blue areas painted...another touch up coat should complete it.

Got everything chassis wise primered. Had black parts, white parts and an over abundance of chrome parts that all needed to be one color. Everything pictured will be blue.

I was busy for the few days that the site was down....I'm still working away on the Ford/Garwood trash truck, just needed a change of scenery. In 1976, the Bi-Centennial year, I was 11 years old. I was building a variety of kits, thanks in part to subscribing to a model of the month club through the mail. My skills , if you want to call them that, where typical 11 year old. I've improved some what in the last 50 years...I think??? I remember seeing the first release of this kit and wanting it, but I knew that I did not posses the skills that it would take to build it...may be when I get older. I got this kit earlier this year, thanks to family at Christmas time. Thought that I would be deeper into the build than I am, but sometimes life gets in the way. My goal is to at least have a curbside build by the 4th of July .....I'm not building it as a tractor.....I have other plans for it in mind, so it will be just a truck with no body on it as you might see at a Mack dealership. This is what the color will look like for the most part...some of the chrome pieces will be painted as there seemed to be an excessive amount in this kit. Got some of the sub assemblies put together....every thing pictured will be Blue. Got some more sub assemblies to put together as I am going to airbrush all of the exterior Blue assembled and attached to the frame sub assemblies, then the Red grill, hood and cab areas

Just wanted to say thanks to who ever fixed the issue and got the site back up and running again....

...I have been a contest judge for a few years now with the local club (both AMPS and IPMS)...viewing this thru a 1280 x 720 resolution monitor screen (aprox. 22" across by 14" tall) this is easily a a top 5 ..top 3 build. Don't sell your self short with this one.

appreciate your in put ......I just presumed that finding info. on the Mack would be like my previous findings (dimensions) on the 60's era International Harvester DCO 405 Emeryvilles and VCO A 190's as well as the Ford C series cab overs....discovered volumes of useful information. Looks like I will have to add 12 to 18 scale inches to accommodate the tank body...still undecided about adding a pusher axle.