O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicles Oct. 31

I modify HO grain bins for O scale use.  Interesting that Walter trucks are still made.  As a fan of the myriads of orphan vehicles once built in the U.S., I am glad to see

another surviving.

I think I only have two vehicles custom painted with a logo (others have undesired logos painted out)  and both are Ertl "1930" Chevrolets.  The first is an Ertl panel coach that has been repainted aspen yellow with spruce green fenders and lettered "D&FR Shops", and the second, yellow cab and hood, green fenders and stake body, lettered "D&FR" (Denver and Front Range) on the doors.

Oops...wrong again.  Further thought sent me to the shelves of structures waiting to

be put on the layout, and there are tank trucks repainted for Frontier Oil, coal dump trucks repainted for Brannem Fuel and Forest (mythical owner of this railroad), and

a beer truck with barrels lettered for Glacial Springs Brewing Co.  Some of these have

been pictured on here in the past, with the structures.

No logo, but here's a Brooklin Hudson that I repainted a while ago. I didn't care for the orange Brooklin painted it, and it was an easy enough repaint. The only difficulty was with the Testors spray can, which blasted too much paint. I had to re-strip it once because the paint went on too thick. I learned a lesson, 1/43 cars are too small for spray cans. Next time I'll use the airbrush.

I have repainted a lot of trucks and cars, all with rattle cans.  I've had no problem with paint being too thick, etc. -- I jsut hold the can farther away, etc.  I did have one problem when I tried to paint a car early on without priming it first, just applying spray paint over whatever paint was on it.  Had to soak my new and the original paint off it and prime it.  

Scratchbuild trailer and diecast cab on customer 'Streets chassis.  Testors red rattle can.

Top below, diecast cab on stretched 'K-line vintage truck 'Streets chassis, Testors red rattle can on cab, brushed testors flat brown on stakebed (taken from a the vintage truck.  bottom below, This was a blue NY times or some other newspaper truck.  Now its white for the local paper on my layout.

I have three buses in this two-tone color scheme, , shortened Corgi model. sports car in background (red and black Lagonda) has been repainted, too, come to think of it.

specast cab on custom 'streets chassis has not been repainted.  Scratch trailer is actually printed, then glued on. 

Adam-12 is all business here.  I had to repaint this as a police car.  Emplem on door is, if you get really close, just drawn on it with colored pencil. 

Inspector Frost plain jane unmarked dull police car and the '66 Fairlane below were both repainted at the same time with the same blue. 

Aside from a bit of weathering or blackening out some whitewalls on pickup trucks, I really haven't tried to paint any vehicles, myself.  But looking at the results that you guys have come up with, maybe it's time to try my hand at doing my own adaptations of some paint schemes.  I like what you guys have been able to accomplish.  The one thing that would scare me, however, is to try to apply lettering or decorations to the cab door of my trucks.  My fingers aren't nimble enough to handle those tiny decals.

I certainly like the "commercial look" that the lettering offers, however.

Paul Fischer

A collection of some very nice vehicles.

I managed to pick these up up at an estate sale  5 bucks ( Canadian) each  there were many more mostly convertibles  but  I had to hold to my budget  other wise  .......

Nice Repaints above. Good Job.

I just noticed that Brooklin has done some 1940 Buick (station wagons).  I had heard somewhere that Brooklin was doing their Buick series for 1934-1939 (only?), so was glad to see them roll over into 1940, where I would like to see the GM line, from Chevy to LaSalle.  I see scattered Pontiac and Olds models from the late 1930's but no

evidence of a line of those as extensive as that for Buick.  (with Brooklin originating

in Canada, still I have seen no models of McLaughlin, or Russell)

I also see those 1940 Buick wagons priced even higher than the rising Brooklin prices.  I wonder who usually carries the entire Brooklin line, and who, except for the guy now gone from York, carries them discounted (probably won't be lucky enough to find them to be one and the same).  Even so, I will wait until something shows up cheap.  I just want to know what to wait for.

Rextoy was generating a tiny brochure, showing models they never got to making.  I

don't think? Brooklin puts out a regular, current catalog?

Diecast Direct has a large assortment of Brooklin. No discounts though. 

I recently looked at an online listing of Diecast Direct, and found they had only ONE

Brooklin listed...must not then have been a complete listing of theirs?  Will check now.

Iw as checking through Diecast Direct this morning.  They had a lot of Brooklin, just none I wanted at that moment!

I just checked the DD website and they listed around 300 items for Brooklin. Maybe you hit the "final sale" page by accident, or some other special page. 

Looking up specific brands, models, etc, on the DD website is a real pain. If you want to be sure you are seeing everything, you have to go though the entire 1:43 car offerings.

Thanks, Mr. Hohmann....I think you have identified the problem....I take it there is

no way to easily search their site, like eBay, by brand (of the toy, not the vehicle model)?  i didn't find it quickly, and left.  I find this a lot...web sites that are not

easily and quickly searchable in a logical manner...(I am guessing that they are designed by some computer company geeks with no familiarity with the product being

marketed)

As a collector of emergency vehicles, I couldn't pass up acquiring this rig - a Kenworth/Miller Industries Century Rotator by First Gear. It's a nice 1/50 scale rendition.

 Speaking of utility vehicles, THW produced a series of modern service/utility trucks. this one is based on a unit in service with the Kern County Fire Department

Hiawatha you probably don't know who makes what in 1:43. Post what 1930's cars you are looking for in 1:43.

Bob

I didn't mean to sound rude but I didn't understand what your point was about searching DD. Since you have all those brand names it shouldn't take long to search what ever you're looking for individually. That is some assortment of brands you have.

The names now are AE/NEO. Matrix, Premium X/Ixo, Spark, BOS, eary models by Automodello, Esval, GLM and Brooklin with their better detailing.

Bob

Thank you!  While I came late to computers (my employer was behind the power curve

with a variety of incompatible systems), and am not  a whiz, I feel vindicated in that

I now know I can't search for 1/43-1/50 cars or trucks from specific makers (or all) for 1940 and prior on THAT site. Their loss....

I'm okay with DD's serach feature.  the main problem there is there are just soooooo many cars to look through.  

Don't forget that there are a ton of diecast cars and trucks on Amazon. You can use the Amazon search features to cut and slice very precisely if you wish ("1:43 1957 TR 3 Spark").  You often come up with nothing, but that search got me two hits this morning (same car, for $115 or $74 dollars, different suppliers).

As to inexpensive, the Polish manufacturers "Amer Hobby" has $12 cars, gobs from the 1930s and forward.  Many are European, but they look generic enough that I use them when I fit out my layout with a 1930's look.  In particular the 1939 BMW 335 and Panhard look really "American" enough.