Thank you, 1/25 scale is large enough to make some molded-on details fairly obvious, at the same time the detail on this kit is nicely done and has good relief/depth so it would be a shame to remove it all and start "from scratch". (On trailer kits like AMT's 40' van I have taken this approach because the molded-in door hardware detail is quite shallow.)
That's the case on a number of their kits, examples which come to mind are the hood latches and emblems on the Ford Louisvilles, also hood latches on the Mack R600 and emblems on Ford C series. Unfortunate because the detail itself is quite accurate, even the air glad hand connections on front of their van trailer. Hood latches are easy to scratch build, emblems are a little more difficult to correct. I have had success with using emblems cut from scrap "donor" cabs and sanding them down to appropriate thickness. @@goratgo1970
Robert, Great work!You spoke about the lock rods, near the end of the video. Why are there sometimes double lock rods & on this kit only singles? A lot of work for those handles!
From my understanding, double lock rods are a "heavy duty" option which makes sense for intermodal trailers and containers that will spend at least some time on the railroad as railroading is an extremely severe service environment especially when slack action runs in and out of a train, the cargo shifting when this happens puts a lot of strain on doors and their locking mechanisms. For that matter, a ship at sea also can get tossed around which explains why the typical "sea can" also has two lock rods per door. Highway-only trailers, which is what this kit is based on, are fine with one lock rod per door and this also saves a small amount of weight. Every pound of trailer weight saved = another pound of payload!
Great tip on the trailer door handle. Amazingly enough, in lieu of brass plates, I have excellent luck/results using yellow tamiya masking tape as a barrier to keep from scratching/slicing plastic models. Ive saved many a model (and time) using a layer of tape when scribing panels.
I haven't been around for a while but I always love watching your videos. Your attention to detail, real life references and improvement of kit parts is just astounding. Thanks for sharing your skill and creativity!
Thank you, I give the credit to two main sources: Model railroading in general and my father's pursuit of the hobby when I was growing up. Model railroading in the sense of "prototype modelling" to replicate a particular freight car, locomotive or other 1:1 item as closely as possible along with dealing with upgrading molded-on details (in the 1970's when I first got into the hobby many of the details on model railroad rolling stock were molded on as part of a one-piece body shell. Any many of the 1/25 truck kits were tooled in this same era!) in different ways such as replacement with scratch built parts or thinning down the oversize molded-on item. My father's pursuit of the hobby was an indirect influence as he took the prototype modelling approach and each freight car, locomotive etc. had essentially every nut and bolt replicated per the real one being modelled. As an example, this might involve replacing the ends on a one-piece boxcar body shell with different ones that matched the 1:1 (a whole world of subtle variations just on the topic of boxcar ends!), changing molded-on grab handles to wire and adding details not included in the kit like brake rigging on the underside. A large stock of hobby magazines was also readily available to read which is where many of the approaches I use now were first seen.
More great tips and improvements us "scale truckers" can use. One final step I do when scribing or trimming on plastic is to run a small amount of liquid glue along the reworked area which smooths out the surface, and more closely matches the originality of the part.
Thank you for that tip, it does work well. Is there a specific brand of liquid cement you find works better for this? Testors seemed to give good results for me.
@@brsnorthernhorsejourney3579 Back in the day, used "Weld on" in the dk. brown glass bottle, but green cap Tamiya works well enough since not too hot. Best to load brush for one even pass and let it cure as is. Looking forward to more great videos!
Simple little things make a difference. One detail on this kit I don't like is the bead near the top, never seen one up there but I also don't see trailers everyday. I think the walls are interchangable if I remember right. The walls also didn't attach good, think it was the line up tabs. I turned the trailer I had into a Utility. Do yo remember a magazine article on correcting the Italeri trailer? Think it had to be made taller.
Good eye on the rib - van trailers are just like your observation regarding Mack R hoods being similar to VW Beetles and GM fishbowl buses in having many subtle variations. Google image search of "Great Dane dry van trailer" returned a small number that did appear to have a bead at top of side wall (bottom edge of aluminum side member), one was a 2002 53' x 102' which appeared quite similar to kit overall. Looks like kit rib may have tooled a little oversize compared to 1:1 making rib more noticeable. Narrowing search to 2010 - 2012, based on timeline of kit's initial release, only turned up four Great Dane vans which were not as close a match for Moebius' kit. At top of side wall thickness of aluminum side member is visible but without a formed rib. While I don't recall reading article on correcting Italeri's "48 foot van" trailer you are 100% right as far as height goes - that kit is well short of 13' - 6" height. I believe it scales out to between 12' and 12' - 6". There were some van trailers built to this lower height, I think of Ontario's "beer box" 40 footers that were common into at least the early 1980's here. Since beer is a dense commodity 13' - 6" trailers would be overweight before they "cubed out" so breweries ordered lower height trailers for their fleets. This also provided a bit of extra clearance for low bridges in some areas. I think the change to 13' 6" trailers came about as a result of the lower height ones being an extra cost option to build. It was less expensive to order a standard van trailer and just not use the extra cubic space.
@@brsnorthernhorsejourney3579Guess they made the trailer from one that had the option. Maybe better to build it into the model and let the builder decide what to do with it. Now I know it was on so when I make a stock GD I can leave it or reduce it. Thanks for taking a look.
Thank you Robert, I’m looking forward to your next video!!
Outstanding detail Robert!
Looks much better.
Thank you, 1/25 scale is large enough to make some molded-on details fairly obvious, at the same time the detail on this kit is nicely done and has good relief/depth so it would be a shame to remove it all and start "from scratch". (On trailer kits like AMT's 40' van I have taken this approach because the molded-in door hardware detail is quite shallow.)
@@brsnorthernhorsejourney3579 👍👍
@@brsnorthernhorsejourney3579Yes, AMT trailer detail exists, but just a trace of it (including front) unfortunately.
That's the case on a number of their kits, examples which come to mind are the hood latches and emblems on the Ford Louisvilles, also hood latches on the Mack R600 and emblems on Ford C series. Unfortunate because the detail itself is quite accurate, even the air glad hand connections on front of their van trailer.
Hood latches are easy to scratch build, emblems are a little more difficult to correct. I have had success with using emblems cut from scrap "donor" cabs and sanding them down to appropriate thickness. @@goratgo1970
Robert, Great work!You spoke about the lock rods, near the end of the video. Why are there sometimes double lock rods & on this kit only singles? A lot of work for those handles!
From my understanding, double lock rods are a "heavy duty" option which makes sense for intermodal trailers and containers that will spend at least some time on the railroad as railroading is an extremely severe service environment especially when slack action runs in and out of a train, the cargo shifting when this happens puts a lot of strain on doors and their locking mechanisms. For that matter, a ship at sea also can get tossed around which explains why the typical "sea can" also has two lock rods per door.
Highway-only trailers, which is what this kit is based on, are fine with one lock rod per door and this also saves a small amount of weight. Every pound of trailer weight saved = another pound of payload!
Thank u for sharing great detail keep on modeling
Awesome work Robert, great detail!!
Thank you - Moebius provides a great starting point, their kit goes together nicely.
Great tip on the trailer door handle. Amazingly enough, in lieu of brass plates, I have excellent luck/results using yellow tamiya masking tape as a barrier to keep from scratching/slicing plastic models. Ive saved many a model (and time) using a layer of tape when scribing panels.
Thank you for sharing the Tamiya masking tape tip, I had never thought of that application.
I haven't been around for a while but I always love watching your videos. Your attention to detail, real life references and improvement of kit parts is just astounding. Thanks for sharing your skill and creativity!
Thank you, I give the credit to two main sources: Model railroading in general and my father's pursuit of the hobby when I was growing up.
Model railroading in the sense of "prototype modelling" to replicate a particular freight car, locomotive or other 1:1 item as closely as possible along with dealing with upgrading molded-on details (in the 1970's when I first got into the hobby many of the details on model railroad rolling stock were molded on as part of a one-piece body shell. Any many of the 1/25 truck kits were tooled in this same era!) in different ways such as replacement with scratch built parts or thinning down the oversize molded-on item.
My father's pursuit of the hobby was an indirect influence as he took the prototype modelling approach and each freight car, locomotive etc. had essentially every nut and bolt replicated per the real one being modelled. As an example, this might involve replacing the ends on a one-piece boxcar body shell with different ones that matched the 1:1 (a whole world of subtle variations just on the topic of boxcar ends!), changing molded-on grab handles to wire and adding details not included in the kit like brake rigging on the underside. A large stock of hobby magazines was also readily available to read which is where many of the approaches I use now were first seen.
More great tips and improvements us "scale truckers" can use.
One final step I do when scribing or trimming on plastic is to run a small amount of liquid glue along the reworked area which smooths out the surface, and more closely matches the originality of the part.
Thank you for that tip, it does work well. Is there a specific brand of liquid cement you find works better for this? Testors seemed to give good results for me.
@@brsnorthernhorsejourney3579 Back in the day, used "Weld on" in the dk. brown glass bottle, but green cap Tamiya works well enough since not too hot. Best to load brush for one even pass and let it cure as is. Looking forward to more great videos!
Simple little things make a difference. One detail on this kit I don't like is the bead near the top, never seen one up there but I also don't see trailers everyday. I think the walls are interchangable if I remember right. The walls also didn't attach good, think it was the line up tabs. I turned the trailer I had into a Utility. Do yo remember a magazine article on correcting the Italeri trailer? Think it had to be made taller.
Good eye on the rib - van trailers are just like your observation regarding Mack R hoods being similar to VW Beetles and GM fishbowl buses in having many subtle variations. Google image search of "Great Dane dry van trailer" returned a small number that did appear to have a bead at top of side wall (bottom edge of aluminum side member), one was a 2002 53' x 102' which appeared quite similar to kit overall. Looks like kit rib may have tooled a little oversize compared to 1:1 making rib more noticeable.
Narrowing search to 2010 - 2012, based on timeline of kit's initial release, only turned up four Great Dane vans which were not as close a match for Moebius' kit. At top of side wall thickness of aluminum side member is visible but without a formed rib.
While I don't recall reading article on correcting Italeri's "48 foot van" trailer you are 100% right as far as height goes - that kit is well short of 13' - 6" height. I believe it scales out to between 12' and 12' - 6".
There were some van trailers built to this lower height, I think of Ontario's "beer box" 40 footers that were common into at least the early 1980's here. Since beer is a dense commodity 13' - 6" trailers would be overweight before they "cubed out" so breweries ordered lower height trailers for their fleets. This also provided a bit of extra clearance for low bridges in some areas.
I think the change to 13' 6" trailers came about as a result of the lower height ones being an extra cost option to build. It was less expensive to order a standard van trailer and just not use the extra cubic space.
@@brsnorthernhorsejourney3579Guess they made the trailer from one that had the option. Maybe better to build it into the model and let the builder decide what to do with it. Now I know it was on so when I make a stock GD I can leave it or reduce it. Thanks for taking a look.