Folks
Here's some pics of progress on my Italeri Peterbilt 377 A/E in 1:24











Pete

Looks promising Peter, will you finish the interior in ' deep button trim' ?

Cheers
Henk

Very nice truck...You are making excellent progress on it so far. Now..hurry up and do some more work so we can see some more progress pics:)...Great job ..keep it up..
Mary

A nicely detailed kit Pete. Your detail painting of the motor is excellent.

cheers
Cliff

Nice work Peter -always a great learning tool to see how someone approaches a diffeent field of modelling - very helpful for me with my large scale model railroading

Truck builders have always blown me away. I don't know what it is about them, maybe its because I've owned over 40 of the real things before I retired and have always loved the equiptment. Truck models have the coolest decals too I think. Like Nascars, their colors and chrome brighten up any shelf.
Heh, I remember when I was just a little kid in 3rd grade and my father drove me to school in a brand new Auto Car 3 story sheet rock delivering boom truck. I felt so proud.

Folks
More progress pics on the Peterbilt







Pete

Sharp looking truck Pete The engine looks great Looks like an engine that's seen over 100,000 miles

Pete..great lookin progress. Its really shaping up...

Keep on Keeping on...

it is going to be real nice when finished Pete

I really like your engine Pete, How do you get the great grimy look?

Andy
Believe it or not that's just 2 coats of yellow paint applied fairly carelessly to allow the black from the plastic to show through.

Pete

Folks
Here's yet more pics of my Peterbilt



this one is the complete cab interior.



Here I've blown up the dashboard in an attempt to show how the decal has settled down over the raised detail



underside of chassis showing exhaust system



engine installed in chassis.

Pete

I like the decal as a dashboard.Are there aftermarket decals to upgrade from a plain AM/FM radio to maybean AM/FM/CD ? (++) (++)

Carl
I don't think so lol. The main sets of decals seem to concentrate on liveries etc.

Pete

Looks good so far Pete.

Hi Dave,, I agree the truck is cool. You were alway a trucker at heart ! LOL :-)

Pete, your doing a fine job on your truck there, I don't know if you had planned to add some rust to the hot side of that turbo, to make it look more realistic, cause as you know one side of them gets real hot, and shows rust the first day the engine is used, plus the exhaust pipes going to it, they get hot also, on my Cummins, and Mack engines, they were rusted coming right out of the block.

But for some reason the cold side stays nice, and painted on the turbo, it doesn't matter which kind of engine you got, they all do it, like my turbo is real small on a Mack, and the ones on a Cummins are a lot bigger, but on both the hot sides rust, just go to any picture that shows them, and you will see the difference between the hot and cold, now I did buy a Switzer for my Cummins one time that was a lot smaller then the stock turbo, and they claimed it was supposed to do better, but who knows.

The cold will always be the side with the paint on it, then you will get the idea on which side to add the rust on yours if you already don't know.
I hope this has been of some help.
Kerry

Folks
Here's some more pics of the semi,











As you can see (hopefully) in pics 2,3 & 5 the hood doesn't fit none too well, I think I might have to glue it shut to get it looking right. I have considered leaving it tilted but don't really fancy that idea.


Pete

Pete I would leave the hood open to show the engine bay detail. Nice job by the way.

cheers
Cliff

Looks great Pete, I agree leave the hood up. You have done too gooder (Is that even a word?) job to hide the engine away.

Cliff and Andy
The only real problem I have with leaving the hood open is that there's a decal each side of the hood that runs across onto the doors as well and is all one piece. The thought of cutting that decal and messing it up makes me shudder lol.



Hopefully you can see what I mean in the above pic.
Pete

Well if I understand what you mean, then I think:

Why can't you close the hood, add the decal with micro set and sol.. wait till it is dry, then cut the decal with care, and then make the decals look fine.

You have done a real nice job!!

Now I don't know how they decorate their trucks where you live, the eagle seems OK but that decal that goes across the hood, I wouldn't put that on mine, that is something like a TV truck dressing, not a real truck dressing.

People put good looking things on their trucks, but their handles are usually real small, if any at all, ever sense that BJ and the bear movie the CB has changed, and truckers don't advertise who they are, shoot 70 % don't even have handles anymore I bet, sense everybody got a CB things went to the worse.

You will see scenery paint jobs, and things like that, but I have never seen a big handle written across any truck in close to 30 years I've been out on the road.

Pete, I was just adding something to my 2 Kenworths, that I was thinking maybe you might want to add to yours, you can add it to it at anytime, with no problem, and it will just add to the realism, if you haven't done this already.

What I done was add some .020" solder wire to represent some small coiled air hose coming from the front of the plate that the fifth wheel sets on, it has an elbow coming out of the deck there then a small air line hooking to it to supply air for the sliding fifth wheel, that hooked up under the fifth wheel, to release the locks so you could slide the fifth wheel.

All you would haft to do, if you choose this option, is run a line from the front of the plate, drill a hole, to under the fifth wheel, out of sight.

Now if your truck has curved notches that the fifth wheel is supposed to slide back, and forth on, then that means it had an air release, and they had these sense the early 70's, that I know of.

Now my 2 trucks are 1/32 scale, and are of an older vintage, so you might need a little bit bigger line then I used, plus it is coiled real small to, but they are usually black in color, and the fitting coming out of the floor, is usually a brass elbow of some kind, that the hose fits into.