JeroenS

Some final detail on the hookloader frame (warning: unforgiving close-ups ). This completes the frame as far as I'm concerned. I can now connect 4 hoses in various places, that should do it.

That's a beauty, and what an excellent paint job!

They loaded fine now.

Hey Coops, I get stop signs instead of pics in that last post; they're not loading. Something wrong at your end?

Very nice truck KP!

Before the weekend, I really felt like painting something. Well, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for... I'll try to summarize what can only be called "my truck cab painting adventure". I'd already painted the cab in Tamiya X-7 red a while ago. However, at the time I didn't do that, but I still wanted to weather the cab by chipping the paint. So I thought, well, what if I take a small piece of sponge and apply some red brown, brown and black to edges and such, like so: then apply salt like I did on the Blitz, and then repaint the lot in the already mentioned X-7. So I did, and ended up with this: By the way, I used Tamiya's Lacquer Thinner for the first time this weekend and I'll never use the X20-A again. Using the Lacquer Thinner, the paint cures in the blink of an eye, the gloss paints too. Anyway, time to remove the salt. Well, no! I just couldn't get it off and in the places where I eventually could, I could see primer. I had that same issue with the Blitz, but not like this. I must be doing something wrong, but I decided the salt method just isn't for me. So, an IPA bath it was! I don't have any pictures of what I did next, but this is it: - Tamiya fine grey primer from the rattle can - Tamiya flat black - Zero Paints 1K clear - hairspray - Tamiya flat red brown (XF-64) - I then took a wet cotton bud (or several, actually) and removed some of the red brown paint, which worked well - Zero Paints 1K clear again - hairspray again - Tamiya X7 red I then took a cotton bud to the red paint, at which point I discovered that apparently, the hairspray chipping method does not work with gloss paint! All I did was make the paint wet but it didn't budge one bit. So basically I ended up where I started, with a nicely painted cab in X-7 red. This was yesterday evening so I let it go, thinking that at least I got some time in the spray booth... However, nice as it looked, this was not what I intended so I went back to work this afternoon. No IPA this time! - First, a respray of red brown, and a bit of flat brown for some tonal variation here and there - 1K clear - hairspray - flat red this time! Then I went to work with the cotton buds again and ... phew, this time it worked. I didn't go all out like with the Blitz, I just wanted some minor damage to show it's an '80s truck, still in business. I clearcoated it so the cab is ready for dust etc. Of course a truck this old will not have any shine on it! Paint I did this weekend! My index finger is even a little sore from the airbrush's trigger All in all, it was very educational and in the end I got the result I wanted. Thanks for looking in!

While hiking today, this pretty beast Also, a beautifully restored VW T1, a Volvo 244 Polar Estate (I love those) and a Citroen BX Break. Where did these things go? To the wrecker, probably... Anyway, my father was a Citroen lover so we went through 3 BX's, one being a Break.

Don't worry! Although I'm not building Pocher kits I still find reading about the way you solve all those problems very educational.

That's coming together rather well.

Just search the forum for "Schlingmann”, there are a few builds of fire trucks with lights.

Now that's really nice, what a sweet ride... Great colour, good job on the engine!

Nice. I saw one like this, but much bigger, on the road today. It was huge. I like the shot with the weather forecast in the background

Not much progress today. I'm usually away on Sundays, until well in the afternoon, enjoying "the great outdoors". I'm in head-scratching mode, trying to figure out what, how and when. I did a dress rehearsal on the chassis with all the bits and pieces in the correct location (except not attached to the chassis). It's really going somewhere now, I rather like it. The cabs sits nice and high and I think everything is well proportioned. I have to make some room for the tank which holds the hydraulic fluid for the pistons. Obviously it wasn't included in the kit but I have a nice tank for it, you can just make it out on the right side of the battery box and air tanks. I considered placing it at the back of the cab but there isn't much space there as the cab is quite small and there are windows in the back. I'd like to add some hoses and pipes but I don't want to go all out. I'm looking for "just enough". I'm also figuring out how to connect the loader frame to the chassis in such a way that I can paint the loader frame separately from the chassis, but the connecting bits should already be on the chassis because I want to paint them in one go. All the tanks and such have already been painted. So it should be something like: make the connection for the loader frame (with the guide wheels) and fix it to the chassis, make preparations for wires and/or hoses, paint the chassis, assemble everything, attach wires and hoses, paint the loader frame and attach it to the chassis. Sounds simple enough if you say it like this

I did some more work on the loader's frame today. I had concluded that I had to make some changes, as the inner beams were not spaced widely enough. If I had left them as they were I would have gotten into trouble at the back of the frame, where the guide wheels are attached. As you can see here the inner beams should be spaced in such a manner that the guide wheel's "tube" is even with the outer rails. Also in the picture above is the locking mechanism which I was able to finish today. I'm pretty happy with it, of course I managed to make 1 slit too large... (it's on the other end). Also, I was a bit too enthousiastic and didn't do a dry fit until it was finished. I then found that it was too wide, I had inadvertedly put it in the "locked" position. That wouldn't do because, while it's my intention to place a container on the frame, I wouldn't be able to do that if the mechanism is locked. And no, it's not a working mechanism So I had to shorten the rods which lock the container. But it's still ok. My reasoning is that if there's no container loaded, the locking mechanism is visible and should be in the unlocked position. If a container is loaded, the mechanism won't be visible anyway so it will not be noticeable it is in the wrong position.

That's a huge improvement!