Duel Truck

Randy13 · Jan 20, 2013

This is something I've been wanting to build for a while. I'm not sure how this will turn out or how long it will take. I don't plan on this being as accurate as you might hope to see but I'll do my best. I plan on building this on the side while I finish my Slave 1.

I'm using Revell Peterbilt 359 1/25 kit that can be found everywhere right now.

First I'm going to start on the cab.

I have cut off the doors and will position them lower where they are supposed to be. I'll have to cut the roof of the cab and bring it down to match the door's new position which should make those front windshields more rectangular like how they look in the old brochure.

Thanks for looking.

Captain Finney · Jan 20, 2013

I've long wondered why a decent kit of this particular truck hasn't made the rounds over the decades. Good luck on this! So far, you've done some great work.

Randy13 · Jan 21, 2013

Thank you Captain Finney. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this build but it it's a little hard to build this while my fingers are crossed. :behave

StuntmanMike · Jan 21, 2013

Randy,
that´s one cool project and I´m definately watching this.
About nine months a ago I have started to build a model of the ´55 Ford F-100, which is driven by Stallone in The Expendables. A top-chop of the roof was needed for a correct replica. Here´s a pic:

Almost done, just minor works to get it ready for painting.

Now back to your truck, especially the last pic with the cab next to the reference pic. You said you want to lower the roof to match the new position of the door. If you now look at the pic, you can see that the front and side windows on your cab are now in a correct position to each other. Top and bottom window frames are offset and not located at the same height. So you also need to reduce the height of the door windows to keep the right positions. The door windows are more rectangular aswell in your reference.

You are faced with a pretty impressive challenge. On first sight it looks like a simple job, but the trapezoidal shape of the roof can include some nasty surprises.

Have you already figured out a way to lower the roof? I´d have some ideas if you are interested.

Cheers,
Kevin

Hand-Schaub · Jan 21, 2013

Looking forward to seeing this project progress! My brother and I are big fans and I'm sure this might inspire him to build one himself!

Zombie_61 · Jan 21, 2013

I'm planning to build this truck myself one of these days, so I'll be watching your thread with great interest! :thumbsup

Randy13 · Jan 22, 2013

Thank you for the feedback guys! Kevin, your Blue Mule build is what finally got me wanting to start this sooner than later. TBH, I’m a little embarrassed building a vehicle model because I don’t think it will come out as good as any of yours. You are right, it did look like a simple job at first but I can now see that there is more work to this than I had thought. I’ve decided to rebuild the doors from scratch and I’ve plotted out where I’m going to make my cuts to lower the roof. If I come across any problems with that, I hope you don’t mind me asking you some questions. I love what you’ve done for the Expendables truck so far. That top-chop is seamless and beautiful.

I’ll try to be as thorough as possible about the changes I’m making and hopefully be helpful for anyone wanting to do future builds of this truck. At least you may learn what “not to do”. :facepalm

I’ll be working more on this tonight.

yuumi2891103 · Jan 22, 2013

Hi! Randy-san

Is this a brutal truck appeared in the movie Duel?
This is the very interesting project.
So you are going to build a red Valiant as well?

That was a great movie and I saw it in the movie theater here in Japan when I was in junior high.:lol

I found this blog and it says the truck was found in 2009 and was sold at auction.

Japanese though
‰f‰æwŒƒ“Ëx‚Ìƒgƒ‰ƒbƒN‚ª”Œ©‚³‚ê‚éI ‚Ë‚±‚Ì‚Ð‚°/ƒEƒFƒuƒŠƒuƒƒO

I'm looking forward to see the progress.

Katsu

StuntmanMike · Jan 22, 2013

Hi Randy

Good to hear that my build of the Mule did inspire you. Btw, an update will follow soon. And feel free to ask any questions. I´ll gladly help if I can.

For lowering the roof, I´d suggest to place the cuts in the middle of the roof pillars. It will later be easier to line them up and clean the seams. And you don´t have to mess around with putty and sanding paper in critical areas. I´d also use the doors from the kit instead of sratchbuilding new ones.

Actually your build made me really think about it as I have also planned to build this truck someday. I would start with the doors and cut a little bit off from the bottom so it will fit into the opening in the lowered position. Then cut away the window frame to reduce its height. When the frame is lowered, it will also be shorter in lenght. After the frame is glued back to the door panel, you need to shorten the door panel aswell. Here´s a sample for placing the cuts:

Then go on with the cab and place the cuts like this:

Cut the cab into six pieces:
- cab front piece
- front roof
- rear roof left
- rear roof right
- cab rear end left
- cab rear end right

Now you can glue the finished doors the the front piece of the cab. With the doors back in place you have something to go on. Build this thing like a house, from bottom to top. After the doors are in place, go on with the rear ends and re-align them to the doors. Then go on with the front roof, lower it and glue it back in place. Last but not least, add the rear roof pieces.
Then you only need to fill in a little gap between the door frame and the roof. Everything else can be fitted by removing material. I think that would be the easiest and cleanest way to get the cab done.

Regards,
Kevin

Randy13 · Jan 22, 2013

yuumi2891103 said:
Hi! Randy-san

Is this a brutal truck appeared in the movie Duel?
This is the very interesting project.
So you are going to build a red Valiant as well?

That was a great movie and I saw it in the movie theater here in Japan when I was in junior high.:lol

I found this blog and it says the truck was found in 2009 and was sold at auction.

Japanese though
‰f‰æwŒƒ“Ëx‚Ìƒgƒ‰ƒbƒN‚ª”*Œ©‚³‚ê‚éI ‚Ë‚±‚Ì‚Ð‚°/ƒEƒFƒuƒŠƒuƒƒO

I'm looking forward to see the progress.

Katsu

Hello Katsu-san. This is the truck I'm trying to re-create. I saw this movie on TV many times with my father when I was a child and this truck scared me. Thank you for the link. I was able to translate it but I can read katakana, hiragana and very little kanji.

I've read somewhere a while ago that the original truck used in the original TV version is the truck that goes over the cliff. Then when the movie was released in the theater, they filmed additional scenes using another truck (or trucks) that had some slight differences. I believe the one sold in auction was the one for the additional scenes.

That information could be wrong though.

I forgot to mention, I don't think I'm capable of building that red Valiant but Kevin (StuntmanMike) is doing a great job at creating one. http://www.therpf.com/f11/1-25-plymouth-valiant-spielberg-s-duel-168486/

Randy13 · Jan 22, 2013

Wow Kevin. Thank you for that info. I wouldn't have thought of cutting things that way and I totally see what you mean. I'm going to have a good look at that. Again, thank you so much for your input.

Tonight I just cut off the sleeper cab.

Zombie_61 · Jan 22, 2013

StuntmanMike said:
...Actually your build made me really think about it as I have also planned to build this truck someday. I would start with the doors...

Just a question, since I've never really done anything like this. Wouldn't it be better ("better" being subjective, of course) to modify the cab first, then use the door spaces as a template (of sorts) to modify the doors? Or are you saying to modify the doors first, and use those to position the pieces of the cab and re-build the cab around them?

MAKE BELIEVE · Jan 23, 2013

This is a great project. I'll be watching this thread
pls keep posting updates

StuntmanMike · Jan 23, 2013

Zombie_61 said:
Or are you saying to modify the doors first, and use those to position the pieces of the cab and re-build the cab around them?

Yea, that´s it. When you do the doors first, you have a solid base to rebuild the cab. The re-installed doors are helpful to keep everything straight and parallel. If you rebuild the cab before installing the doors, it would be more difficult as the whole cab would be much more fragile.
As always with scratchbuilding stuff, there are different ways to get a result. If you ask ten people for advice, you get ten different answers to solve your problem...:rolleyes

Of course my idea is just based on looking at the pictures in this thread. If I´d had the cab in my hands, there could be things I´d consider to do slightly different. Just wanted to throw in some input and ideas.

This truck model sure is a huge challenge. The cab is just a small step on a long road of modifications. In the end there shouldn´t be much left from the appearance of the base kit. Differend hood, different fenders, different grille, different everything... There are more than 20 years of technical evolution between the base model kit and the reference truck. That means lots of work. But also a sense of achievement for every single part that has been refined. Creating something unique is what makes this hobby so great.

Cheers,
Kevin

Randy13 · Jan 23, 2013

StuntmanMike said:
This truck model sure is a huge challenge. The cab is just a small step on a long road of modifications. In the end there shouldn´t be much left from the appearance of the base kit. Differend hood, different fenders, different grille, different everything... There are more than 20 years of technical evolution between the base model kit and the reference truck. That means lots of work. But also a sense of achievement for every single part that has been refined. Creating something unique is what makes this hobby so great.

Cheers,
Kevin

You are right Kevin. The more I look at little details, the more I realize what needs to be modified. Last night I noticed the location of the gas tank’s cap needs to be moved but that’s an easy fix. It’s just that there are many small things that need a little attention, even the windshield wipers are not in the same location. I could have gone an easier route and started off with this cab AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL TRUCK MODELS © this still needs quite a bit of changes too but the majority of the work has already been done. If I had the extra $80 I would have started off with this instead. I do plan on ordering these wheels though. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL TRUCK MODELS ©

StuntmanMike · Jan 23, 2013

Depending on how accurate you want your model to be, studying reference pics is pretty important and it can become a big time factor on a build like this. The deeper you get into it, the more needful modifications you´ll find. Just take your time to get everything sorted out. Make a list, think twice and cut once. Then it will be a very entertaining and relaxing build for you.

Have you planned to add a trailer if the truck conversion turns out to be a success?

Randy13 · Jan 23, 2013

I do plan on taking my time with this but at the same time I’m excited to get it finished as well. I’ve taken a lot of screen caps of the movie but some areas are a little hard to see. I’ll be doing some things I’ve never tried before so it might take me a couple of attempts until I get it right. Funny you mentioned about making a list Kevin, that’s what I started doing last night. I also plan on making the trailer from scratch and hoping it will come out looking decent. I have another truck kit that I got for $2 at a swap meet and I’ll be using those suspension parts on the trailer.

Zombie_61 · Jan 23, 2013

StuntmanMike said:
Yea, that´s it. When you do the doors first, you have a solid base to rebuild the cab. The re-installed doors are helpful to keep everything straight and parallel. If you rebuild the cab before installing the doors, it would be more difficult as the whole cab would be much more fragile.

That does make more sense. Thanks!

StuntmanMike said:
As always with scratchbuilding stuff, there are different ways to get a result. If you ask ten people for advice, you get ten different answers to solve your problem...:rolleyes

It's not just scratchbuilding--almost every modeler I've spoken with seems to have their own way of doing just about everything when building their models. The basics are almost always the same--glue, putty, sand, prime, paint, decal, etc.--but I've heard some rather unique techniques for accomplishing each step. And that's one of the things I like about this hobby--after more than 40 years of building models I can still learn new ways of doing things.

Randy13 · Jan 28, 2013

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve gotten some work done on this and my Slave 1build over the weekend but it got too late last night for me to post any pictures. I’ll try and get that done tonight. For this build so far, I have been doing a lot of measuring and thinking and very little cutting and gluing. But it’s all been a lot of fun seeing little details come together.

mundbuster · Jan 28, 2013

lookin good will be watching! you doing a 1971 Plymouth Valiant too ! ive always wanted too do a similar build and do the mad max mack

Duel Truck

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