Post by Muleskinner on Aug 6, 2013 12:37:19 GMT -8
A few years back my wife and I were in Roseburg, Oregon over the mountain from where we live and decided to take a jaunt to the local Hobby shop which is now long closed down. There we were looking around and the just released Lindberg 1/20th scale Pete, caught my wife's eye. She bought it and told me "I'm sure you can find something to do with it."
Upon arriving home, we were both surprised to find she had purchased the worlds largest snap together Pete with, for the size of it very short on detail. A total disappointment for the cost and actually very worthless as a model. The hood snapped to the frame and there was no engine what so ever except for the bottom of the unit which made for a very big curbside model. The stacks were out of proportion and the bottom of them at the bend snapped into the frame of the rig instead of going under the frame and then to the engine. I put the lid on the box shelved it and then proceeded to write a letter to Lindberg distributor and told them how gracious I felt about the build up they gave the rig in advertising it's release and then how disappointing it was when purchased. I proceeded to tell them they could have used all the plastic which went into this model to make 1/25th scale model cars which was more their speed and probably made a whole lot more money doing it.
Enough of that. I finally got to looking in my stash and found the Pete again and decided to give it a try and see what I could come up with as far as logging goes. Diving into the numerous pictures I have acquired over the years I found an old ad for the United Equipment Company which once was located in Eugene Oregon. It was a 7630 model stinger loader and after looking at it and the rig I decided why not? First I took the Pete and put it together as per the instructions and then started marking areas which were wrong which amounted to a rig with a whole bunch of black X's all over it.
I first took the stacks which were a total waste and removed them from the muffler units, top and bottom. I them took my good old stand by Jointed drinking straws and made a more believable set of stacks for it. Next came the front grill and bumper which was molded as one piece and when applied to the model, the front of the fenders rested on top of the bumper, to help in holding the cab to the frame! I removed the bumper from the bottom of the grill and added a scale nine inch shim to the back of it to move it out to the right distance from the grill and then added the fender and cab unit to check for clearance. It was close enough and I proceeded to the next step, removing all the molded on set up for the fifth wheel, which took a lot of work and choice words towards Lindberg Corp, but finally yielded a frame which was halfway decent enough for the loader to set on. I did not have to extend the frame as the rig was a long wheel base unit already and had a lot of distance from the end of the frame forward to the back of the cab. In fact when I built the loader there was a lot of space between it and the cab to where I had to add something to fill it in. I decided on a drom, with a head ache rack built onto it. This I built from G Gauge Corrugated roofing material from Evergreen Plastic, strip stock and Basswood.
Any way to make a long story short, The unit finally was completed and below are the results of this build which increased my vocabulary of curse words by about a thousand or so and yielded a pretty good rep of a united loader married to a Pete. Hope you enjoy the results.
Upon arriving home, we were both surprised to find she had purchased the worlds largest snap together Pete with, for the size of it very short on detail. A total disappointment for the cost and actually very worthless as a model. The hood snapped to the frame and there was no engine what so ever except for the bottom of the unit which made for a very big curbside model. The stacks were out of proportion and the bottom of them at the bend snapped into the frame of the rig instead of going under the frame and then to the engine. I put the lid on the box shelved it and then proceeded to write a letter to Lindberg distributor and told them how gracious I felt about the build up they gave the rig in advertising it's release and then how disappointing it was when purchased. I proceeded to tell them they could have used all the plastic which went into this model to make 1/25th scale model cars which was more their speed and probably made a whole lot more money doing it.
Enough of that. I finally got to looking in my stash and found the Pete again and decided to give it a try and see what I could come up with as far as logging goes. Diving into the numerous pictures I have acquired over the years I found an old ad for the United Equipment Company which once was located in Eugene Oregon. It was a 7630 model stinger loader and after looking at it and the rig I decided why not? First I took the Pete and put it together as per the instructions and then started marking areas which were wrong which amounted to a rig with a whole bunch of black X's all over it.
I first took the stacks which were a total waste and removed them from the muffler units, top and bottom. I them took my good old stand by Jointed drinking straws and made a more believable set of stacks for it. Next came the front grill and bumper which was molded as one piece and when applied to the model, the front of the fenders rested on top of the bumper, to help in holding the cab to the frame! I removed the bumper from the bottom of the grill and added a scale nine inch shim to the back of it to move it out to the right distance from the grill and then added the fender and cab unit to check for clearance. It was close enough and I proceeded to the next step, removing all the molded on set up for the fifth wheel, which took a lot of work and choice words towards Lindberg Corp, but finally yielded a frame which was halfway decent enough for the loader to set on. I did not have to extend the frame as the rig was a long wheel base unit already and had a lot of distance from the end of the frame forward to the back of the cab. In fact when I built the loader there was a lot of space between it and the cab to where I had to add something to fill it in. I decided on a drom, with a head ache rack built onto it. This I built from G Gauge Corrugated roofing material from Evergreen Plastic, strip stock and Basswood.
Any way to make a long story short, The unit finally was completed and below are the results of this build which increased my vocabulary of curse words by about a thousand or so and yielded a pretty good rep of a united loader married to a Pete. Hope you enjoy the results.
