Moving Forward.

 I approach this weekend with disappointment at the fact that I will not be attending the Train show in Springfield, Mass. that started today. I enjoy viewing all of the efforts made by those members of the 1/87 Vehicle Club that have decided to display there and wish this year was not the exception. But more, I will miss seeing the modelers themselves, many of whom have become my good friends. My hope and prayers go out that all have a safe and enjoyable time.

Among them is a man I have mentioned here before that offers modelers a wonderful selection of resin cast model kits by the name of Don Mills. For several years now Don has listed on his web site a Kenworth Narrownose tractor that has been labeled "coming soon". Well soon has come to pass and he did not disappoint in this kit. My good friend Joe Enriquez has been showing me his efforts to turn this model into a class act for quite some time now and I applaud his work that contributed to the Don Mills kit.

I made some changes to the kit that are not readily apparent but bear mentioning here. Because of the crispness and quality of Ratcliffe Model castings, I decided to utilize his suspensions front and rear as well as the wheels. The wheels and tires are also slightly larger than the ones that come with the kit. Added aslo are quarter fenders and mudflaps in cast metal from Alloy Forms. In the photo below you will notice a photo etched crossover deck that comes from the very impressive collection of photo etched details of Pitstop87. A visor has been fashioned from sheet brass.

Lastly is a photo etched heat shield on the muffler from Masterbilt models. A big thanks to Bob Johnson for it. It has been mentioned some time ago by another modeler that builds bright shiny models that I, and those like me that weather our models, are doing so to cover mistakes and flaws. In other words that we don't do meticulously clean vehicles because we can't.  For him I offer up the last photo here to show the results of my airbrush talents before weathering.  I weather simply to provide what I believe validates them and when photographed in a scale setting gives a sense of reality. 

Another model worked on recently has been the Wiking Peterbilt. This particular model came in a wrecker configuration But I always thought needed a good wrecker unit than the one it comes with. So I decided to utilize the fantastic Holmes unit that comes with several of the Athearn trucks. It was a simple matter really of cutting the molded fixtures from the Wiking bed, applying a photo etched diamond plate deck and mounting the Holmes. I re-cabled the Holmes unit to be more prototypical, put Dennis Aust wheels on it and added stainless mirrors to the rig. The headlights were change from the quad units to single lens and the rear of the Athearn bed was fitted.

Do have a good remainder to this winter, thanks for looking!