The slightly misleading box art, front and back. You know what they say..."read the small print" (in this case at the base of the lid on the photo above)
Exploring a quaint hobby shop in a galaxy far, far away, tucked in an unassuming little mall in the remote island of Kauai, I discovered this box of HO scale (that is 1/87th scale for us un-trained -pun intended). The box art described a group of vehicles, which I naively thought to be the contents. As the box was sealed, I couldn't verify my credulous belief and bought it (the price was fair, so no harm done really).
In opening the box at home, I discovered that there were only two trucks… the same ones. Such is life for the suffered modeler, but there was a tiny label at one box end describing the actual contents. Silly me for not doing a thorough inspection of the box before buying. I am sure that many a distracted modeler got tricked by the slightly misleading box presentation:
On the other hand, the instructions were reasonably clear (not the best I have seen around, though), the molding and detail decent, the subjects appealing, and what's more, attached to the instructions were perks! These took the form of wire for the wheel axles, and teeny tiny lights! Clear AND red! whaddayaknow! Decals are included, we’ll see how they behave due to their age.
Con-Cor, a company I wasn't aware of, caters for the railroad modeling community, and has been around for decades now. I use this type of kit to create models that accompany my 1/72nd scale model planes when photographing them, positioning the vehicles in a way that the scale difference is not as noticeable due to forced perspective.
The molding is very sharp, no flash. A few tiny mold lines can be easily cleaned up. The gates are very close to the parts, so at times it’s a bit tricky to detach them, but even minuscule parts are cleanly molded. Chassis and cabin are detailed, as well as many external details. Given the small scale, some are a teeny tiny simple, but hey, they are there at least!
The general impression is similar to those Highway Miniatures kits, but the latter are more refined and detailed. Still, these Con-Cor vehicles are fairly good as photographic props for us plane modelers and surely for the train guys too.
The manufacturer (as many others) has created a modular process to extract several variants from partially shared molds, thus offering a line obtained by the permutations of three basic vehicle brands with different decals and/or cargo options.
Parts were detached, cleaned up of the remains of tree gates and mold lines, washed and dried. Painting ensues, black base color for the parts that are black or will be metal, white thin layer for the parts that will be red or yellow:
The box includes decals for Shell and Texaco. The Shell diagram is in the instructions but doesn't match all the subjects on the decal sheet, the Texaco diagram isn't even in the instructions.
No color calls whatsoever are given. You are on your own, the buck stops with the modeler.
Only after buying this kit did I discover that RPM models issued a 1/72nd scale of this very truck in multiple boxings, needless to say more modern and therefore much better detailed and in the correct scale. Oh, well, I got two trucks for half the price of an RPM kit. Still...
Some dry-brushing to bring up the detail:
Red and yellow applied:
The piano wire is cut to make the axles following the sizes given in the instructions:
Parts almost ready for final assembly, masking the wheels to paint the tires:
Assembling the cabs and using window maker for the windshields. Tanks glued on chassis. All the locating holes had to be slightly enlarged for a good fit:
To be continued...
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