This Caterpillar CT660S dump truck from Jim Groeneweg started off as a die-cast model that is marked as 1/92 scale however, it is larger then that, likely even closer to a 1/85 scale, sold as Toy State China die cast concrete mixer. To begin with, the cab was removed and a mold was made of the hood. A roll casting of that was mated to an Jacobs Models International 9000 series cab that was modified to resemble the CAT cab. Once that was achieved, a mold was made of the hood/cab and castings were created using the original grille/bumper to come up with this rendition of a CAT CT660S; the “S” indicates the short BBC 116” version. The cab is mounted on a Herpa builder chassis that has a scratchbuilt functional lift axle added along with A-Line two hole steel wheels on the rears with a five hole steel wheels up front that are modified Athearn (from the earlier Freightliner series) with flotation tires created from splicing two of the tires together.
The dump body is a casting of the sides only of a DEL dump box Jim had made earlier thus adding a floor, bulkhead and tailgate scratchbuilt to complete that along with cab shield. Both dump box and cab are painted in a fleet blue color which is for the fictional APEX Construction. Decals were made by Graphics On Demand.
The grille was de-chromed and treated with Testors silver to duplicate what looks to be low sheen aluminum shroud and bumper saving the CAT logo in the grille. A windshield comes from a (modified to fit) Scania cab with a sun visor from an Italeri Western Star with Ralph Ratcliffe Models air horns, scratchbuilt mirrors, and exhaust stack from aluminum tube that has a Masterbilt Models photo-etch heat shield finishing it off.
Posted February 15, 2018 |
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