River Point Station N Scale Ford F-350 Trucks

[cfritschle]

I "discovered" an easy kitbash to add some variety.  In the photo below, I "converted" a F-250 crew cab with the XL trim package to a F-250 crew cab with the XLT trim package by replacing the dark gray grille and painted bumpers with the chrome grille and chrome bumpers from a crew cab kit.



I am still working on making regular cab pickups in both the XL and XLT trim packages.   
 

[ednadolski]

Holy smokes, those are nice! 

Ed

[ljudice]

Carter - any sense how well these did and if they might be encouraged to do more???

[cfritschle]

Carter - any sense how well these did and if they might be encouraged to do more???

Louis,

I am responding with my own observations, and I am certainly not "speaking" for Ron, nor have I checked with him.

I have been watching how they are selling at ModelTrainStuff.  It looks like the first order of the white crew cab set, the white utility truck set, and the Union Pacific set sold well.  I believe they started with 50 of each set, and once those sold out, they re-ordered a smaller batch of those three paint schemes.  In checking this evening, I see the white utility trucks have sold out again.  That is an encouraging sign, but I don't know how many RPS may have left in their inventory.

I am hoping that as more retailers add these models to their web pages, more modelers will realize they are available, and they will ultimately sell out in a time frame that will justify another run.  Ron has more paint schemes that he would like to offer, but of course that won't happen until the inventory from the first run is low enough to justify investing in a second run. 

Needless to say, I really want these to be successful!       

[cfritschle]

The regular cab pickups are shown below.



The "west coast" style mirrors seem to be a little more than what would be needed for a F-250 pickup, unless it was pulling a large trailer.  Therefore, I removed the smaller molded on mirrors from one of the "donor" crew cab pickups and attached them to one of the regular cab pickups to see if that was possible.   It worked for the most part, but the tweezers I was using did distort the mirror on the right side of the pickup a bit.   

However, I would really like to have the west coast mirrors when I am pulling my grain trailer with the F-250 shown below.



I did find some plastic mirrors that slide over the stock mirrors so I can legally pull the 8-foot wide trailer.   

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The regular cab pickups are shown below.



The "west coast" style mirrors seem to be a little more than what would be needed for a F-250 pickup, unless it was pulling a large trailer.  Therefore, I removed the smaller molded on mirrors from one of the "donor" crew cab pickups and attached them to one of the regular cab pickups to see if that was possible.   It worked for the most part, but the tweezers I was using did distort the mirror on the right side of the pickup a bit.   

However, I would really like to have the west coast mirrors when I am pulling my grain trailer with the F-250 shown below.



I did find some plastic mirrors that slide over the stock mirrors so I can legally pull the 8-foot wide trailer.   

Pro-tip: the Showcase Z scale truck mirrors are perfect for N scale pickups.

[cfritschle]

Pro-tip: the Showcase Z scale truck mirrors are perfect for N scale pickups.

Thanks Daniel, I will give them a try.

[cfritschle]

The photo below shows the cab from the crew cab pickup that donated its mirrors and bed to make the regular cab pickup shown above with the "standard" factory style mirrors.  The forward section of the crew cab frame was spliced to the rear section of the utility truck's frame.  The RPS etched mirrors were added to "complete" the crew cab utility truck.



The truck could definitely use some weathering, and a compressor with air tank right behind the cab would be a nice addition.

And this photo shows a regular cab utility truck in which the utility bed has been replaced with a flatbed.



The flatbed was shop built by a local farmer, and that certainly is evident with its numerous imperfections.   

[peteski]

Nice conversions Carter. But why all the trucks white? 

Also, is the rear dual wheel set molded as a single extra-wide tire?  That seems odd considering how well the details are modeled on the rest of the truck.

[cfritschle]

Nice conversions Carter. But why all the trucks white? 

Also, is the rear dual wheel set molded as a single extra-wide tire?  That seems odd considering how well the details are modeled on the rest of the truck.

Peter,

The trucks are white because that is what I had in the airbrush at the time.    

I plan to do more kitbashing this winter and paint those trucks in different colors.     I will definitely be painting some trucks red and some trucks blue.   

And yes, the mold constraints prevented molding a "space" between the duals.  All of the parts for each truck (with exception of the grilles and bumpers and windows) are molded on a single sprue.  I am not sure how difficult it would be to create the illusion of two tires instead of one. 

[peteski]

Peter,

The trucks are white because that is what I had in the airbrush at the time.    

I plan to do more kitbashing this winter and paint those trucks in different colors.     I will definitely be painting some trucks red and some trucks blue.   

Good!  It would be nice to see a variety of colors.

And yes, the mold constraints prevented molding a "space" between the duals.  All of the parts for each truck (with exception of the grilles and bumpers and windows) are molded on a single sprue.  I am not sure how difficult it would be to create the illusion of two tires instead of one.

I'm sure the mold could be made to properly depict separate wheels. But it would be a more complex (and expensive) slide-mold mold.  Another (less expensive, yet probably best looking) solution would be to mold each of the wheel separately, then assemble them into dual wheels. Mold is kept simple, but the result is excellent.  That is how most such wheels are made (Atlas, MTL, Tranworx, and many others).

I'm not sure why the manufacturer didn't make them this way, especially a brand new model, designed recently.  Even older and more toy-like N scale model trucks have the dual wheels depicted as being separate (even if it was just a groove, like in the Con-Cor Herpa tractor trailer models).