I decided to build an SS Ltd tractor/trailer kit I have had for many years. The kit was first produced in 1976 and as far as I know is now out of production. SS Ltd was a firm created by the late John Coots and they had a wide variety of kits. The vehicle kits and many others were all very detailed cast metal parts. The instructions were minimal. As you can see in the kit instruction photo below they proudly stated that they felt wordy instructions were unnecessary so they provided mostly isometric views of the kit parts in assembly position. I have built many SS Ltd kits and the more complex ones were a pain to build but produced nice models.
The picture of the truck above from the kit plans shows the intended model. I am making some changes to suit my self. The roof of the trailer comes as 6 pieces and is oddly high humped. I am replacing the roof with a piece of approximately 1/16th inch thick styrene for a flatter roof and rounding the top edges.
Above is the body of the trailer with the new roof sitting on top but not attached. There are projecting supports along each side and cast metal braces are provided to go from the brace to the car side. There were tiny indents where the brace was to attach to both and small cast pins at the top of the support with the bottom being it's own pin. Needless to say holes were needed for the pins so I had to drill them out. The hole in the side was easy but the hole in the brace was almost as wide as the brace - that was fun. You can see one support installed on the right end of the trailer body.
The photo above shows a 1928 cartage company with trailers and a truck similar to what I am building. You can see the roofs of the trailers are almost flat.
I expect this kit will take a while to build.
Dolarway Pavement sign.
I also built a billboard sign for an early 1900s company called Dolarway. I know they were operational in 1913 but am not sure when they went out of business. They made concrete pavements and their specialty was that they added coat of bitumen and sand over the top to protect the concrete.
Above is a photo of my Dolarway billboard installed on my layout, Just something a little bit different.
Above is a photo of the sign. If anyone is interested in using this sign on their layout, feel free to download it and make copies to suit your scale.
I am also building a freight car using card stock sides. The intent is that this will be a damaged car. I will see how this goes.
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