Western Star 4800 Heritage Series

This is already turning into a good build with all of the fabrication and modification work being done to it Tim. From the hood/ front clip to the wiper arm boss locations to the seats and then the fuel tanks and battery mounts. Frickin' killer start man.

Nice, love those big rigs. Great work on mixing this one up. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this.

Be nice to see you finish it, but I can hardly talk. The K104 has stalled while I wait for custom decals for the cab. Anyone got any recommendations for a decal supplier? 

you could try looking on amazon for nail art tape. its rolls of almost bmf thickness tape. comes in packs of 50 asstd colours for around ten bucks

thats the stuff, some of it passes for engine turning if you dull coat it

The body for the truck is just about complete. Not based on any particular design but I have learnt a few things that I will do differently next time.



So basically, it's just a styrene box. The tailgate does swing and open to the side.


The hinges were made from brass tube and wire, the steps and tie down points are made from brass wire.

This picture shows the repurposed brake booster that operates the cleats (clamps) that keep the tailgate closed. The cleats are welded to the bar running across the back of the body, supported at each side. The actuator rod from the brake booster is connected to an offset mount on the rod which rotates the cleat bar through approx 90 degrees or open and shut. The double booster operates both normal braking function and a parking brake function. This means, that even if the truck loses air, the tailgate remains shut. The rear mounts are also visible.

The ring feeder mount plate and ring feeder are on. The holes in the end cross member are for the air fittings once it is painted.

Plenty of work featured in this updates from you Tim. That's a brilliant idea in using brake boosters to replicate the cleat actuator. All of these little details are really adding up and will definitely help bring this puppy to life in the end. Love the microwave plate as a work stand brother.

  Me too on that Brandon. For me......building one of these things would be like building a 4 engined bomber.......LOTS of work and would probably take me a year or better to build it. 

I cut the moulding block out of the front of the bonnet and then modified the grill to fit the lower profile of this bonnet.

The overall height of the grill needed to be a touch over 3mm lower. I carefully removed the crossbars from the sides by slicing between the bars and the sides. I then cut off the bottom rail of the grill.

I then cut down the overlap of the vertical bars above and below the top and bottom cross bars and cut the grill down, dry fitting it until it was right. I then reinstalled the crossbars.


I then added the quarter guards to the cab. I taped the bonnet to the cab for this, remounted the bonnet on its mounts but left the cab free to move a little for adjustment in the guards. I had to cut off and reposition the rear cab mount to suit. It's not 100% perfect but once it's painted, I hope I can adjust it the lsat bit when it is assembled.


With the quarter guards on, I sat it all together with the tanks and tipper body in place. Turns out the left hand guard rubbed on the power steering reservoir.

It was sitting forward of the spring mount so I moved it back a little. This also fills the gap between the tank and the rear of the quarter guard. I positioned my tanks as shown in a layout drawing from the Western Star brochure but they often seem to be a bit further forward in real life, maybe to help with axle weights on the front axle??
Next I cut off the kit exhaust mounts. They provide a nice sturdy mount but the real thing looks nothing like this.


Have a few small bits to do to finish the body and hopefully it's ready to paint.

Probably one of most important things to make scale kits look more authentic is to have the grill open so you can see through it. Super work with all the extra details.