International Flatbed Truck

I've been thinking for a while that the layout could benefit from a few vehicles on it's roadways, so I recently picked up this nice looking flatbed truck. Made by Boley, this one was packaged up as part of Walthers Scene Master line.  I figured I should be able to weather it and put some kind of load on the truck's bed.

A model of an International Truck with an 18 foot flatbed, held together by two simple screws, the model comes apart quite easily.  I couldn't see anywhere on the model indicating the model year of truck that this one would represent.

I took this photo mistakenly believing that this was as far as the truck could be disassembled, realizing afterward that the frame is two pieces, as is the cab's interior.

Here we have the truck fully disassembled, but with the components weathered.  I used Burnt Umber and thinned black acrylic for most of the weathering.  The truck's bed was done with layers of primer red, flat aluminum, and rust, with chipping fluid used in between each layer to try to get a used and worn look.

After weathering, here's the truck re-assembled...I even went over the tires with the burnt umber acrylic.  A couple of things about the model that I wish were included would of course be a driver figure, and license plates would be a real good touch as well.  I'll have to try to come up with something for the license plate.

I loaded the bed with a 4 foot x 12 foot section of plate steel, as well as an 18 foot length of steel I-Beam. The sheet steel is .010 styrene painted  with dull aluminum and a light spray of rust.  The I-Beam, a piece of Evergreen Styrene, is painted with light oxide red.  I noticed that there was a bit of a shine on the tire treads, so I ran them back and forth over some black weathering powder to flatten that down.

The tie-down straps are made from masking tape that I cut into very narrow strips, about 3 scale inches or so wide. It looks like the plate steel was loaded and tied down first, and then the I-Beam was loaded after that.

The International rolling down South Industrial Blvd.