loatharBEHOLD! The grail of 1/87 vehicals...http://www.1-87vehicles.org/And a wealth of tips and tricks.http://www.87thscale.info/Tips%20&%20Tricks.htm The new athearn offerings look fantastic. The semi trailers have fantastic detail.
BEHOLD! The grail of 1/87 vehicals...http://www.1-87vehicles.org/And a wealth of tips and tricks.http://www.87thscale.info/Tips%20&%20Tricks.htm
The new athearn offerings look fantastic. The semi trailers have fantastic detail.
I"ve been there. That site is awesome. There are guys there that scratchbuild their vehicles that take 2 months to build. One guy wants to start an HO trainlayout, but he knows he's too much of a rivet counter and would never get it off the ground, so he won't even start it. He only builds HO scale vehicles, because he knows he can complete them in his lifetime
Heres the guys link. His name is Joe Enriquez
http://public.fotki.com/eex-joe/1945-mack-fcsw/
I have always liked the Classic Metal Works, they have come along ways since their beginning. The ere I work in is the early 1950's through the mid 1960's
I do have some really old kits, can't remember what make they were, but I just built them and never detailed them until the past few years. I have a couple of the Model Power units, but I took them and reworked them a bit to make them look more the part.
There are quite a few manufactures of the HO vehicles out there. Which is the best? Everyone does have their opinion, to each his own. Some MR's pockets are deeper than others, so the matter of "best" or "cheap" falls in two different directions.
As Loather stated, Athearn has some really nice looking items they are coming out with, have not bought any yet, but plan on it.
Yes I'm 46 years old, own my own home, have a full time job, my wife likes trains, and have names for all my engines. Thought everyone had names for their engines.
Walthers puts one or two different Jordan kits on sale every month. I'm patient, and Scottish, so I just thumb through the monthly flier and e-mail my LHS when I see one I want. (Many shops participate in the Walthers sales, so I get the sale price and pay no shipping charges.)
I agree with the idea that vehicles are important. Most visitors to your layout don't know an SD-40 from a Cuisinart, but they will recognize a 67 T-Bird or a VW Microbus. Much more than the trains, autos (and old advertising posters and billboards) set the timeframe of your layout.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
WOW! this was from that site that Diline posted.
ICRR1964 WOW! this was from that site that Diline posted.
The website is worth a look. There are sequence photos of the construction of this truck.
The model was based on a kit from this outfit:
http://www.donmillsmodels.com/vehicles/1-87/index.htm
Their website is worth a look, too. They sell both kits and parts.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
Folks:
That's a beautiful truck. The 1/87 vehicle hobby is interesting - I especially like the models of the earlier stuff that you don't see often.
Still, I think I can play devil's advocate for a bit. I feel that our requirements are different. Generally, we're using our autos to give an impression. It's like movie set building. To really do this great truck justice, it would have to be surrounded by comparably fine detail. The pavement stains would have to be dead-on, and weeds would have to be modeled with individual etched leaves. There'd be coke cans.
It would be awesome to see that done, of course, but then there would be another problem. It's impossible to truly appreciate the quality of this truck model, except in a photo. I have decent eyesight, and I did a little check with a small toy auto. It's impossible to focus as closely as needed to see the truck as it looks in the photo. In fact, even with some squinting, the best I would expect would be comparable to "A", below:
(My monitor is 1024 x 768)
At normal viewing distances, on an eye level layout, it would appear as in "B", and quickly become even smaller as it receded into the background.
Please understand that I am not disparaging this model. It's wonderful. In fact, given the magnifying effect of the camera, it would be a great idea to have a handful of fine-quality vehicles on hand to use in close-up photography...but a working model railroad that is more often operated or observed in person really can't take advantage of such detail. This is one of those camera vs. eye situations - which do we intend to model for? If it's the eye, we might as well save some money.
I guess I harp on economy a lot, but I still remember being a whippersnapper with big dreams, and thinking I would never be a Real Modeler if I didn't have all the be$t $tuff. I always felt a little guilty for using Hot Wheels cars. Then I saw a local model railroad that had a lot of them in use, and I realized that, while not perfect, they worked well in building an overall impression. This brought a sort of liberation, as it were, and I'm hoping I might help out today's newbies a bit in that way.
Oh that's ok, I don't have anything like this on my layout, I just posted the picture, because it was really an amazing piece of work. Personally, I would not put that much effort into a truck like this. As you stated though, it is only so big, and in or around a street, road, and parking lot at a 3 to 4 foot distance, you would not be able to see all the fine details this truck has. But is is a nice piece of work though
I for one do have to where my glasses when I'm working with something small, as far as the prospective of building and detailing a model like this? Well thats a whole other story. Everyone has a opinion on what is cheap, what is best. I for one would like to build something like this truck. Big question is, can I or am I able to build a truck with this much detail? Maybe! But also maybe not?