vincen47

Yeah that should make it much easier to stretch the Revell snap 359 chassis. I’ve stretched a couple Italeri 378 frames, myself. I bet a series of Italeri chassis stretch parts would sell well, too.

Awesome outdoor shots. Makes the “snow” look more realistic with the real sun on it. Just the right look all around, great weathering, nice display base. I like the rusty chipped finish on the exhaust outlet pipe coming off the engine. For its uniqueness, I’d have to say this is one of my favorite builds of yours.

Perfect color and finish for a hard-working farm truck. Nice detailing on the engine, along with great scratch building for the bed.

Welcome aboard, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I’m a Michigander, too.

Welcome! Hope you enjoy the forum.

Possibly. I can’t say for certain unless I had the Revell of Germany 359 kit to compare it to. I bet another member on here has both kits built and could take measurements of the completed frames. I believe the frame rails themselves are a little different, with the snap kit not having a full C-channel. But, it may be possible to adapt it. The more popular “snap” 359 was originally from Monogram, and it has the small sleeper (though most people glue the parts together) and the “glue” 359 was originally from Revell of Germany, or RoG as many call it, and it has the larger sleeper, along with many more parts, opening doors, greater detail, etc. The one I built in the photo above is the snap kit. It’s a good kit, and has a lot of potential. I haven’t built or purchased the RoG 359, but plan to eventually.

I hear ya. Everyone loves a good set of straight pipes, but we have to resort to the aftermarket or making them ourselves. There’s a couple guys that make and sell them using aluminum tubing, but the problem is getting the bend to not kink and still have a sharp enough bend that it looks realistic. You can use a tubing bender, but the only ones I’ve seen with a smooth bend don’t have a sharp enough bend, especially on the larger diameter pipes. So…I used a hybrid with 1/4” aluminum tubing from K&S and 1/4” plastic elbows from Plastruct. The elbows were painted with Molotow and the straps are strips of BMF. Then, weathered, but you could polish the aluminum instead, of course. The price is right. 1/4” makes a scale 6” stack in 1/24 and a 6 1/4” stack in 1/25. They also make adapters that take the scale 6” pipe down to a smaller diameter to match up with the stock kit exhaust outlet y-pipe. If you want fatter pipes, Plastruct makes a 3/8” elbow as well, putting them at 9” and 9.38” respectively. That’s the look, alright. You could use plastic tubing for the straight part as well, but the thickness of the pipe wall at the visible top end would be too much to be realistic (in most cases), but I suppose it could be thinned down by drilling it out and sanding. I also had a 1/24 scale 8” set made in turned aluminum for my current build, from Mark Cherry at MCA aluminum. He’s the only aftermarket guy I know that makes them correctly, in my opinion. I’m sure there’s other ideas out there, too. I’m curious myself how others have made them.

Awesome job. It really looks like a workhorse with a mission to accomplish. Excellent details, and a nice and simple base that gives it a sense of place. Honestly, you don’t have to add anything else. Snow is tough to replicate and more doesn’t always make it better, it just covers up the detail work you did, and looks gaudy. Besides, if it’s just parked on a decent day on the pass, waiting for the next storm, most of the snow will have melted off in the sun, save for a dusting from the blowing wind.

I second Moluminum. Jamie has great stuff. On his website he has the C15 Acert, with the dual turbos, but he makes the single turbo C-15 along with the Cat 3406E, just ask him. The one in the Reference section of this site is from Moluminum. I’ve built and detailed the E and it’s a great casting, minimal clean-up. Excellent detail and accuracy. I think I posted it here on the forum.

If I had to venture a guess on the concrete, I would imagine they’d use a couple large rectangular precast concrete blocks. This is just an assumption. Nothing pretty, just reinforced with an iron loop to hook onto to and load them into the bed. To replicate them, you could use plaster or a similar modeling medium and cast them by building a mold out of styrene or gator board. I’d make them hollow, leaving out the bottom. Plaster can easily be stained, chipped, and weathered to look exactly like concrete. Woodland Scenics makes a whole line of stuff designed to create roads for model railroads. They have a product called Smooth-it that works great, or you can even use plain ol’ plaster of Paris. Acrylic paints and stains, I’m sure you have. I’ve even used concrete patch found at the hardware stores, too, but some of them are a little too viscous to work with easily. It’s also possible you’d find something useful in resin from the 1/35 military guys. I’m sure they have precast concrete blocks for dioramas. Now, if they poured the concrete into the bed, which I guess is also possible, that look could also be replicated with plaster, too, I suppose, carefully. I know of railroads that literally poured concrete into former locomotive fuel tanks when the units had their engine removed when converted into essentially just cab units later in life for push/pull service. Love the chains, btw. Awesome details.

Nice. Looks almost ready. Was there weight added to the bed? I also imagine they used tire chains or at least aggressive-tread drive tires? Might be hard to tell from the research photos. Maybe the hooks are for chains.

Excellent weathering. A great-looking rig.

Nice progress. Was the air starter spec’d on the trucks because of the winter environment? I’ve heard of them before but never looked into the pros and cons. Not something you see often modeled.

Good info, thanks.

Nice! I like the 72” cab, love to see things not in the original kit. I imagine the CF pushers were used exclusively to push CF rigs. Did CF pushers ever provide service to other trucking lines? What a unique operation. Reminds me of the railroad pusher operations over mountain passes, including Donner. Some railroad pushers are still used to this day, despite improvements in distributed power, technology, and horsepower increases in the industry.

When I saw it, I wasn’t sure myself, so I looked up a bunch of pictures online, but really didn’t find anything. I actually thought it would be a super cool and unique detail you added if they had separate controls to have one of them stopped in the up position. Good conversation starter, nonetheless. A really nice build, and the single rear axle is a great feature along with the headlight mod. The Cummins looks good, thanks for the extra photos. It’s neat to see how trucks look with different engines than what was in the kit. Looks like the swap wasn’t too much trouble.

Awesome job, and a pretty quick build, too. I’m impressed with the quality you achieve in the overall timeframe from start to finish. Though, instead of looking at the amount of days in total, I should probably consider that there is still a lot of hours involved. I love the paint scheme, simple, yet very classy, especially for a fleet truck. The treatment you gave the 5th wheel is great. Very realistic. And the AC unit, wow. The right windshield wiper is up, not sure if that’s intentional, or not. Any pics of the cab tilted? I’d love to see how the Cummins looks now that it’s in place, and most likely weathered a bit. Great build, as always. Keep ‘em coming!

Awesome. These will be very helpful. I like the paint scheme and single axle, too.

Oh the weathering on that dozer is fantastic! The blade itself is a work of art.

Great build. Love the dirty, hard-working look.

Great plans. I especially will enjoy seeing the Mack fire truck.

I really appreciate the detailed review of the 6-71 options. I don’t have as much experience with GW’s resin, but from what I have, I agree that it’s a little more “slick” than Jamie’s resin. Both are quality, but also I agree there seems to be a little less cleanup with Jamie’s parts. For the build I have planned, an early 70’s 4070a, I’m not sure what options IH used specifically on the 6-71 for the Transtar cabovers. Right/left blower, exhaust, etc. I’m not sure if the aluminum valve cover was available yet or not, though I don’t believe the turbo was available on the 4070a, at least not yet, in the very early 70’s. Any info you have on IH’s use of the 6-71 would be appreciated. The brochure that came with the 4070a kit (really cool they included it) has two horsepower ratings (218 and 238) based, I think, on the injectors you opt for. The more I learn about them, the more interesting it is.

I was actually considering getting a 6-71 for a future 4070a build. I was looking at the one from Moluminum. I’ll check out Gary’s one, too. Thanks.

Cool! That’s a unique build. Tires look great. Love the weathered chassis, and it’s nice to see a 6-71.

Cool build. Nice job with a tough project. I too, would love to get ahold of a c65 cab/hood someday. The resin ones are rare.