2019 KW T800 twin steer tri axle rotator wrecker

[klubman01]

Have to agree with Jeroen.  Great skills on display.  I'm thinking that "truck exhaust systems" is a fairly niche search request!

Trevor

[busnproplinerfan]

4 hours ago, JeroenS said:

That is some neat work! 

Thanks buddy.

[busnproplinerfan]

1 hour ago, klubman01 said:

Have to agree with Jeroen.  Great skills on display.  I'm thinking that "truck exhaust systems" is a fairly niche search request!

Trevor

Thanks Klubman. These seem to vary quite a bit depending on the configuration. The twin steer compared to a single steer etc.

[busnproplinerfan]

I'm back!, miss me? I've been tinkering a bit but have to get this done. I discovered a new word, lethargy, might be my problem and don't know how to counter it. Anyway, on to something less depressing. I added all the exterior parts now and since the it will be painted black, chroming will be easy. I plan on doing most cabs like this to. It's way easier to mount the parts on first, no chance of damaging the paint after either. Although I don't have a picture, all the body parts are now painted black.

I figured out how to make railings from brass rod. I could have used plastic rod but it'll likely warp over time. I had to practice anyway, I want to get into building HO trains soon. I bought a proper soldering gun to for this and worth the investment. I made the railings on a piece of 2x4 wood which is ok but a harder wood would work better. This still needs the silvers and green painted, that's next.

These are the spreader bar endcaps, There are eight shown, the strange curvy piece goes into larger white parts. These will be painted green and black so they'll be left apart. The piece with the masking tape is the same size .020 plastic with two layers of tape simulate the paint thickness.

[busnproplinerfan]

I have the wrecker body all masked up for the silvers. I had to fix the cab roof, it started to cave in a bit and pushed out the top of the back window. I ran hot water on the roof from the inside and pushed it back up. Unfortunately it cracked the paint on top as you see in the second picture. I superglued on three brass square tubing pieces, hopefully that holds the roof up. Unfortunately it covers the upholstery but no one will be low enough to look up into the cab.

Here's the roof after sanding it. I didn't fill the cracks just painted over the roof from the lights back. I know putty likes to shrink and might just cause more problems after it's all built. They are very small anyway. I brushed on the same acrylic satin black and then brushed on a couple coats of future. The visor is masked off and the rest of the trim and mirrors will be done by hand.

I originally painted the silver areas with Tamiya X-11 chrome silver but it came out very dull. I don't know why but I made a post about it in the paint section. I found some testors chrome silver enamel and it saved the day. The roof will get one or two more coats of future. I have to unmask sections and paint the remaining trim parts chrome. After that the top angled areas will be unmasked and painted with primer and the green. The green is synergy green, the one used on the newer Camaros.

Here's the decals, had them done awhile ago. I drew them all up on Coreldraw 13 and had a printshop https://www.pdc.ca/rr/catalog   who is close by. They did an excellent job with fast turn around time. I didn't like the silver on the first  page so I had them redone with a nicer silver. The confusing parts will be figuring out where these all go. This company will send a colour sample chart if you need for a few bucks, I recommend it.

[klubman01]

Good rescue job on the roof.  The silver finish looks really effective.

Trevor

[JeroenS]

I did miss this one, good to have you back! Some really nice work there, the soldering paid off, those are nice railings. Would be good to see this one assembled.

[busnproplinerfan]

8 hours ago, klubman01 said:

Good rescue job on the roof.  The silver finish looks really effective.

Trevor

Thanks Trevor. I sure didn't want to repaint the whole cab. I just found out the cab has a walk through sleeper, so I have to cut out the back wall.

 

7 hours ago, JeroenS said:

I did miss this one, good to have you back! Some really nice work there, the soldering paid off, those are nice railings. Would be good to see this one assembled.

Thanks Jeroen. I found out why the tip of the soldering gun was eaten away. The flux I was using is very corrosive, even says on the can. I have to get rosin core.

[busnproplinerfan]

 

 

All unmasked. A couple of small touch ups needed. The chrome is Molotow chrome marker refill airbrushed. The stuff is amazing. I did watch a couple videos on airbrushing it first. You put it on fairly heavy, the opposite of Alclad or Spaxtix. I did have a problem with the clearcoat. Some of the boom's green areas came out dull . I put another coat on and it did the same thing. I ended up clearing the greet parts with Future. I figured it was safe since it's quite neutral. Two coats later and the boom was ok.

 

When I unmasked the silver, the tape lifted the sheen, I might have rushed it a bit. Tamiya tape is usually quite safe on silver. So I had to lightly respray the chrome silver. Did it more as a blow in and not as a wet repaint. Of course some of the green lifted. The automotive paint is simple to touch up if you spray it into the cap and let it set for awhile, it becomes thick like enamel.

 

Finally have the decals on the cab, sleeper, hood. Had to cut them into smaller sections to make sure they lined up. Also the interior is pretty much done with the dash detailed. I made the monitor for the dash.

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Nice to see that you're getting there with this one. Paint and decals are looking great.

[busnproplinerfan]

Thanks, making myself stay on it.

[Pouln]

Didn’t see this before but catched up, since you restarted. Pretty amazing build. Looks great!

[busnproplinerfan]

37 minutes ago, Pouln said:

Didn’t see this before but catched up, since you restarted. Pretty amazing build. Looks great!

Thanks Pouln.

[Spiny]

Amazing what a difference getting the paint on has made - it's really looking the part now. You'd think from looking at it it was a kit rather than being so heavily scratchbuilt.

[busnproplinerfan]

9 hours ago, Spiny said:

Amazing what a difference getting the paint on has made - it's really looking the part now. You'd think from looking at it it was a kit rather than being so heavily scratchbuilt.

Thanks Spiny. It did take a lot of mocking up and test fitting. I wanted to make sure that once it's all painted, all I have to do is glue it all together and not touch the paint.

[busnproplinerfan]

The cab is put together now and mostly detailed and the sleeper is actually done. The cab and sleeper are not glued down yet. I want to line up the cab and hood properly, then fit the small sub fenders. I did all that when mocking it up before painting but as we know, things tend to move after they're painted. I had to repaint the sleeper window rubber after the decals where done. If you haven't noticed, the cab doors are suicide doors., Note the door handles on the front of the door. Nice subtle custom touch. I left the cab windows open a bit. I always have dust, dandruff and boogers that get all over a windshield after I close cabs and cockpits up.

[busnproplinerfan]

I started making the side steps and battery box for the wrecker. On the drivers side I had to relocate the piman arm to the front of the steering box. That was pretty simple, just cut off the portion of the steering box and make a new portion from sprue. I had to also shorten the steering box for the fender mount. Now it's all correct.

Here's the finished fender mounts and battery box. Each side took about two afternoons. The batteries go on the right side. I want to have the whole front of the truck done before installing the wrecker body, essentially make it into a glider. Next big job is the moose bumper, light bars, cab protection, fender re-bracing and fuel tanks. Still have to cast some tires.

 

[busnproplinerfan]

Made the moose bumper. Made it from strip stock (3mm x 6mm) for the uprights, 4mm tube for the round parts and 0.020 sheet  and strips for the flat areas. I thought of using 3d printed 1/35 weld decals for the welds but they are pricey and hard to get. I didn't think they would go around the tight curves. So I used stretched sprue and glued it on with liquid cement. After it sat for a day I wetted the stretched sprue with the liquid cement and poked it with the tip of a small rat tail file. The glue softened it up enough. The white plastic was a lot softer than the grey or silver plastic, don't know why.

I made up a hinge using the smallest stryene tubing. I was going make a pin to hold the bumper up but that gets complicated. I thought of a magnet but I didn't want to buy a 1000 magnets. My friend had a leather cell phone case with a magnetic flap. It's a bit smaller than a dime and there's two per phone case. Most people just throw these away. On the bumper side I used a small piece of an Olfa knife. After some fine tuning it worked.

I cut out the center slot, just partway, I didn't want to expose the knife blade. There is a flap with the license plate that will go on after it's painted. I also marked out where the bumper lights will go.

I made two so I have one spare. Also it helped with figuring out all the fine tuning. You can see the backside of the frame mount. I know the actual ones have a less bulky mounting but this works and won't fall off or break.

[JeroenS]

That is a good looking bumper. Good job on the welds. 

[klubman01]

42 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

That is a good looking bumper. Good job on the welds. 

Agree 100%.

Trevor

[busnproplinerfan]

8 hours ago, JeroenS said:

That is a good looking bumper. Good job on the welds. 

 

7 hours ago, klubman01 said:

Agree 100%.

Trevor

Thanks guys.

[busnproplinerfan]

I replaced the hood bracing I made from plastic strip. The fenders, mostly the starboard side, was curling up about 2 mm at the outside edge. Even after a couple of hot water treatments it refused to cooperate. So I brought in uncle brass strip to the front lines for this affair. I decided to do both sides even thought the port side was better behaved. Now it's sitting like it should. The brass will be blended into the existing structure.

[busnproplinerfan]

These are the wheels I casted from the Revell triaxle wrecker. I drilled out the stud holes for nicer nut cap that you will see. One rim had a missing spot so I used a badly cast one for splicing a section. I only made two sets.

Here's the spike nut caps. These are 3d printed from evilbay. I think they came Kootney3d in BC, good seller anyway.

All the brightwork done. Most is Alclad airframe aluminum. The stacks and top of the battery box is molotow chrome. I went over most of the airframe aluminum parts with alclad chrome. For some reason the parts all looked dark. I did paint over gloss black like it says to do. The chrome brought the brightness that they needed. The oddball bumper on the right is for my Freightliner that carries the Huey I built sometime ago. That is another story to be shown soon.

Here's the lightbars. These came from policecarmodels.com, now blackdogdiecast.com. I had to lengthen them for the wrecker using two light bars for each one. These are two type used here.

I forgot to add a caption to this picture. The stack guards are photo etch stainless. I think they came from Czech Truck Model (CTM). These were meant to be rolled and to clip onto mountings made for a thinner muffler. These are huge so I made plastic tabs on the stack mounts. I then drilled holes into them and used stick pins cut down in the holes through the stack guard holes which had to the enlarged a little. The green parts are spreader bar ends which are stored here when not in use.

[JeroenS]

Nice and shiny! Those wheels came out pretty well too.

[busnproplinerfan]

2 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Nice and shiny! Those wheels came out pretty well too.

Thanks Jeroen.