Every day the temperature has been well over 100 (the last two days were 107 / 108, so I decided to stay inside and build another truck during the afternoons. This is another Sylvan cast resin kits. It was a royal pain to build. The front / top / back are one piece, and it took lots of heating and shaping to get it to work. The floor is a piece that also proved to be cantankerous. The sides are two layers. The angled braces are laser cut wood and the horizontal simulated wood planks are laser cut cardboard. That's right, cardboard. Finally got it done and painted. It goes well with the livestock loading pens. Maybe it's a foretelling of what happened to livestock being hauled on the QA&P.
Thanks, Mark. Got the tractor for it started. The truck is a 1950ish Mack LTSW and is another Sylvan model. It's a little overkill for a 35' livestock trailer, but I like tandem axle trucks/ tractors.
Thanks, Mark. It may be awhile before I get to work on it again. Last week I was sick and am behind on necessary projects around the house. Someday I'll get back to it. The biggest problem, from my perspective, in taking a break from a model, is remembering what you were going to do next and how to proceed.
A little progress on the truck. Seems like most of the time I'm waiting for either glue or paint to dry. Since it's a relatively small project, you can't juggle things and work on several parts of the project at once.
Thanks to both of you. I don't know how I got on the green truck kick. Maybe because there's so much red or yellow out there that something different seemed good.
Haven't done much modeling lately, but there is a fairly recently completed truck on the layout. It's a 1952 Ford grain truck and is another Sylvan cast resin model. It came with molded on detail for the small grain door and mechanism on the back of the bed. Getting the bed and frame lined up was tricky and I got preoccupied with that and, like an idiot, glued the bed on backwards. So I had to carve off the molded on detail and scratch build the mechanism for the back of the bed.
Looks great! If you want a bit of variety, you can get another of those old grain trucks, but cut the rear panel off and replace it with cattle slats and add a couple steers.
I have always liked the great wide-open West Texas look of this layout. When I was in high school, I was overcome with West Texas and tried to model it, but was pretty unsuccessful because I really didn’t know anything about it.
That's not a bad idea, Ethan. My wife likes cows (she calls them all cows), so we've got 35 head of cattle on the layout. We've also got a 1940's vintage stock trailer and an old Mack to go with it. I still might make another grain truck and turn it into a small open stock / farm truck.
Thanks, Patrick. Did you know that this is the area Tom Holley grew up in? He knows it way better than I do. It's not for everyone, but I like it. The folks from MO tend to like limestone cliffs and lots of trees. That's a more realistic and common Frisco look, but west central TX is where we live and I've always liked modeling the area I live in.
Thanks Paul! You know, what I remember from that part of Texas is how different it looked in the 1970's as opposed to the early 1900's. As in the early 1900's there very few trees/shrubs anywhere, a very spartan look and feel to the country there. Then the weed Mesquite trees overtook every square inch of land it seems. It has been said that the Aspen trees are among the biggest living organisms, but I would think the Mesquite trees are pretty big too. I remember seeing as a kid, 2 big Caterpillar or Allis Chalmers dozers with like anchor chains between them raking up, many thousands of acres of Mesquite trees into big piles. I remember grandpa saying, "we used to have many natural springs with fresh water, until these Mesquite trees started drinking all the ground water up". Anyone who thinks the Pease river or Tongue river breaks are flat, have never been there. Chief Quanah Parker fled from, and challenged, his future captors for decades in that part of Texas. Really some significant history in that part of Texas.
I've heard the same thing about the Mesquite trees. They use up the ground water, they're hard to kill, and unless you stay on top of things on your property, they will take over. Another interesting thing about the Mesquites, and several other plants here. You'd think if you catch them young and mow them down it would take care of the problem. Nope. If you mow them, they just grow sideways!!!! That Pease River area is rugged. I can only guess at the head scratching that went on between the survey engineers who initially planned the QA&P route.
