Peterbilt Parts Department
Circa 1970s
September 7, 2005
Here's one of those ideas that struck and I ran with the idea while inspiration was fresh.
The idea for the Parts Department building was inspired by a photo that Randy Lederman snapped back in 1976 of the old Peterbilt Parts Department in Newark, California. My building is not a representation of the building, rather an artists rendering (in other words, it doesn't look like the real thing).
The building is luan plywood with vinyl strips and styrene shapes to make the siding, garage doors, service door, equipment racks and other details.
The stacks of cabs are made from spare cabs, cabs from built-up models, damaged or glue-bomb cabs and miscellaneous parts-box items.
This backdrop is quite versatile, being 4 feet long with a 4 foot by 4 foot parking lot, I can shoot photos from various angles and take advantage of lighting and sky conditions.
These photos were the first batch using my four lane road as the parking
lot. The next grouping of photos uses the 4'x4' parking lot,
and the building has a glass entrance door and a Peterbilt oval on the building.
If I can locate the 'right' material I might redo the building to look more realistic. The vinyl tape is fine until the sunlight heats it up while taking photos and the tape bubbles. Some nice G-scale siding of some sort might be the answer. It would be nice to have a BIG hobby shop nearby.
Making backdrops for photographs is just another enjoyable aspect of truck modeling.