Recycled AC Mack

As well as working on the Peterbilt logger, I thought I'd have a crack at this piece of machinery. I came across an article in an American logging magazine on a similar build  to what I'm planning.


It's a bit of a two birds with one stone thing as I originally found a photo of another AC Mack in another edition of the logging magazine showing it with a single axle trailer. This build will give me the wheels etc that I need for the logger.



The article didn't say what this did but the side conveyer suggests it did more than just track ballasting. It was self propelled with a chain drive down to the axle on the front bogie. I have a few garden railway bits and pieces to kick off with but think I'll have to hunt around for some of the detail parts.
As long as everyone thinks it's automotive enough, I'll post some more pictures as things progress.

Now that's going to be a very big and long project, its kind of a truck.

Got the chassis together. Built  up as per the kit but cut the back end off just in front of the front hanger for the rear suspension.                          


I still have to make up the new bracketry for the main sprocket now that it comes forwards. I'll also have to find another gear/sprocket to use on the  inside of this one to represent the chain the goes down to the axle on the railway bogie to drive it. Believable chain could be the issue here. The pictures don't show it real well but I also drilled out the holes where the front suspension was mounted. I hope to make it obvious during the painting/weathering stage.

Geez mate what a machine . After seeing the job you did on the boss this should be a challenge . Be watchin this .

Different build Tim, I've got a wrecked Beer wagon here somewhere I think mate I can see if it's still got it's chain and sprockets if you want them?

That would be great mate if you have them still.

Ok, so what we have here is the front bogie over which the Mack cab and engine will sit.


This photo shows the drive sprockets mounted forward and to an axle that will have another sprocket fitted to it to drive the trailing axle of the front bogie. The larger diameter tube in the axle mount is to represent the bearing assembly. Even managed to find some early Mack hubcaps to use as axle covers.


This is roughly how it will go together. The truck engine sits to the RHS with the drive sprockets mounted directly above each other. The truck chassis will sit higher above the bogie but I still have to sort out the main chassis that connects the front end to the back end yet. I'll also have to change the garden railway coupler for a knuckle coupler of some sort.

Ok Guys!... "fess up!... where the blue blinkin' blazes do you
guys get this kinda stuff to build ya models?... An' don't tell me
it's bits of sh*t laying around!...


No fibs now to ol' Jerry!...

looks like evergreen or plastruct styrene, any good hobby shop should stock it, if not do a search of your favorite online supplier it shouldnt be too hard to find

Yep it's  all evergreen shapes. Keep all the odds and ends, you'll never know when they'll be handy.

It's taken a couple of goes but I've finally got the truck chassis sitting right and reasonably low.

I couldn't find another suitable sprocket and chain to use as the drive mechanism from the truck axle to the rail bogie so I decided on a gear drive. I'm not sure that it would of worked in real life but it should look ok on the model.


I still have to mount the middle gear from the centre chassis so that it meshes with the other two.


The rail chassis joining the bogies together is made up from 3 pieces of evergreen I beam joined side to side with the vertical section of the centre beam cut out to create a housing for the coupler. These are topped with strips of plastic to represent strengthening plates.  I cut off the hook shaped ones in the earlier photos in favour of the knuckle type shown in this  photo. The short sections of I beam shown mounted off the bogie under the truck chassis are to keep the front end rigid. I still have to plate over the spring box to suggest that they have been removed so that there is no movement in the front end which would change the geometry of the gear drive. The 'gears' are pieces from either old clockwork trains or clocks that my old man has stashed away. He did have some old bevelled gears from an old hand drill but I couldn't work out how to  get it to work on the model. The worm from a shifting spanner would also have made for an interesting drive system.

Managed to get the centre gear into position, the truck chassis is glued on but the cab is just sitting on to give you some idea where this is heading.



Still have to work on the engine, once it's mostly done I'll be able to set it in place , position the cab accordingly and then start on the hopper and conveyer etc. After seeing Santa's sled on the home page, my old man thinks this build would lend itself to something similar-what do you think?

Looking the part

Got the engine together and sat in place. The plastic strip will act as the supports for the timber walkway around the cab.



Used a piece of angle for the timber support behind the cab. I cut the roof back out of the cab, I'm thinking of doing it either in timber or 'corrugated iron'. I thought these would give a bit more scope for weathering/detailing. Going to try and replicate canvas sheets that can be pulled across the door opening in bad weather and tied back when it's warm.

tissue soaked in a mixture of water and white glue (PVA) would replicate canvas well

How would you paint it? Water colours once it's dried or .......? Trial and error I suppose, it's only tissue.

heres one i prepared earlier, hope it helps, https://ozautobuilders.forumotion.com/t1210-to-make-a-tarp

Cheers, doesn't look too hard.

awesome work Deaf. it just keeps getting better

This is the hopper for the back of the Mack. I still have to do the bracing and add the extension on top
 
This is the side view.

[l]
This is the end on view from the front.


Tacked on with blue tac. There will be a small deck made for the back end with a few tools and odds and ends on it, braking wheel etc.


The head on profile really shows how nothing much seems to sit along the centre line. I'm not sure about the prototype but with mine , the offset allows for clearance around the bell house, diff etc. while keeping the whole thing low on the rail chassis. I tried to counter this slightly by offsetting the hopper as the conveyor gear will also be on the cab side . If nothing else, it adds to the 'home' built feel.

Have started to get the bracing and frame work on .

The rear deck will have a timber top on it. I'll put an extension on the top but might use a different material to make it look like a later add on. The conveyor still needs to be sorted but now the location is sorted. I'm going to have a go at something a bit different with the sides. I'll try to clad the plastic to give the sides a 'on it's last legs' look. Will put pics up if it works.

Wow. Looks spot on so far, nice work.

RetrospectKustoms wrote:Wow. Looks spot on so far, nice work.

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I've put the cladding on the sides and added the hungry boards to the top and bracing to the rear. I think this allows the structure to be bought into square by adjusting the 'bolts' on the diagonals as required. The bolt head detail is done with KFS photo etch bolt heads. The hungry board frames are pieces of c channel with a few pieces  angle and flat as extra bracing. I used photo etch chequer plate to represent patches on the hopper body. Small strips of chequer plate were also used for the hungry board bracing front and rear. I'm trying to give make it look like a project that started out with reasonable budget that has dwindled to nothing as time has passed. The patching etc has been done with whatever was at hand. I'll weather the timber to give it that silvery grey look.
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The cladding is a sheet of paper sandwiched between two pieces of al. foil then slightly rumpled. It's not quite as I'd hoped but I think it's better than smooth sides. I'm hoping it looks like worn metal, rippled and twisted with age. It's a technique described in Model Truck World magazine. Be interesting to see how it looks with paint on it. I'll do the back first so if I need to smooth it out a bit more it won't affect the paint. I'll over paint the patches with primer or that red rust preventing paint.

Ring me Tim and we can talk tarps.