Finished build: Revell 1/25 Kenworth Aerodyne

Snap Decision? An old snap-kit got me back into building trucks

 

 

Despite spray painting several body shells ready for building, I had not completed a kit build since last year. After a trip to the US, which happily involved stopping off at a branch of Hobby Lobby, I picked up a couple of truck kits and voila - here is a completed model from that enjoyable stop. Below is a short video I made showing the kit in its unbuilt state.

 

 

The kit in question is the Revell 1/25 scale Kenworth W900 Aerodyne. This is actually an old snap-kit, in other words a simplified kit designed to be completed without the need for glue, and targeted mainly at younger modellers and perhaps modellers who prefer a simpler building process. Though no longer marketed or labelled as a snap-kit, many of the parts can still be assembled with nothing more than a firm 'snap', and some of the major sub assemblies, like the chassis/frame, are in one piece.

 



 

This is a reason I chose this truck as my next project. After spray painting the one-piece cab and sleeper body, plus the one-piece hood/front fenders assembly, the actual build was completed during a few hours over two weekends and a few evenings. After not finishing a build for so long, my main aim was to simply get something finished!

 

 



 

I spray painted most of this kit. The cab and sleeper, hood and fenders, frame, interior and most other components were sprayed either as individual parts or as built-up sub-assemblies. The white stripe decals were applied over the blue base coat before over-spraying the cab unit with clear gloss lacquer. The diesel tanks suffered the usual fault of being made in halves then chrome-plated, leaving an unsightly join line if assembled as made, so I glued the halves together, sanded the join lines, then sprayed them with enamel silver paint and brushed some Pledge floor wax onto them to hopefully get close to a natural metal finish. The chromed cab steps/battery boxes were brushed with matt lacquer to make them again look more like bare metal. The real trucks seem to have a mixture of chromed or polished parts, such as the wheels, exhaust stacks and bumper, with duller aluminium and unpolished stainless steel parts like the diesel tanks and steps. This was the look I decided to go for. I left the grill surround in chrome finish, then matted the grill mesh before giving it a wash with dilute black oil paint. This approach was also used elsewhere to highlight some of the details and tone down the bright work.  

 

 



 

Once assembled, I gave the chassis, tyres and lower parts of the truck a subtle brush with some sand-coloured weathering powder to give the impression of a life at work on dry roads. This is supposed to represent a clean and well-kept truck, but I feel it benefits from some dust to bring out the details and make it a little less 'new'.

 

 



 

This kit is available now in the UK for about £25 and in the US for about $25, so I really recommend it as a nice simple build which costs little and will display nicely.