Make A Real Wood Bed With Aluminum Rails For A Model Truck

There are some nice scale pickups out there but one place they all fall short is the pickup bed. I admit I have seen some amazing models done where the modeler did a 1st class job on painting the bed but I have not seen the decal in the bed convincing as the rest of the truck.

I thought about the time to really make a convincing look with decal or paint or a combination of the two and decided a while back just making one from wood be look a lot better and take about as much time. Wood is easy to work with and even if you make the top of the bed look good there is still the underside that needs to be painted up to look like the underside of a wood pickup bed. There is usually grain molded in on both sides but I grew up with that ugly wood paneling in the seventies and really despise fake wood not mention using plastic to replicate wood seems really bassackwards to me.

I have used basswood on my first attempts and bare metal foil for the rails, it looks ok, an improvement on the plastic. The one I did for the red Ford Pickup in my top image was weathered so it came out really good as weathering always adds that realism fast. This time I wanted to try something different.

Here are the materials I used:

1. Popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, thin craft sticks, they have many names but they are roughly 2mm thick and very cheap, basswood would work as well.
2. 1/16 aluminum tube, not rod - but the tube.
3. Size 8 13mm sequin pins
4. Wood or White Glue
5. Smooth jaw pliers or a vise with a smooth jaw or something like sheet metal you can line the jaw with.
6. Emery cloth or sandpaper and other basic hobby tools like a ruler and knife cutters.

I started by measuring bed area of kit and determining how many bed planks I wanted then went about cutting strips of wood with a razor knife so the sum of them would match up with bed area. I glued them together side by side using masking tape to clamp them down to my bench. Later I sanded the wood to a nice finish and clear coated with acrylic clear. I chose for this one to leave the wood natural but it would be very easy to add color or stain to it. I had selected pieces of wood so I ended up with some cool grain patterns and I positioned the darkest two on each side of the centerboard. This is one bonus to using the popsicle sticks over basswood as the basswood is mostly bleached and has very little grain pattern.  I am sorry I did not get a pic of this part but I think it's all pretty basic stuff, just gluing sticks together.

I took the aluminum tubing and essentially smashed it making a flat rail. The reason for "smooth " pliers or vise is you want to have the least amount of dimples or teeth marks in the tubing when you flatten it. Ideas started propping up in my head of how I could make a model metal roller or press and do this properly. The next step is cleaning up the aluminum where there are any teeth marks.  It easily polishes up.

I plotted out holes and drilled and cut my rails, really wish I had a mini drill press here, especially if I could make the holes have a countersink for the pinheads. After gluing I snipped the remainder of the pins sticking through the bottom. They could be pre-cut to length but they get really hard to handle and see for me when they get that small.

When using the 1/16" tubing the result is a 2mm wide strip. I glued each rail down over the joint where each plank meets up making sure to get glue into the pinhole I drilled in the board.

I cut out the bottom of the original bed in the kit and now it real wood top and bottom. It is fun to do real metal fabrication on a model at least in the scaled sense, it won't get me on the Velocity Channel with my own show but makes my pickups look better.

I will post this finished truck soon.

• Hobby Dude

Santa Drives a Brown Truck

Gift cards can be a bit generic and ordinary but a gift certificate to a major hobby distributor is perfect for a guy like me with all my coupon codes and deal hunting. The added benefit is Christmas keeps on giving!

Today Mr. Brown Shorts brought me:

1. Revell of Germany 65' Mustang - Love the wheels
2. Revell of Germany Mclaren 570S - Incredible detail and my foray into a supercar model
3. Revell Foose 68' Firebird - Of all the GM line I have always liked the Pontiacs most.
4. Moebius Models 61'  Pontiac Catalina - I have the Ventura from them and Moebius, from what I have seen are excellent detail and again I love the Pontiacs especially that bubble back window.
5. Revell 66' Shelby GT - Anything Carol Shelby is ok with me.

I will post as I build these.

• Hobby Dude

So Much Time Passes...

I realize how long it has been since I last posted but when I find the time that is void of back pain or numb hands I gravitate towards the paint and glue rather than the keyboard.

So a few updates:

Christmas was good to me and I hope for all of you as well. All my family was home and it was a holiday that returned us to the gift of time with each other rather than a mountain of wrapped boxes. Even with that said mine was still bountiful and model themed!

Tools and more employees to add to my garage. I mentioned in my last post I had my eye on a Tamiya "College Friends" kit with figures and a Vespa, well I returned to the store to look at it and I passed. It wasn't as detailed as I had come to expect with Tamiya. So now I have a number of mechanics for my garage with the addition of this Tamiya Rally crew kit. The detail is good but it is listed as 1/24, the same scale as my Testors kit but the Tamiya guys have amazingly small heads in comparison. It comes with very nice detail hand tools, Laptops with cases, and few other things great for a diorama The Fujimi Tool Kit is excellent. I have already built up a few of the tools and very pleased with quality and detail. My only complaint with Fujimi is Where the heck are the decals? For at least the A/C unit and engine analyzer. Luckily the Tamiya kit came with decals for the laptops and I have already scanned them to aid in detailing the Fujimi kit.

I opted to cut some basswood and convert the tire rack into some shelves since I already have a tire rack. Built up a few of the other items to populate the garage. The poster seen there is not in the kit, I had printed out some vintage scale posters and wanted to try my hand and making some for the garage. I used basswood as a base, washed it brown(stain) and used acrylic clear (60% gloss+40% flat) to adhere the printed image to the wood panel. Worked out well I plan to make more.

The jack stands are adjustable, I tossed the little plastic pins and made some from a hard wire. There are shelves inside the bench cabinet and the door opens and closes!

So progress is good and soon  I will have a lot more to update as far as my garage project, new Christmas models coming!

I hope everyone's start of Modeling in 2018 I starting as fun as mine!

-Hobby Dude]]