Greyhound

Pedro - Fantastic Job on this build! We all have our lists of favorites in Cars, Plane's and Military, the FT-17 Tank is high on my list. Here are a few photo's of a real FT at The WW-1 Memorial and Museum located in Kansas City. Looking at the photo's you really got it right, especially the wheels.

Joe - Welcome! Kansas City is one of my favorite cities. My wife has a lot of family there and we try to visit at least once per year. The WW-1 Memorial and museum has to be one of the top 10 Museums in the country. Although I am a car modeler, I have learned a great deal from the many post's and builds of all the many types of model's shown here. Dan King

Duke - great job on what I know was a very tough project for you! I hope you bring it down to the Model Expo at Gellispie field in June. One question regarding the real aircraft, it looks like it resembles this strange American Navy Aircraft? Did those crazy Russkie's copy everything we designed? Dan

Duke - The turnout, quality of models and incredible surroundings made this a very interesting show. However, as a vendor, it was not as great. If they put vendors outside and in between all the parking garage traffic I would not be a vendor again. We left at 2pm due to dirt and dust blowing in our eyes and choking down exhaust fumes. The wind blowing through there was blowing models off our table! Even though the model contest was packed full, very few people came outside to the vendor area [ IMHO] , so sales result was very poor. Dan

Oleg - Beautiful and realistic work. You know you are successful by the expression on that young man's face! I learned a lot from these post, hope to see more. Dan

The ValleyCon 2016 Model Contest and Swap Meet will be on Sunday March 6th from 10am to 4 pm. It will be located at The Peterson Automotive Museum located at 6060 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca. 90036. This is a chance to see a World Class Automotive Museum, Model Contest and Swap Meet all in one day. I will have a table there and hope to see some of my LA friends there. You can get more info on the event at- valleycon.wordpress.com or www.petersen.org

Bob - Here are a couple of Caribou photo's I took in 1969 at Vung Tau Airbase. It might not have what you are looking for exactly, but could be useful anyway. The Air Force threw a conniption fit over the Caribou, Mohawk and anything with straight wingy thingy's! I always felt that the effectiveness of the army was badly effected by not having a mid size STOL fixed wing in its stable. Photo's by Dan King

Don - I have a home built Spray Booth in my Garage that I use on regular bases. I use it for finer work and still spray with rattle cans outside on a beat up old fold out table. The booth started as pre built cabinet from Home Depot, fan added to back and door sealed with silicon. Inside is a forward slanted partition cutout same size as the filers I use. It has a shelf above with a plexiglass window and a florescent light above the spray area. I line the painting area with aluminum foil and lighted area with clear seran[sp?] wrap. I replace both after each Project completion so it stays clean. Fan is vented to outside vents that were already part of the garage. A few photo's attached

Joseph- Wow - the change of wheels and tires and general cleanup has really transformed this model. Very good job, I would be proud to have this on my model shelf! Dan

Mark - Sorry you could not make it, event went very well, finished just before 60 -80 mile per hour wind and rain hit the area, no damage at the Gillespie Field Annex that I know of. Attached photo of a few Egg Planes in "The Eggcellence in Modeling" class. Dan

The Secret Society of Model Builders of San Diego will be having their annual Winterfest contest on Saturday, January 30th, 2016 from 9am to about 4pm. This will be held at The San Diego Air & Space Museum Annex at Gillespie Field, 335 Kenny St. El Cajon, CA. 92020. In conjunction with The Air & Space Museum Kit, Model, Aviation Collectible Show and Swap Meet. The swap meet starts at 8am to 2 pm. I understand that the Swap Meet tables are sold out! The Special Show theme is "Eggcellence in Modeling" or any kind of Egg Plane or Egg Transportation of any kind. This is a "Open Judging" type event where any model can win Gold, Silver or Bronze awards. I will have a table there and have really dug into my Model Collection and will be selling some neat Stuff. Hope to see you there! See more info at http://sdmodelclub.com

John - Is this info enough or would you like me to do more digging on Lineman Trucks? I have about 25 books on American Work Trucks Semi's and Pickups, although I doubt there is very much more on these? Maybe someone out there who actually worked as a Telephone/ Electric Lineman could jump in with some ideas or advice or better yet photo's? Dan King

I think I need to explain the Truck Museum better. The strange looking Cherry Picker was in fact a San Diego Electric Company equipment according to the Docent I talked to. The odd looking Boom Contraction was also used for placing Electric Poles in San Diego County in 20/30''s time frame. I also included a photo of a 1950 time frame Dodge Power Wagon for reference on the Yorkshire Model. I did some research on The Big Bad Bay and if you put in "The Yorkshire Company" into the search and to "All Category's" and a number of these models come up, There is one of the 1050 Power Wagons for $14.95 [buy it now] that would be a good start for parts? Hope this helps and it would be great to see you project when you start.

John - I finally got time to take a few photo's of my Lineman trucks from The Yorktown Company. These are all 1/25th scale. The one with most useful equipment is the 1950 Dodge Power Wagon. Almost all Lineman trucks have a Auger on top and if you look at the one photo I found of a real Lineman truck you will see there is a hook on the end of the boom as well. These trucks usually had a trailer with Telephone/Electrical Poles and were capable of drilling the post hole with the Auger and using the boom to install the pole to replace and repair poles and broken wires. I think that when they installed new line they also had a specialized wire reel truck for long runs of wire? Here are some photo's of my trucks as well as a scan from American Work Trucks and a few photo's I took myself and the Vintage and Antique Truck Museum in Campo California.

John - A number of years ago a company called The Yorkshire Company produced a number of 1/25th scale trucks as MA BELL telephone company line trucks of all kinds. These are for Telephone lines, but Electric line trucks are not much different for the most part, although there are obviously some very specialized Electric Line trucks! I have 8 of them including the Dodge Power Wagon in the thumbnail photo [ not a actual photo, I just scanned so quality is not great, but you get the idea. Some of the others are Model T's and Model A Fords. If you can find these you could use the parts to build Lineman Trucks of almost any kind. They can generally be found on The Big Bad Bay and if you can get damaged ones you can save a few bucks. Hope this helps.

Carbs are one area that Car Model companies have really not done well. I guess they figure that since they are covered up with Air Cleaners/Filters that there is no reason to put a lot of design time into it. This is where the After Market guys can really make a difference. For shelf models and such straight kit Carbs are ok, but if you are doing a Contest Model or will display it without a Air Cleaner then it is worth investing in After Market item. Replica and Miniatures has some great ones. All Carburetor's look better without chrome! Great work so far.

I forgot to mention that I have used this to remove very difficult to remove decals, even decals buried in Clear Coat. When every other method fails it is worth giving this a shot before total paint removal. Fair WARNING - It does not always work, but nothing ventured nothing gained!

Michael - I recommend using a 3M Spot Sanding Pen. They are available at Automotive Parts Stores such as Pep Boys etc. These are made for very fine sanding of small area's when doing Auto Painting. I found these when I was trying to figure out how to remove Tampo Printed markings from a pre-painted model called Black Force without damaging the underlining Very nice Black Paint. I was able to trim the fibers to correct size to sand away the stripe on the body. After removing the strip I simple polished out the paint and waxed the entire model, it worked fairly well. I have used it in other ways since and keep it at my workbench now all the time. I have never tried it on ejector pin marks or mold lines, but it sounds like a good idea! You need to wear gloves when trimming the "Glass Strands" [ and do it out side], but I do not think it is needed when you actually use it on a model, but that is just how I do it. I have attached a scan of the 3M pin.

I am going to miss your updates on this build, but I bet you are very relieved to get it done! Very nice job.

Duke - Very nice Huey! You could remove both doors for a more accurate "Vietnam" look, most units removed these doors very quickly. This looks like a 1st Cav troop carrying combo Gunship [ one of the few units in Vietnam to mount Rocket Pods on a "slick"]. With weight and density altitude such a big issue they could only carry 5 or 6 American troops on these. I would be very curious to know if they ever fired the rockets/guns while the grunts were aboard? That would be one wild ride for the GIB's! Photo by Dan King of 240th "Greyhound" Slick getting ready for a very large operation that included inserting Arty along with ground troops [ this would be kind of unusual operation for us], photo taken around June of 1969 somewhere near the Plain of Reeds and Parrots Beak . Oops - Sh"thook is actually slinging a "Water Buffalo" trailer - still part of same operation. I need to look at my own photo's more carefully!

Ron - Just an Incredible Job in Scratch Building this, and doing this in tiny 1/72 scale makes it all that more impressive. Dan King

Geez - I thought the Bare Metal Foil work required for the AMT 1958 Impala was tough! I have used heavy duty kitchen aluminum foil with Bare Metal Foil Aluminum Foil Adhesive on a 1/32 Mack Fire Engine that I did a number of years ago and found it very time consuming and difficult to get just right, but this goes way beyond. Great Work. Dan

So you get up one morning, have a nice breakfast and then decide that you are going to build a bunch of vintage and modern BUSSES! In the 65 or so years of models there have only been a handful of Bus Model kits so pickings are slim unless you really like to scratchbuild everything. I have a lot of respect for anyone willing to tackle this very difficult subject matter and thank you Mark for posting these photo's.

Gary - great to se you posting another project! Working in 1/16 scale can feel very weird if you mostly do only 1/25-1/24th. In my mind all the parts seem very toy like because of the size and I want to try and keep improving them. Don't get me started on a few of the 1/8th scale models I have done [ working on my 3rd Pocher kit now], you can drive yourself crazy trying to fix every little item. I have gotten to the point that I just say enough is enough. Dan

Joseph- I have not had a chance to comment on your build until now. I went back to your first posts and all I can say is that you have come a long way from the Blue Pickup you started with. Not many modelers I know will strip a paint job and start over when they don't like how it came out. Keep up the great work and I am looking forward to seeing it finished.