M911 & M747 on Civvie street

[Beekster]

Working on the glad-hands is proving very fiddly and a bit vexing, so while glue dries there I've been doing more work on the planking for the trailer deck. I've had much of it cut to size for a while, but fresh material to finish it arrived yesterday. The larger sections are challenging to work with as individual planks, because they want to move around. Gluing them together would make for easier final assembly, so behold the proof of concept:

These are scrap ends glued together, with the top surface lightly sanded and stained with the stuff we have left over from our kitchen remodel. In the background is the dark gray that will be used to paint the trailer and the upper works on the tractor. My own impression is that the effect is nice overall, but a bit too yellow. So I think I will get the smallest possible container of a stain color that is much less yellow than this. In the end, the stained wood will get shot with Dullcote to seal it. This is what the rest of the planking looks like at the moment:




The four planks between the brass treadplate strips are glued together; none of the others are. The three short sections on the ramp will be easy. The larger section for the main deck could be more problematic, though. Some of these planks have a bit of a curve to them, and keeping them flat will be necessary. Assembling one big piece probably isn't the answer here; three narrower sections of four or five planks will probably work better. Back upstairs to get messy with the wood glue again...

[JCON]

That looks good!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

You should have been a Carpenter.

[Dukemaddog]

Man I love that wood work! Way to go!

A good stain to try is "gunstock"; it is a nice medium brown with a lot less yellow that what you showed. In that scale it could be just right, especially if put on sparingly.

[Beekster]

This is what I ended up with. Rather than spend money on stain, I mixed up some tan and gray enamel until it looked right, then added thinner until I got a thick wash. I like the result; looks like weathered unfinished wood. I probably ought to seal these parts with Dullcote, too.



The small sections on the ramp and the section between the treadplate are all glued together. The main deck was glued in three sections to make handling easier. Having glued these strips together, there is a tendency for them to ride up on the ends when in place, but that's nothing some superglue won't fix during final assembly.

I also got the trailer wheels base painted this afternoon; pictures tomorrow once they are dry enough to handle. Dullcote to seal in the paint in a few more days after that.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Great progress!

[JCON]

Nice mixing on the color!!! Looks great!!!

[JED]

Great work Beekster, I like the colour of the planks

[Dukemaddog]

Brilliant idea on the stain. Way to go!

I'm gonna have to try that on my models.

[Beekster]

As promised, the trailer wheels with base colors laid on (and some dust that needs washing off). Flat black followed by ADC Gray for the rims, then a mixture of the two to lighten/fade the sidewalls while leaving the treads black. After a bath and drying away from dust, this will get sealed with Dullcote and be ready for assembly and weathering.


Duke, the enamel wash technique works great for staining/aging the softer kinds of wood that we typically use like balsa and basswood, since they are quite open-grained and porous. Not sure how it would work on harder woods; that might require real furniture stain.

[Dukemaddog]

Good to know Beekster. I'll definitely keep that in mind.

[Beekster]

Another problem, another solution. Behold, the tiny red and blue wires that Hobby Boss provides for the trailer air service connections:

They are really short, around seven feet in scale, with insufficient length to drape over the utility post nor to be coiled as so many of these lines are. Also notice the absence of a corresponding black wire for the trailer electrical service line. I tried to find really fine hookup wire, 32ga or smaller, but discovered that while the conductor size was that gauge (and irrelevant for my purposes), the thickness of the jacket was too large for my purposes. A local supply shop suggested I try Surplus Gizmos, which I knew about. The place stocks a huge array of ever-changing obsolete electronics stuff for tinkerers. Back when I was installing etch tools in Intel's 12" wafer fabs, we occasionally had to shop there to get stuff like slide locks for connectors when our deadline was tight and there was no way to get a replacement cable from Japan in time. But I digress...

I went out there last Wednesday, and spent $3 on this:


That's about five feet of multistrand rainbow ribbon cable, and each conductor wire is a good size for these utility lines. Carefully cut out the colors you need, and clean them up. This is what you end up with:


This is a black wire for the electrical line, partially cleaned up. The strands are held together by a thin clear plastic sheath that binds them together. That leaves a residue on two sides of the wire, and cleaning that up starts with careful work with a scalpel to scrape it off. Next comes sandpaper to further smooth things out. As seen here, the scalpel work is done on this wire and some ordinary 220 grit sandpaper used to smooth it. Further work with finer grits of wet & dry sandpaper with continue to smooth and polish the wire to a nice matte finish. And I've got enough of this stuff to last me the rest of my life for similar truck projects. And all for a whopping $3 investment...materials are where you find them, my friends!

[Steve Ski]

Still pluggin along, love the scratch work!!

[Beekster]

So, yeah....we've had a setback:


I've been doing iterations of primer and sanding to eliminate surface flaws, and a new one cropped up Sunday afternoon. The left side treadplate developed a bulge in it on the inside edge, facing the open area where the wood planking will go. It wasn't going to just sit back down again with more glue. I suspect that my use of superglue in the first place was too sparing, and as the primer dried the surface contracted and pulled up the bulge. Nothing for it but to slip a blade into the bulge and work the piece off, then clean up and reinstall. That foundered when the part accordioned on me as I tried to gently file off glue residue from the underside, and once the creases were in there that part was done. I had enough material to make a new one, installed yesterday. I was liberal with the adhesive, so I've got a lot of careful cleanup to do before returning to the primer. The old piece was retained, since it still has potential value for a future project which might need smaller pieces that can be cut from it. Speaking of priming, the last of that has been done on the truck frame so actual color can start going on next week sometime.

[JCON]

Glad you were able to get it off and replaced!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Nice recovery despite the issues. Way to go, looking forward to seeing this in paint.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Always something.

[ARMORGUY]

Tremendous so far Greg.

[Beekster]

At long last, paint is going on the tractor...behold the base colors laid in on chassis, cab, and hood:






Yes, I have exposure setting issues with this much dark color. There's a little rework to do with the black as a result of overspray, and the paint lifted completely from a couple of spots on the winch deck. Everything is sitting in a cabinet to dry for a couple of days, but I will deal with the winch deck by spraying some Tamiya primer on cardboard and brushing primer back on the bare spots before I come back with the black. I had to trash a paintbrush getting black into all the nooks and crannies that the airbrush couldn't reach. I do have another kit, and whenever I play with that one I will try to do more painting as I go along. Problem is, some elements like the tag axle housing are structural members which will still make access difficult. But that is a problem for another time. There's touch-up by hand to do with the gray, a wee bit around the windshield frame and on the backs of the fenders where they come very, very close to the fuel tank and battery box. Some of that may just fade into black in the further recesses. I will probably leave the exhaust surround gray, and paint the pipe black with some rusty specks.

The trailer has had black painted underneath, and will be masked off this afternoon and the first pass with base color done. I will use a Humbrol dark gray on the trailer just to get some variation from the Model Master used on the tractor.

[JCON]

Looking very good indeed!!!