Thread: Trucks finished - at last!!

Hello all,

This is what has kept me busy for the past three months and hopefully will keep my Grandsons out of mischief for a while as well.

The design and construction of the prime movers was featured in an article in the Oct/Nov 96 edition of AWW by Jack Hudson. It is sort of a replica of a Kenworth C501 Brute which pulls three-trailer road trains in the NT. I can follow a plan but I don't have the skills to design to any sort of scale so I'm not only grateful to Jack, but that I kept the magazines all this time.

The green one is for the two year old son of a bloke I work with. Once he knew I'd started the others, he pestered me to do one for his little fellow whom he really idolises. So, what the hell, four? five? aaahh dosematter... I'd already started the green one some time ago planning on doing a White Road Boss with a trailer of four sugar cane wagons but altered it to be a Kenworth. It's painted black because the chassis is only pine. Of the others, the main chassis & dogbox are red cedar, the bonnets are cyprus pine, the exhaust pipes, air intakes and axle beams are from some camphor laurel I finally got around to milling. The axle blocks on the trailers are from a bloodwood tree I recently had to knock down to make room for my shed extension (never waste a good tree eh?).

I started in late September and have put in most weekdays since from 3pm till dark. Weekends were also spent when time permitted. I did a model of the road train featured in Jack Hudson's original article and ever since they were old enough my Gransons have pestered me for it almost every time they come and visit. I think more than anything, I'll get a buzz out of seeing the looks on their faces on Christmas morning.

I'd like to also acknowledge the co-operation from PACCAR (Kenworth stickers), Hastings Deering (Caterpillar stickers), Thermo King (for the Thermo King stickers) and my neighbour, Ken Howarth for the Century stickers (luckily, he's also the Century battery distributor for the Sunshine Coast).

Oh yes, I've included a couple of photos from the shed and if you look closely, you can see some real sawdust!!!

Cheers,
Keith