F-350 logging crew truck

[Beekster]

Venturing well out of my comfort zone with this one.  The Madill Yarder & Hitachi excavator are both headed to the paint shop this afternoon, the former for some spot work with Dullcote to seal & blend the areas I recently touched up with paint, and the latter with Glosscote to prepare for decal work.  Being as both of those will be in cabinet quarantine for a while afterwards to let things dry, I thought I would start in on another part of my logging menagerie: The work truck.  This is Meng's 1/35 scale version, so here goes...






The chassis is together, and the brake discs do all touch the ground plane.  Most of the time, anyway.  The frame was a single piece, which is great, but it's still rather flexy.  That may be partly attributable to the rather soft plastic Meng uses, though the upside is that cleaning up sprue gates is a snap.  I might try to see where I can add a little lead weight to ensure that it sits firmly on the ground; that might also impart a wee bit of compression to the tires.  As you can see, the front antiroll bar doesn't connect to the axle.  Rather than move it off the location holes provided, I will make stubs of suitable rod stock to attach it properly.  Or at least make it look like that; I'm not going to obsess over modeling an accurate axle mount.

The bed came together really quickly, including the optional bed extender.  I don't know if I will keep that or not, but once everything has set up removing it will be pretty easy if I choose to.






There's a close-up of the front of the bed, and you can see that the stake pockets are all molded in.  I'm debating about whether or not to drill those out.  I am going to fabricate a headache rack with hazard lights, and an in-bed diesel fuel tank.  I suppose that I could include a cap rail made from strip stock that would completely cover all the stake pockets.  Need to do more thinking.  Anybody that has some inspirational ideas, bring 'em on.  And yeah, there's a little putty work to be done at the front but pretty minor stuff.

[JCON]

Fun, I'll follow along!!!

[Beekster]

Having rummaged around the internet, I found dimensions for a 100-gallon diesel fuel transfer tank, and proceeded to start fabricating one. The box is seen here for test-fitting. I've added mounting flanges, but haven't punched out washers & bolt heads yet.




Also, there's something weird with the inner door panels: They have holes that would show all the way through to the inside surface of the cab shell. Another internet search found a 2010 brochure to download, and sure enough those are map pockets and up top, recesses for the door handles. I suspect that on the larger 1/24 scale kit, there are parts that attach here. Not so with the smaller one, so I blanked them off.

I've decided that this will be a utility truck; white exterior with nondescript gray interior and blacked-out grill and trim. I've also been trolling through Shapeways, which is always a trial. To say that their search engine is lamentably bad is a vast understatement. Still, I've found some stuff that I am considering ordering. There's a heavy-duty front bumper with brush guard and winch fairlead for $19.26, an electric chain saw for $14.57, and a set of Zombie tools for $28.03. That set has two gas chain saws, two double-head axes, two fireman axes (with a pick on the other end of the axe blade, two machetes, and two baseball bats. Now, the latter two items are totally useless for this project but the chain saws and axes would be nifty to put in the bed. A baseball bat would make for an interesting stowage item on a US tank of any era, and a machete or two wouldn't look out of place for any tank in the jungle...CBI, Pacific islands, Vietnam. They would find their way to the stash. I've also located a fuel transfer pump & hose nozzle, and have reached out to the designer about re-scaling it from 1/24 to 1/35. If that can be arranged, it would save me from having to scratchbuild those items. Same goes for a hose reel for the fuel hose.

Once I have that stuff sorted out and ordered, working out the headache rack can be done. That might be a good place to mount the hose reel, either 3D-printed or one I make myself.

[JCON]

Cool!!!

[Beekster]

Been busy with the airbrush the last couple of days. Flat & gloss where needed on the yarder & excavator, more orange on a couple of excavator parts, some OD on the bridge for that dormant M31 tank retriever/bridgelayer project. Yes, you may assume that I will bring that project back from the dormant state soon. And this:

Base coat of Aircraft Interior Black for the frame of the truck, and the underside of the cab.  I added some lead fishing weights atop the oil pan, and smashed some to fit in the fuel tank & muffler back aft.  Seems to keep the brake discs four on the floor, so I hope that the same holds true when the wheels & tires go on.  And base coat for the interior parts:


This is a sandy gray called Topside Gray, one of the discontinued Model Master Soviet/Russian Air Force colors. Looks like a decent match for the factory Medium Stone vinyl from the 2010 model year. Close enough for me, anyway.

[JCON]

Looks good!!!

[JED]

Coming along nicely

[Beekster]

Well, I just dropped $208 at Shapeways, some of it for this truck. The heavy-duty front bumper, hose reel, and Zombie tools are all on the way. I never heard back about the fuel transfer pump so I guess I will scratchbuild that instead, along with the headache rack. Also coming and suitable for the truck or the yarders are sets of snatch blocks & rolling blocks. Half the Shapeways order, though, was for the second yarder. The big reveal is over on that thread...

[Beekster]

While paint cures on various things, I've been working on the winch box for yarder #2 and the fuel transfer pump for this project. This is the real thing:




And this is mine, nearly done. A bunch of parts are still drying, and that big gray hex nut has been re-centered as a result of seeing these images. Eventually it will get drilled out for the hose. There are a bunch of bolt heads to be added, but that has to wait until this whole contraption is fully dry.







Here are some relevant dimensions: The tank is 1.293" wide by .665" wide and .665" tall. The pump body is all of .442" across.

Now, you're probably thinking that this looks pretty decent, and alarmingly fragile. And you'd be right, except for one thing: The bottom of the pump is drilled for .030" brass rod, a good eighth of an inch deep. The rod is trimmed to reach all the way to the bottom of the tank. If the pump gets knocked, it will rip the tank out of the pickup bed long before it significantly bends that rod. And I plan to be careful.

The concept I'm formulating has the output hose going to a filter block mounted to the headache rack, and from there around the 3D-printed hose reel, also mounted to the headache rack. Yet to be fabricated are the handle & nozzle, and a holster for it to rest in.

[JCON]

Looks really good!!!

[JED]

Brilliant work

[Beekster]

Apr 3, 2022 8:42:44 GMT -6 JED said:

Brilliant work

Thanks, Jed!  Though really not that brilliant.  The box is just that, a box.  Pretty simple.  The transfer pump is more complicated but is really just an exercise in two things:  Analyzing shapes and scaling the object appropriately.  While the box had hard dimensions I could scale from, the pump did not.  So I therefore used the Mark One Eyeball to determine size using the TLAR (That Looks About Right) method.  I homed in on the size I wanted on the second try, which is pretty fast for scratchbuilding an assembly like this.  From there, it's just a matter of selecting the proper sizes of material and doing the cutting & shaping.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Anybody who posts here has the skills for this, and with the right tools a satisfactory result can be obtained every time.  Some things take more tries than others, but if you keep at it you'll get there.  The Detroit Diesel 8V-71T engine in the Madill yarder is the fourth attempt.  First one was too wide, second was better but the V-angle was off, third was about the same.  Got what I wanted on the fourth try.  Real dimensions to work from are invaluable, but they always have to be tweaked.  The thickness of the hull sides on any Sherman kit, for example, are thicker than the real thing in scale.  To get an engine in there, you have to adjust down from reality until...you guessed it...TLAR.

[Steve Ski]

Awesome, more trucks!

[Beekster]

Modest progress on this of late, while I await my Shapeways order. I've been working on the business end of the auxiliary fuel system, and I'm quite pleased at the result: A reasonable facsimile of a fuel hose nozzle:




Yes, I found some pictures & dimensions on the internet which helped out a lot, but my little buddy Roland made sure the thing adheres to proper TLAR scaling. I'm sure you've heard of him, Roland the Headless Tank Crew Figure:




Now, the 30 AWG wire that will make the hose won't be here for a couple of months but that and the Shapeways hose reel are the last parts needed for the fuel system. Once the reel is here, I can work on the headache rack it will be mounted to.

Apologies to Warren Zevon...

[JCON]

That's fun!!!

[Beekster]

As noted on the More Madill Madness thread, Christmas came today in the form of my Shapeways order and overnight snow. For the F350, these Zombie tools will provide axes & chainsaws for the bed; the bats & machetes go into the stash:


This beefy front bumper arrived too. The back side has an inset parts tree to be removed, with a bunch of civilian pickup/SUV-sized tow shackles!





And finally, this really nice hose reel, seen by itself and propped up in relation to the bed and the fuel transfer tank. Now I can get started on the headache rack.

[JCON]

Cool extras!!!

[Beekster]

The process of fitting the BroDozer heavy-duty bumper has been tedious, to say the least. The molded tow loops on the front of the kit frame had to go, and I had to build up a structure to mate the bumper to. I added strip stock to the underside of the bumper, so that when it goes on for good I will have a standard plastic join and not superglue, so that I can finesse the placement a little. There was some car modeling stuff to do as well; working out how to fit the thing included putting the interior tub in the cab and using white glue to attach the grille so that gaps could be evaluated. The interior tub had to have the front corners shaved so that the bumper could sit back far enough. Finally, a crude winch drum was added and will get trimmed a bit once the superglue has set up completely. It won't be visible, but will allow for attachment of some fine thread for the cable.








All this has not been without trouble. The antiroll bar broke off at the frame on one side, so that has to be put back and a new extension piece made to attach it to the suspension...a job for tomorrow. But hey, at least all four tires touch the ground plane so I'm happy about that. A bit more sag would be nice, but there isn't much room for more weight.

[JCON]

That is gonna look really awesome!!! Like it lots!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Most impressive work man! This is a fantastic looking truck!