Hermann Kersten Posted April 13, 2019 Posted April 13, 2019 (edited) Hi guys, I have to admit I couldn't wait any longer, but today i start a new topic of an another AMT Freightliner conversion. The inspiration came from Hanks Truck Pictures and i really liked to build this one.... Source; Hank Truck Pictures. It will be the smaller cabin version and the chassis will approach the real version as much as possible. The source for the chassis info comes from the auction site; Purple Wave. Here you find a lot of detail pictures of the chassis, engine, interior and other stuff from this and many other Freightliners, and afcourse also other trucks. OK, we start to modify the chassis into an air suspension on the rear axles. For this I use the Peterbilt air suspension, and cut it from the peterbilt chassis, sand it to the right thickness, and attach them on the Freightliner chassis. The trusses of the kit will be used, these wide crossbeams from the AMT kit are narrowed and reused for this chassis. After a lot of sanding and gluing, scratching extra crossbeams and air reservoirs, this is the result. Then the next job is to modify the exhaust tower, the tilt-pump for the cabin comes again on this tower, and on the other side a small tower on which the connections of trailer cables will be attached. Then the conversion of the cabin. I know this FLB cabin is also available in resin, but making it myself is more fun for me to do. First of all, we start with the sides with the wheel arches and the front grill. Than the headlighjts and the grill..... And glue the wheel arches on the cabine and cut the foot steps out. The outer headlights are deepened because they are in the curve of side of the cabin. As everybody can see, all the rivetting will be renewed, just like with the other Freighjtliner. Than at last, the steps under the door and a rubber around the small window door. This small window is also modified because it has to be a little wider and more straight instead of the old Freightliners. The floor plate and the interior will be completely scratchbuild, because this is a much newer type. Seats will be used from the Peterbilt or Freightliner FLD kit, i'm not sure yet but I'll look at that later. Ok guys, thats it for today. See you later! Hermann. Edited April 13, 2019 by Hermann Kersten
chuckyr Posted April 14, 2019 Posted April 14, 2019 Excellent approach you are taking. You know the Freightliner FLD120 has the exact rear suspension that this truck would use.
55pete351 Posted April 14, 2019 Posted April 14, 2019 Amazing work !! What do you plan on using to replace the rivet detail?? I will be following along!
Hermann Kersten Posted April 14, 2019 Author Posted April 14, 2019 Thank you guys, for the nice comments and welcoming this FLB! 17 hours ago, chuckyr said: Excellent approach you are taking. You know the Freightliner FLD120 has the exact rear suspension that this truck would use. Yes Chucky, the additional air spring set that is included in the last 1/24 FLD kit is suitable for this scale, "if " you cut off the cross bars of the airsprings, because these are too wide. The normal airsuspension set with the big air sacks are too big for this 1/25 scale. This additional airspring set is intended for another Freightliner conversion. 40 minutes ago, 55pete351 said: Amazing work !! What do you plan on using to replace the rivet detail?? I will be following along! The rivets will be made with a Punch & Die set, i have to smasch every single rivet out of a 0,25mm thick styrene strip. At some pictures you can see the first rivets in the front of the cabine. How it looks after all is done, you can see in my FLA FSBA 1/25 topic. Then just 2 more pictures, this shows that the rivets, and some things were cast here that no longer belong to this version, are all sanded away from the rear, and later will be renewed by new rivets. For this rivetting I have some good reference pictures. And on the other side i drill a hole, put a brass tube for a light housing, so that this later becomes a nice light. Ok guys, thats it for today, and see you next time. Hermann.
Trendsetta68 Posted April 20, 2019 Posted April 20, 2019 Awesome work ! I'll be watching ! GOD Bless Ya !!!!
TECHMAN Posted April 21, 2019 Posted April 21, 2019 EXCEPTIONAL fabrication on this build!!!! Your attention to detail shows!!!! DJ
Hermann Kersten Posted June 10, 2019 Author Posted June 10, 2019 Hello guys, On 4/14/2019 at 11:00 PM, Sam I Am said: Super clean work and attention to detail. On 4/15/2019 at 2:54 AM, NothingAsFineAsaW9 said: Great progress herman On 4/16/2019 at 8:16 PM, redneckrigger said: Beautiful work sir! On 4/21/2019 at 12:05 AM, Trendsetta68 said: Awesome work ! I'll be watching ! GOD Bless Ya !!!! On 4/21/2019 at 2:56 AM, TECHMAN said: EXCEPTIONAL fabrication on this build!!!! Your attention to detail shows!!!! DJ On 4/21/2019 at 6:14 AM, SpreadAxle said: Outstanding work so far. Thank you for all the nice comments and interest guys! For the viewers, thanks for the interest! In the meantime, now the FLA is almost finished, I made here also some progress. The most time consuming work, is the rivet job all around the cabin. For the moment, the rear wall is almost done with the new rivets, only the upper row on the upper side of the wall has to be completed. This time i use 0.5mm rivets instead of 0.6mm, i noticed already that the 0.5mm is more in scale with this 1/25 cabin. Also the hole for the light in the rear wall is widened because it was a little too small, and for the detail i made a housing ring out of polished aluminum. I started already with smoothen the right side of the cabine and start the first rivets in the upper part. The door of the storage cupboard is placed further to the rear, as well as the aeration cover in the upper part. With superglue I filled up the seam of the old aerator and sanded it smooth, put some putty on to be sure it is really smooth. The wheel arches is given a little more body in the upper section, right has to be sanded and left is already done. The chassis is also shortened with 15mm and the location of the battery determined from reference photos. The larger tanks that were in the first instance for the FLA, are now used for this FLB. I ordered a metal front axle from KFS and it will be used with this FLB chassis. And the progress so far. To be continued. Hermann.
gatorincebu Posted June 16, 2019 Posted June 16, 2019 You are doing some really nice work on this one. I like what I see, and taking notes as well . Be Well Gator
Hermann Kersten Posted November 15, 2019 Author Posted November 15, 2019 (edited) Hello everyone, Thanks for the nice comments guys! Yep, today another progress and a few new insights regarding certain details. Fisrt of all, i renewed the sbrackets of the the air tanks, and attach the grey air tanks. After this job i modified the cabine supports what is attached to the chassis. With some detail pictures from Purple Wave Auctions, I had a clear view of what these supports looked like. These supports are 2 mm higher, which means that 2 mm must be removed from the cabin. The red arrows are from the FLB and the yellow are the from another FLA conversion. Here you can see the difference in height. The front axle is now also attached and i used the brake drums from the Revell Marmon kit, what is actually a Peterbilt. I also use the engine from this kit, and modifie this one into a newer version of the Cummins for the FLB. The new insight with regard to the FLA FSBA is that this time I cut the storage compartments out of the side walls. The doors of the storage compartments are at the same level as the door frame around the doors. With these photos you can also see that the rivet work is in full swing. Later I will glue the door frames with 1mm x 0.5 mm styrene strips into the cutted holes. And the rivetting on the front, here I just have to attach the rivets on the top and bottom of the windshield and then the front is done. Then a handy tip, at the doors it was not completely smooth, with the closing of the seam. Now that the rivets are done, sanding is a difficult job .......or not? I glued a piece of a waterproof sandpaper on a 1mm thick styrene piece, let it hardened and made a mini sanding pad in this way. In this way, you can make any shape you want and with the 1mm thickness you dont have to worry for bending the piece. If you want to really be sure, you can make it 2mm thick.? Now it was a easy job to sand the part what was filled with Tamiya putty, without damaging the rivets and an even surface. The result.......absolutely smooth! Ok guys, that was it for today and see you next time. Hermann. Edited November 15, 2019 by Hermann Kersten
DRIPTROIT 71 Posted November 16, 2019 Posted November 16, 2019 Great work! Thanks for the great tip!!
Hermann Kersten Posted January 11, 2020 Author Posted January 11, 2020 Hello everyone! On 11/16/2019 at 4:50 AM, DRIPTROIT 71 said: Great work! Thanks for the great tip!! Your welcome Brian.? Today i show you the progress i made with this project. After a long process of the rivetting job, i'm finally done with this patience job. Here is the result after 1000+ rivets. Then it was time to make the interior. Because this is a later model, I cannot use the interior of the AMT kit, i have to scratch build this interior by myself, except the bed, this part i can reuse for the interior. After cutting the 1mm styrene sheet in different shapes and parts, and glue them together, is this the result so far. As you all can see, i build everything up to an floor plate, and after all is dry and hardened, i will cut out the engine bay.....or engine tunnel. There was a lot of fit and sand job before everything fit perfectly. And some overall pictures so far. That's all guys, see you next round. Hermann.
Vince66 Posted January 12, 2020 Posted January 12, 2020 Scorch marks burnt metal it would look like a burnt out hulk. Seriously great work Hermann
Hermann Kersten Posted January 15, 2020 Author Posted January 15, 2020 (edited) Hello everyone, Dave, Vince and Bill, thanks for the nice replay! Ok guys, today some progress on this one. First of all, i had to search for the dash of the Freightliner FLC kit, because this is the dash i need for this one. The dash is has to be widened, because this is a COE, and have to scratch an extra section in to the dashboard. First i cut off the right storage compartment and use this dash as an example to scratch build one for this FLB. This FLC dash will be used for another FLA conversion, the last of the 3 conversions. Now i have the shape of this dash, i saw that i had to reshape the engine tunnel, it had to be more straight in the front, and the angle to the top had to be more to the front end and a bigger angle. The seems are filled with superglue and sanded smooth, in this way it gives an absolute smooth result. The 2 strips on the front are closing the interior, when this interior is inside the cab. If i don't do this, then from the outside, then you can look through the radiator grill straight into the interior, and that will be looking weird. I also made the housings of the steps under the doors, these steps are a little standing out the cabin bottom plate, so when i put the interior into the cab, the steps will be stopped by the strips on the inside of the cab, and in this way the interior bottom plate stay at the right height. As everybody can see, i also cut out the section of the engine tunnel, and everything is open now. And the front side with the 2 strips that are closing the front. After i spray primer on the cabin, i found some parts what had to be filled and sanded a bit. Then a picture with the radiator grill and the 2 light housings loosely placed for the looks. And a picture to show you all that the seem of the roof is completely smooth. This time i did it with super glue, what gives a smoother result instead of putty, because putty can be sensitive for temperatures, with cold in the winter you can see slightly a seem, and when the temperatures are higher with spring or summer, then you don't see it anymore. Superglue doesn't have this reaction to different temperatures. New drives for the rear axles.... And some overall pictures. Note.....the front rims are not final, they are just placed in absence of the correct rims. The idea is to put the 5 hole rims on this one. Yep, that's it for today guys. For the cabin colors I'm still doubting, but for the main time there is still a lot of work to do. See you next round! Hermann. Edited January 15, 2020 by Hermann Kersten
am73grand Posted January 15, 2020 Posted January 15, 2020 That is some amazing work! Very, Very nicely done!
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now