Hi,
I recently purchased some cab/trailers from Classic Metal Works. The cabs, according to the Classic Metals web site are models of the White Super-Power cabs.
The cabs don’t come with side view mirrors so I’ve started adding them using a technique I read about in Model Railroader several years ago. I take a common pin with a round flat head, bend it to look like a side view mirror, drill a small hole in the cab door and whoola, glue in the side view mirror ( I did have to cut some of the pin off because it was too long).
However, I just bought an Athearn cab/trailer and noticed that the side view mirrors are held in place by 2 “arms” and the mirrors are rectangular. They are obviously a lot different than my “common pin” mirrors.
I went to a White Super-Cab website and looked at some pictures. It seems that trucks around 1949 had the round side view mirrors like the ones I installed using pins.
Does anyone know when the rectangular mirrors appeared on White Truck cabs?
Maybe I’m being too much of a “rivet counter” and should just continue with the common pins. However, I noticed in the Walther’s catalogue that I can buy photo-etched brass side view mirrors that are like the ones on the Athearn trucks for about $1.50 a pair. Do I spend the money or just stay with the inexpensive “common pin” approach.
The classic metal works trucks you have are either International Harvesters or Whites, not macks, the common practice for mirrors were the small round ones thru the mid fifties, the two(westcoast mirrors,started on the west coast, hence the name and came common in mid-late fifties and by sixties, on everything. check out sheepscotts mirror sets in the walthers catologue,it’s stamped brass and theres an assortment of mirrors. You can make your own by bending brass.010 rod into a square u shape and add .005 styrene shape and drill out two holes on truck doors and superglue on, be sure to add styrene mud flaps also.
The only real thing I know about Mack trucks is what the grill looks like when it’s getting ready to plow into the passenger side door of a 1955 Ford pick-um-up truck.
This incident took place in 1958 (forty-eight years ago this coming summer) so my recollections are going to be clouded with age. This was an off-the-public-right-of-way accident and both vehicles belonged to the same owner - my boss - so this was not a one-time-only encounter. I had numerous occasions to operate this truck and, if my memory serves me right, I recall it having rectangular mirrors. Something (bigger than a pick-um-up truck) which I used to drive in those heady days of long ago had rectangular mirrors. My boss had a lot of vehicles - some dating back to the 1930’s -but, as I said, an image keeps flashing through my mind and I keep seeing rectangular mirrors.
BoxcarMike,
Thanks for the information and the great idea for making the side view mirrors. I don’t have any of the brass rod right now so I’m going to try using the common pin wire which bends just as easily as brass.
Hey Bxcarmike,
I just tried your method and it worked great! Actually, I modified your idea a little. When I formed the U-shape for the mirror support, I made one side of the “U” a little longer and pushed that longer end into the hole I had already drilled near the bottom of the door’s window. Thus, when I glued it in place, the top of the “U” is just resting against the door. In this way, I don’t have to drill another hole near the top of the door, risking messing up the windshield or breaking another drill bit. In other words, I can just replace the “mirrors” I already installed with the new ones, without drilling another hole.
I’ll have to post a picture later.
I also added an exhaust stack made out of brass rod behind the cab. Just drilled a small hole in the frame and CA’d the exhaust in place.
another mirror trick I got from building Ivers whites was bending two wires in the shape of a vee, then drill out four holes(a chore) in doors, mount one on top, one on bottom and use styrene rectangles between two, you get the double bracket look.