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Here's my next major project. It's a new 2019 KW T800 rotator wrecker used by Champion Towing here in Winnipeg. The wrecker is a Miller 1075S rotator with an HHU underlift. (Miller took over Century wreckers awhile ago). This truck is 45' long, the length restrictions were recently changed. I built a similar wrecker for Dr.Hook towing a few years ago and it was limited to 40'. This truck is very pretty with the right colour scheme and is all business, approximate weight is 80 000 pounds. It has a 600 hp Cummins and standard transmission. The moose bumper (as they are called in Canada) is made by Herd. I found a portion of my old notes and had to update a few things and redraw the pencil into fine ink. The forward section of paper is a new overlay with the updates as is the very rear where the HHU underlift is. I find it easier to draw the model out in scale and do all of your figuring out on paper. It still takes a few days to draw and or redraw all this up. Small stuff can be eyeballed as you build. Also because this truck is stored at the other end of the city, so it's a trip to get to see it and it's a very busy truck. I'm about to go on vacation so I had to pick something simple to get started on. I decided to start with the hydraulic cylinders. They are made of various Evergreen tubing up to 11 mm. I had to use a bit of tamiya tape to shim a few of the tubes to fit tight. The pistons are just going to be the ends. I'm making this as a static model that will be in a case when done. The engine will be put in and hood openable. I found a Miller PDF parts manual online that will help a lot to, just no measurements or straight on views. Here's a link to a 1/50 Peterbilt I made for Champion Towing in 2015. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235014127-2015-peterbilt-tri-axle-wrecker-done/

Here's my Kenworth done. I couldn't get any outside pictures because of the low sun and the extreme cold. Here's the link to the build of it. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235013976-kw-t800-with-reefer-trailer/&page=2&tab=comments#comment-2907201

A short break from other projects. The one who takes care of the Sir William Stevenson display at the Air Command HQ here in Winnipeg's 17 wing asked me to repair a few models for display. Sir William Stevenson has an interesting story and history and became the inspiration for the writing of James Bond, he is also from Winnipeg and the airport is named after him. I actually never read much on him which I guess is pretty bad for me. The models are two 1/48 Hawk Lysanders and an unknown maker of a Sopwith Camel. One Lysander is a repair that someone else made. The other needs to be built complete except the fuse and cockpit were put together already. The Camel arrived broken during shipping. It's a great model, pre built and lots of detail, the wheels are actual wire spokes. It's covered in an actual fabric. Guessing it's 1/32. I will have a Lancastrian and a Mosquito to make soon to go with these on display. These are to be representative of aircraft used by William Stevenson. I was told of some of his firsts and adventures but can't remember them well enough to write them here, so I'll let you look into it. Here's what was given to me. I painted the Lysander with Humbrol 26 and didn't like it, seemed way to dark, so I went with Humbrol 29. The green is Humbrol 119. I kind of did roughly my own masking for the camo. I saw so many variations and the models not the greatest either. The little tabs coming off the canopy to the wings broke on both planes. I made two new spars from 1/8" brass rod, notched the top canopy till it fit over them and epoxied it all in. I also made a small brass pin in the landing gear base where the bottom of the struts attach. I can't see this model going together without that. Italeri's Lysander is the same kit I found out. Other than those needed repairs it's straight from the box. Here it is with some Future floor wax sprayed on for the decals. The brown sure looks different with gloss on. Not used to 1/48 kits and not used to camo painting, been awhile. Because my airbrush won't do a super clean edge without a lot of overspray(maybe it's just me), the edges of the tape were left peeled up just a bit so the paint would leave a slight feathered edge.

I'm taking a detour from my Freightliner FL70. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235041358-freightliner-fl60-take-me-home-huey-hauler/&tab=comments#comment-3206869 I just started a restoration of a AMT Kenworth K100. This model was built originally by the Larry who I built the black T800 for a year ago, this was his first truck during the late '70s early '80s. He wants it redone. I'm trying to save as much of the original parts as I can. I need to thief some parts from another pile of parts I have. I need to draw up decals, fix everything, replace the Hendrickson rear springs with torsion bars and repaint it all. Luckily it's very similar to the AMT kit. Here are photos of the actual truck, before and after when he had it. He sold the truck long ago so it's likely not existing anymore, which is to bad because it would be a hit at the shows. The paint scheme was created by the body shop here, so it's a one off. Here's the model, dark blue one. It's actually Olds engine blue. He painted the stripes by hand. I layed paper on the cab and drew out the stripes so I could scan them. Here is everything on my CorelDraw12. I should say this was before I put the paper on the cab. Drawing it off the cab scans works until you go around corners, so paper first is better, masking tape would work to. Here I'm test fitting the print out of the stripes on my spare cab by taping the paper to the cab, it did need some tweaking. I stripped the paint off, there is some silver under the blue that won't come off. Some of it did peel, have to live with it. I had to make a new windshield, I had a spare but wanted to try it out. I used the plastic from the trays from the blue wall hanging storage things. Use a cutting disk to cut that stuff. I also carefully cut out the heater grill (next to the grill) and moved it forward so it's flush to the front. AMT made the mistake of recessing it. The visor was glued on to heavily so it stays on. I did cut off the wipers and make new ones to. The bread bag ties are very useful, keep them, they are styrene. Here's the infamous Kw torsion bar suspension. You can get these at ppvintagekits.com. This suspension was used on the first issued KW K123s and W925s. It was replaced by the Hendrickson springs on the models. The real ones are a very good suspension when maintained. It is a bit complicated, good thing I have an old built frame from one of these with this suspension, a lot of parts. I put the bars on the frame first(The line up slots were filled in on later Kw kits but can still be seen underneath) I then put one set of knuckles on the diff and one set on the bar's mounts. You have to do this slowly and one axle at a time, looking, looking, set it up and leave the axle off until the second one is set up, just makes it easier to adjust. then glue them on. Took a couple of hours to do this. Original plastic would be easier to. The shocks are two two lengths. The longer ones go to the front diff. I also replaced the end crossmember with a 3mm frame extension and the new piece along with the frame roll up wedges you see here. Here's the top view. I found out after, the crossmember on the blue frame is now wrong. The black frame shown has the correct one for the torsion bar set up. It's the same crossmember as the rear one over the rear diff. I'm not going to tear the frame apart for it and the fifth wheel plate covers the crossmember anyway. The older crossmembers also have two notches on the top for the shocks which you can sort of see. I had to make new mufflers, stack tops and the crossbars for the mounting to. The tops I made from aluminum tubing. This truck had a dual air intake pipe going into one aircleaner. Today everyone has two aircleaners, even on restorations. I had to make new tubing for that to. Only the bottom part that goes into the aircleaner is original. I also filled the holes in the stack mounts since they aren't needed. Hopefully that's all the parts that need to be made so I can go back to cleaning up the original ones.

Hello everybody, I'm Rob, a recent returnee to scale modelling, and new to this forum. I hale from Winnipeg, Canada, where good hobbies help us cope with dark and cold winters. I see a great deal of inspiring work being shown here, and I hope to show some of my own builds in the near future. Thanks for allowing me to participate. Rob Bye.

A new project. This is a commission job for Champion Towing here in Winnipeg. The truck is a 2015 Peterbilt 367 tri axle with a Century rotator wrecker. The model is being much modified from the First Gear 1/50 Kenworth T880 wrecker. Much of the Kenworth donor truck is die cast. To make a Perbuilt I have to scratchbuild the hood, cab and sleeper along with all the small parts. I was luck and found a PDF Pete manual online with profile drawings and when I printed it, it was almost perfectly 1/50, so I had my pattern. You can see here the start of the hood and the cab side. These are cut from 0.060 sheet. I hope to cast the cab and hood so I can do this again (well maybe), have to learn how to cast the shape of a cab, unless I do it in parts. The grill came off the yellow toy Pete in the backround. It's closer to 1/48. I casted it and shaved about 1/2 mm off each side to narrow it, but i left the height. A long way to go yet. Here's the actual truck.