1/25 'Duel' Peterbilt 281 'needle nose' grille



The movie 'Duel' made an impression when I saw it as a child, just like 'Convoy' did in a different way. 40 years later, I have plans to build two US trucks: the 'Duel' Peterbilt 281 and the 'Convoy' Mack R700. For the Duel truck, you generally start with the AMT Peterbilt 359. It's a complicated project: cab, hood, grille, wheels, tires, engine, axles have to be changed. I started work on the front wheels and the cabin's front windows, followed by the 'needle nose' grille.



Another major component required for the conversion is a narrow grille. I based the design on measurements of screenshots of the movie. The exact width is a bit of a guess.
On the rear side the part has lips for the hood parts to rest on, and enough room for a radiator.
Version 2: it was narrowed a bit, rivets were added to the sides, and a simplified hood ornament was added.
Off to the resin printer now. It's always a suprise what comes out..
Club member Wim printed three examples, all in different positions. On the right one, the grille louvers failed to print completely. On the left one, the louvers are 99% right, but they are so thin they look like razor blades if viewed at the right angle. The horizontally printed one is maybe the best, but it's slightly curved.

All prints have in common that multiple supports attach to the louvers, and it will be very difficult to remove them without breaking the louvers. I will probably make them thicker for the next print.
The next print is on the left. The louvers were made 0.45 mm thick instead of 0.3 mm, and still look thin enough to my eye. Each louver had about eight print supports. But I forgot to add supports to the frame above the louvers, so that came out deformed. Another problem that kept coming back were 'dog ears' at the bottom of each printed part.

The next print was perfect! I added extra supports at the 'dog ear' corners, and that solved the problem 95%. A bit of sanding solved the remaining 5%.
By request: a picture of the 'pre-supported' grille. The supports were added manually, because automatically generated supports did not yield good parts. It's my own interpretation of what was required, and I went for 'safe' regarding the thin louvers, giving them 10+ supports each.
The result was a true forrest of supports. But that's mainly because this a difficult part to print. As a consequence, it was difficult to get all the supports off. I worked my way down from the grille's top, and maybe spent half an hour. I had positioned the supports on the louvers such that I could get to them with a razor blade saw from the front (as you see in the picture). I would then snip away the supports from the rear side. Still I broke three louvers, but the breaks are so brittle that they fit perfectly back together, and could be glued invisibly with thin CA.





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