Egilman

Blue deck stain was not used when there wasn't any to be had. In that case they went ahead and painted the decks 20B Deck Blue.... I'm assuming that you deck location is not in an area where they landed or launched aircraft. So no black streaks and wear marks down to the wood would be appropriate.... so you have a temporary storage or standby area of the deck, solid blue would be appropo.... The only thing I could suggest would be if you want a more combat used look, oil stains, tire marks through oil stains footprints, etc, etc... and maybe a bit of assorted patches of whitening/lightening to represent a faded deck... but otherwise, outstanding job..... oh and a storage area would have tie downs. So call it a standby area.....

That was a guy hauling construction machinery on a flatbed. Thing is they still don't know what happened. Yes he struck the bridge knocking out a small crossmember in the last bay of the truss. He actually cleared 85% of the bridge including the approaches into and out of.... He exited the bridge and continued on his way not realizing what had happened. Several cars that were following also crossed the bridge before it collapsed... Then all of a sudden it let go..... Based upon the measured height of the load he should have cleared by 6" but they do not know if that particular piece had been damaged earlier and was hanging lower than the others... Also, he has already passed under at least six overpasses and two other similar bridges on his trip from where he loaded up..... They still do not understand what caused him to strike that one piece after clearing all the other cross members..... There was nothing in the roadway to cause the trailer to jump. One of the strangest things the engineers had ever seen with no explanation... The bridge was scheduled to be replaced anyway but they figured that it would last a few more years..... So yeah it is not all driver stupidity....

Yeah, I wonder what gets in their heads at times. We have a bridge here in Tacoma over the Puyallup river and the lead in to the UP rail yard about a half mile long multi-span truss girder type, all along it you can see where the riveted girders are bent and deformed from where the trucks have repeatedly hit it... Happens all the time around here especially around the Port of Tacoma. Never hit a bridge in my short career of driving (three years) but then again I always checked the rig's height with a telltale and parked my butt right behind another rig, if he made it, I would.... (I didn't get paid enough to take such risks especially going somewhere I was unfamiliar with)

Thanks, but a potential problem might make it all for naught, I forgot to check the decals. I have the SATB decal set for the truck and trailer from Modeltruckin' (moebius trailer version) I can't use the mural cause it is low grade and besides it is hopelessly out of scale, but the rest of the decals are perfect. I scaled the reefer to the images from the movie and what I could find of the real thing to get the proportions right... but before I can paint it I should have checked the decals to see if they fit. Now I may have to alter the decals to fit cause the reefer is correctly proportioned which is probably the way I'll go. (matching the movie rig comes first) But, I got in so all fired a hurry to get it made that I forgot a basic step.... Slippin' in my old age...

Take care of you and the family my friend, this will have it's day, I'm sure....

Welp, that was quick and easy..... Ready for primer In fact I will primer everything at this point to make sure all the joints are ok....

Thank you Mark.....

Just plain speechless.....

Here Here! It reminded me of the time my father decided to recount some of his experiences during WWII. (he didn't do that very often) In particular the time he was telling about the relief of the 7th division by the Marines in from from the Shuri line.... He spent three months in and around the Shuri Line and this video sounded a LOT like his depictions of what it was like.... When they brought the Marines up (in trucks) the relieved troops had to march back... in one such truck were a bunch of kids who were throwing catcalls and other less than respectful things. (of course marines/army you get the picture) there was a gunnery Sgt in one of the truck and my father recounted how he brought his charges up short with a few choice words, and then stood on the forward corner of the bed rails of the truck and threw a perfect parade ground salute to the troops marching..... My father said that made his day, someone who understood what he was seeing, showed them the respect they deserved, No army/marines issues after that with him it was respect for those who made it through and remembering those who didn't, many good friends.... All of you boys, Thank you, for your service, (and your sacrifices)......

Why thank you Denis! It is appreciated That was a lot of sawing.... My first driving job was for a carnival show, everything was tagged "Circus Load" cause everytime we went down the road it was the same, but different... never the same from trip to trip... WE were well familiar with where we could drive and had to plan each trip so there were no "incidents" of trying to go under things we shouldn't..... We didn't have any conventional trucks all cabovers mostly CO 70 series international single axles and a couple of K-123 LWB's. Still there were several times where the driver took a shortcut to the repair shop.... (and the unemployment line) Why they do that I've never been able to figure out.... (and there are plenty of videos on the 'net of drivers that insert their heads in dark places when it comes to bridges & tunnels) "Oh I thought I could just sneak under it" or "I got caught in the wrong lane and couldn't get out" Excuse me? Stop the Truck! there will be a officer along shortly to assist you in correcting your inability to heed the warning signs.... My biggest worry was something that someone threw on the trailer after I've checked the load and it falling off somewhere in the middle of nowhere...... that was known to happen quite a bit.... Only memories now, thing I can chuckle over.... Thank you for the complement and words of encouragement.... EG

So when is the test run going to take place? I think we all would like to hear them run..... Absolutely gorgeous!!!!

Scaling in the vertical..... Well the last time I was dealing with the sides of the trailer I was lengthening them to a scale 48 feet..... Top, Bottom & Sides at correct scale length.... Unfortunately we also need to increase their height. By 1977 most semi trailers in the country had evolved into a taller profile going from 12'6" in the mid '60's to 13'6" standard height in the '70's to early '80's. (todays trailers can be as much as 14'6" in height) This means I have to add a half an inch to the side panels 23 & 1/16th inch length.... Another issue that has to be dealt with also, the molded in, operable door hinges. Adding a half inch to the height throws off the hinge pattern. Three hinges, equidistant apart, centered on the door jamb. The hinges are molded into the end of the side panel and measure .080 wide and .120 deep with brackets and pins that act as the hinge pin when the door panel is trapped around them. Cutting them off results in shortening the side by .080 so after I've raised the height I will have to glue a piece of stock to the tail end of each side to replace the door jamb. This also means that I will have to scratch build new doors for the rear of the trailer as that is much much easier than trying to adjust the existing doors. Hence, the doors will no longer open. (given the amounts of reinforcement being used to support the long glue joints inside the trailer this in not a loss, in fact it is a good thing) I will wind up using resin aftermarket details to recreate the door hinges and jamb locks. Now on to cutting my extensions...... (or, giving the micro saw a workout) The remaining sides wound up being 13 9/16ths inch long after the lengthening section was removed. The sections removed to increase the height have to come off the top as it is the only way to add it without destroying the details. (the bottom edge of the sides carried the flat channel details that show the attachment to the floor beams so I cannot add anything there. The pic above shows the razor saw being used to first score along one of the bead channels, and once a groove is started for the saw to track in, using the saw to cut almost through the side panel. Once your about 3/4ths of the way through the panel, you snap it along the cut groove. you then take the edge of a #11 blade and scrape the tiny residual edge off being careful not to gouge the cut in any small location... With a little luck, it leave you with a nice straight edge to join to the top edge of the side panel. in the pic above you can see I've cut the second strip off the old side panel. Two strips are required to span the longer length of the rescaled longer side. Making a total of four long tedious cuts by hand..... Once those four strips are cut and cleaned, they need to be indexed to each other to preserve the spacing of the vertical rivet details. This is done by matching the rivet pattern to the side panels rivet pattern, marking an index mark on the strips, and then cutting them off making sure the resultant full length strip is still longer than the side panel.... Once the strips are marked they are cut at the same time so the saw cut has the identical angle of cut on both pieces..... And the end result is a nice clean joint..... (I put the joint in the middle of the side panels to avoid the issue of multiple joints forming a weak spot in one spot) Glueing the strips onto the top of the side panels took the same form as the length extensions, a .020 reinforcing strip is glued the length of the side just short of each end on the inside. Then the strips are glued to the the reinforcing strip from the back side to prevent any liquid glue splurge into the bead detail on the front side. The following sequence of shots shows the process..... once done, a small tab of .020 is glued over the center joint on the strips. it is then allowed to cure overnight.... The final results all glued and solid.... So how did the Bead/Rivet detail on the outside finally wind up? Looks good from here..... I will know better once there is some primer throw on it... but I've always had pretty good results when the photo doesn't show the joint.... (there will probably be some residuals to this procedure but for now, I just want to set the sides to one side and look at something else for a while, like the freezer unit I've got to scratch build, the doors will have to wait until the van body is assembled) Anyway, that should conclude our expedition into re-scaling well at least most of it.... Thank you for coming along for the trip, and I hope you enjoyed it.... EG

Thank you, I like researching the details.... (at least try and get it right) Single handed unloading... Wow, now that is what I call work.....

Next Step, The Trailer Bullnose.... The kit part...... Pretty standard for a '60's period Van trailer, The corners are radiused 12" and the structural beading wraps around and crosses the width of it. So what did the Trailer in the movie have? Smooth corners, so the beading detail has to come off.... Both sides... now the question all the way to the top? Yes all the way to the top.... But, notice another thing, the beading does not go all the way to the top on the face of the bullnose either... so we count the beads up the front. 46 corrugated beads up the face of the trailer. This is assuming that they are the correct size. So we need to count the beads on the kit part... 50 beads lines, so we eliminate the detail around the corners and four lines from the top...... But wait a sec, the area at the top of the bullnose is flat, for at least a foot and a half above the last bead line..... what's going on here... Obviously the Trailer Height is too short. So I take a shot from the movie showing the height and width of the trailer and calculate the aspect ratio. Guess what? the Trailer is a foot too short. Doing my research, I discover that most trailers from the early '50's to mid '60's were 12'6" tall and measuring the bullnose added to the trailer deck height of four feet comes out to a perfect scale 12'6" where the aspect ratio of the trailer in the movie shows the trailer needs to be 13'6" in height. I need to add a half an inch to the height of the bullnose..... (which means I need to add a half an inch to the height of the sides also) Razor saw to the rescue..... I cut a half inch off the other kits bullnose and mate it to the standard bullnose after sanding off the bead detail..... Now it looks the proper aspect ratio...... So now I have to raise the trailer panel sides this extra height...... I have enough detailed plastic from the remaining kit sides to do this, but have to figure out how to make that long long straight cut and still be able to match the beading detail. It would look awful funny with the beading only going up the sides part way..... So, the prior step was scaling in the horizontal, the next step, scaling in the vertical..... Beginning to think I would have been better off scratchbuilding the thing..... Onwards, and thank you for reading....... I hope you enjoy... EG

Nice recovery!

OuCH!!!!

I thought of that, but unfortunately, this is what I need to build..... Minus the collector and grille of course, unfortunately there is no aftermarket for such.... Even if there was, it is a simple box, much cheaper to scratch it....

I've always found that it takes longer for a manufacturer to send replacement parts than it does to ship out a full kit, usually a month or two....... But you guys are beginning to give me the itch for WWII US Navy birds again..... (the budget boss, and chief accountant, is not going to be happy)

I can look around in the aftermarket world and see what there is, I know that Moebius puts out a Great Dane Trailer with a more current Thermo King unit as a 2-n-1 kit.... Just checked.... Yes they do Moebius #1303 which is the 53' Great Dane smooth side with optional reefer...... also current production. (still has the rear roll up door also)

Yeah I have the artwork.... A composite from several screenshots of trailer #2. I had to recreate the upper right corner myself....... Still need to scale it a bit and a tad more cleaning up but I'm good here. Not sure if I'm going to print it myself or have a custom printer do it on an Alps printer.... Oh and those two Moebius Kits? they are current production, you can get them from amazon..... or your local Hobby Shop if they stock them.... The AMT Coca-cola kits are also current production if you want to duplicate what I'm attempting to do. The Reefer unit is incorrect for this build so I'm probably going to have to scratch build it anyway, so much for needing the old classic Watkins kit. EG

I will enjoy watching this come together....

Popeye, or if I may call you Denis? First, Moebius #1301 is the 2010 International Prostar Tractor, and Moebius #1302 is the 53' Great Dane smoothside trailer to match. It even has the roll-up door on the back..... They go together I suspect. There was an aftermarket resin supplier from Europe that used to do a Cascadia conversion kit, but it is no longer among his website offerings and besides, he is on temporary hiatus due to the CV-19 virus. Hopefully he comes back. You would be in the $130.00 range for both. I understand SWMBO's and marching orders The last kit combo I bought and she was suggesting that I might take a trip to the moon if I bought another . (1/72 scale Dragon Saturn V and the Apollo 10 setup) I checked the transfer yard they built at the rear of our Wally World yesterday, all Cascadia's except for one Prostar & two Lonestar's, the Cascadia is the better looking truck in my opinion. Yeah they are both Fruehauf FB's AMT has released this kit in many different livery's over the years with and without the reefer unit. It represents the cutting edge of trailer construction long about 1963-66 or so...... but it still sells although it pretty much represents nothing currently on the road. And I'm building a '77 Hobbs dry goods van, which were built by Fruehauf anyways so the details are right on the money. Of course in the train of kitbashing this, most of the locator pins have to come off, they don't line up anymore. So I'm still kind figuring a way to line them up correctly.... (probably install my own locators and reinforcements but haven't yet figured out exactly how yet) Anyway, just having fun here while in self imposed viral lockdown. EG

I'm very happy you are enjoying it, I keep practicing my plastic hacking and someday, hopefully, I'll get good at it.... EG

Tractor build is unfortunately on hiatus waiting for parts...... So we continue by starting the second half of this build, the trailer....... First off the kits..... The kit at the top is a 2019 AMT holiday Coca-Cola van, a 40' Fruehauf model FB. The kit at the bottom is a 1970 AMT Watkins reefer trailer model FB. believe it or not, except for the reefer unit in the '70 kit, they are identical. The instructions.... As the base model I'm using the newer kit and the older kit for the parts to enlarge the trailer to the proper scale size. (the older kit is a builder and not a collector grade kit) The parts..... The trailer measures 19 1/16th inches long not counting the reefer unit, this is a hair short for a 40' trailer in 1/25th scale. And I need to lengthen it to a scale 48' which should be 23 1/16th inches long so it's four inches I need to add to get to the correct scale length. Well let's examine the parts.... The parts are highly detailed, actually amazingly detailed.... Side beading and rivet details...... Looks just like the beading details on the side of the movie trailers..... The inner roof panel.... Shows the cross ribbing to support the roof.... (very glad this detail is there makes the decision on where and how to cut easy) Why does this aid the rescaling of the trailer length? Well, on the real world trailer those ribs are on 2' centers so if I need to add 8 scale feet, and the rib distances are in scale, all I have to do is cut and insert 4 sections from one roof into the other.... so are the ribs to scale? Laying the rule down next to the roof, we see that the ribs start out pretty much on 1" centers, at 1/24th scale, 1" centers are perfect, but we are working in 1/25th scale.... the centers should be gradually falling behind the inch marks on the ruler... Checking the other end, and yes they do fall a little behind the ruler graduations as they reach the length of the trailer, the ribs are in scale... I need to cut out four bays..... I don't count the first bay because it carries the door jamb for the rear doors so I take the next four bays off the old trailer roof. Next is taking the first bay off the new trailer roof..... (trusty razor saw works great here) Then cleaning the edges, mating them, and checking the length...... Ahhh!, 23 1/16th inch long and perfectly straight. but while they were seperated I used both pieces as templates to cut the sides and floor of the trailer.... (you can see the parts under the razor saw in the above picture) So, how did we do with the bead details on the sides of the trailer following this procedure? The joint line won't photograph, the older kits plastic is seriously yellowed over time compared to the newers pristine white and that is the only way to tell where the join is.... So what does a 48' trailer side look like compared to a 40' trailer side? Extending the floor panel..... And the other side..... Now, I have a trailer that is the correct length.... Next step, accurizing the trailers bullnose..... and checking for scale height......

Prayin for your speedy recovery....... We are pretty much on lockdown already we are both well over 60 and the SO is recovering from pneumonia already.... not fun and it takes a while they tell us.... Please stay in touch if possible......