Got a couple of more trucks done. These will be for the pecan orchard business on the layout: J_______M (J Bar M in brand lingo). My wife's initials are JM. Anyway, there were these Sylvan REO Speedwagon trucks on half price sale so they were bought in the six truck purchase I did a month or so ago. They are decent models and fit the orchard thing pretty well.
That truck was on Bring a Trailer and the bid went to $49,250 but did not reach the reserve. They are apparently pretty desirable! It is a pickup with 20" wheels and a 1.5 ton rating.
Keith, That would be a pretty safe assumption! Top speed would probably be around 45 mph, so it would not work for the highway either. The 1953 ford F-250 we had would only do 47 mph, and that was downhill in Colorado Springs, CO.
This thread has had a bizarre agglomerate (I've always wanted to use that word in a sentence...just kidding) of trucks and vehicles, but since that's what the thread is about, here's some more vehicle stuff. On page 8 I posted about a pair of fictitious trailers I was making for the QA&P. Today a wild idea hit me while I was hiking the dog that actually worked. Trailers that had ribs on the side often had signs made of sheet metal that were screwed or riveted to the side of the trailer. That is what I decided to do on these trailers. The yellow that I sprayed the trailers with is gone and not available anymore. It was Floquil. I have a rattle can of similar yellow that never gets used. That might not spray well since I am not very good with a spray can. Instead of spraying a piece of styrene with the wrong yellow and having to make decals for it, I printed a sheet of clear acetate on our laser printer with the decal image and sprayed the back of the sheet yellow. To ensure that the front was not too shiny, I hit it with a light coat of dullcoat. It worked great!!!! The trailers will get more decals once the decal paper and other odds and ends I ordered finally arrive. Here is a question for any of you that are knowledgeable about trucking and trailers. Would the hinges and hardware on the side doors and rear doors have been yellow or bare metal? I do not know whether to hit them with silver or leave them as is. The unpainted tandem axle tractor is a 1951ish Freightliner Bubble Nose. It is what will pull the two trailers. The paint scheme is still undecided. The final photograph is a 1937 Chevrolet REA truck. It is really too early for me, but it was half price, so I bought it and am building it, and will probably sell it.
The REA truck is done, but the results are not what I had hoped for. The level of gloss in the finish is kind of splotchy looking. Oh well. The Freightliner Bubblenose will pull the tandem 26' QA&P trailers that were nearly completed in the last post. Early to mid 1950s vintage trucks did not have aluminum fuel tanks, nor did they have chrome bumpers. I am debating between yellow and black on the front bumper. Several Freightliners in early photographs have had diagonal striping on the outer portions of the front bumper. I have some diagonal stripe decals, so that may be what it ends up with. The cab sides will have a small coonskin, either QA&P or straight Frisco, plus some other decals. The decal paper and other modeling supplies I ordered ages ago finally arrived today, so I can get some decals printed. You would not believe the route this package took through the USPS. It is no wonder they lose money hand over fist. It started near Atlanta, GA; then went to Dallas, TX; Lubbock, TX; on to Abilene, TX; finally to Rule where we live.
Paul, I ordered some supplies from Blick Art Supply on April 4. They arrived on April 29, after a nine day hiatus at the FedEx facility in Olathe, Kansas, and another little layover at Donaldson Station in Tulsa. Blick did not want to give a refund.
Jeff, Apparently, all of the shippers have a couple of things in common: high prices and pathetic service. The funny thing is that every time I ship something, it is delivered in three days. Whenever someone sends something to me it takes a week and a half. My theory is that since we live in a rural area, the shippers view that as a low priority, low population density. Oh well, it is just a hobby.
The truck tractor is nearly done. Windshields, exhaust stack, horn and the hose tree are all it needs. It actually came out pretty well. But it does not work with the trailers. The frame is too long for the short trailers; the fifth wheel is apparently too high and the front trailer rides with its nose too high. There might be something I can do with the fifth wheel, but I am not sure what. My wife and I are not sure why some of the wheels still look orange. The paint is the same, it just does not look like it. Maybe the dish on the wheels creates a shadow and creates the illusion of darkness. Who knows. Any ideas on what other purpose the tractor could have on the fictitious QA&P? Maybe take off the fifth wheel and make it a big flatbed or something. There are other tractors I can build to pull the trailers. There is another low boy trailer in my stash of kits, but that was earmarked for either the Autocar that is in progress or a huge Mack LMSW off highway tractor. The single biggest problem with the cast resin vehicle kits is ride height. You do not have enough hands to hold everything in place before gluing things together to see if it is going to be level; if the wheel wells are the right height above the tires; if all the tires touch the ground; etc., etc. Maybe the thing to do is use canopy glue or something non-permanent to attach parts before permanently gluing them together to ensure that everything fits properly. Anyway, the truck itself is not too bad, but it does not work well with the trailers it was intended to pull. Back to the drawing board!!!
A solution hit me yesterday evening after posting this. Remove the fifth wheel; scratch build a cargo box to go on the back of the truck; use a pintle hook hitch to attach a trailer. Or if I want to go really nuts, do that and pull both trailers. Consolidated Freightways was the inspiration for this rig and that is what they did in the early days.
A couple of shots of the latest rendition of the truck. Tom Holley and I talked about it and both had some similar views. It is too bad that I did not know that the truck was going to end up being the box and trailer. I could have skipped the QA&P herald on the cab doors and put those on the box sides. The box can't really have the fictitious Piggyback logo because it will not go on a flatcar. What I have decided to put on the box is a rendition of Ship It on the Frisco. The logo came from a photograph of a box car that I photoshopped for an hour and a half. The rear wheels look crooked in the truck photographs because they are not glued on yet.
Played with the truck in Photoshop to see what the Ship It on the Frisco would look like. To me, it clashes with the QA&P stuff. I may have to think about it for awhile. Two trailers is a bit much. One trailer will probably be parked someplace and one with the truck.
Maybe the Ship It on the Frisco should be a little smaller and then have a line of text above it or below it.
