Thanks, Andy! Pretty sure that trailer on Shapeways is mine. It's just too expensive to print there so I've been using MP Scale Models to do the printing for me lately. The PIE decals shown on the trailer in the first post are an early version of my artwork created in Photoshop, so they are a bit grainy. I printed them at FedEx Office so they are also a bit translucent. Those problems have been corrected with proper artwork created in Inkscape and printed by PDC. This set will letter one trailer and gives a variety of logo styles used over the years (white boundary with drop shadow, no boundary with angled shadow and white boundary with angled shadow):
Very nice! I have a few of the old Microscale PIE decals like the red ones you have there, but they aren’t nearly as good as yours. I was most interested in the 80s/90s version with the red and blue stripe. NOBODY mass produced those and I remember as a kid looking through the catalogues at the hobby shop for them but never finding them. I did find 1 sheet of them off of eBay a while back and pulled the air brush out of storage to throw them on a 45’ trailer. It turned out ok, but I wasn’t thrilled with the selection of trailers out there. If you ever have any more printed I’d be happy to buy a bunch (trailers too!). Keep up the great work!
I upgraded a few trailers from the past with new 3D printed underbody reefer units. These are models of ThermoKing's RMU lettered with my own decals printed by PDC. The Martrac trailers are old Milepost 501/A-line kits with the 5-foot extension and the Transamerica trailers are Atlas Pines models with A-line Wabash landing gear. The fuel tanks are by A-line; tanks on the Martrac trailers are stock but they have been lengthened on the Transamerica trailers.
I painted an American Limited container chassis red to look like one of the Fruehauf chassis used by Dole. I also added a 3D printed fuel tank and ThermoKing chassis-mount genset to the chassis. The Dole container is a factory painted Walthers model but I did a little detail painting and weathering to better match the real thing. The Peterbilt tractor is a Brekina model that I've done a bit of work on. I removed the headache rack/tool cabinet and filled in the paint where it didn't quite get printed close to the details. I also replaced the wheels and fifth wheel with 3D printed parts. It's very likely I'll be replacing more of the details on the Brekina models with printed parts over time. They are beautiful models out of the package but a little tweaking can take them to another level. The American Limited chassis is an acceptable stand-in for the Fruehauf chassis but it lacks the iconic suspension hangers that identify a Fruehauf trailer from a distance. So that's one of the next things I'll be printing now that the CAD is done. Also, these banana containers are usually standard height compared to the high-cube versions available in HO scale. I might have to do something about that, too.
Here is a screenshot of the CAD for the Fruehauf chassis: While I was at it I knocked out a couple converter dollies. The first one uses the older style hangers Fruehauf was known for. The other one is a copycat of the Fruehauf design by Hobbs with a more traditional leaf suspension setup. I've needed a pile of these for all the pups I've been printing!
Very nice work. Except for slipper leaf springs which slip on the end of the top leaf I don't think I've seen a leaf spring before without a shackle on one end. Did they get by that with the springs being able to slide on each other and that top piece that is attached to the hangers? Sumner
Honestly Sumner I tried not to get too deep in the weeds designing these parts. There's a lot of compromise in the leaf springs since if they were drawn to scale they'd snap without much weight on them. I really need to revisit the stabilizer rod and it's connection to the axle on the Hobbs suspension. It was made thicker than the similar part on the Fruehauf suspension since it was designed to print at Shapeways. Printing these parts on a resin printer now allows some non-load-bearing parts to be thinner. I will be going back to look at the for-sale photos of these converters I've saved from purplewave.com to see what else I missed though!
Well hope I didn't come off as a 'rivet counter' as I'm for sure not one. I was just interested in how they worked. I just spent a few minutes searching and couldn't find any good views of spring mounts on tractors or trailers. Great work though and harder to design than what I've been doing. Sumner
Not at all, Sumner! Any information I can glean to improve the models is welcome. I honestly don't know much about how these systems work. What I've learned comes from parts catalogs and for-sale listings.
