Custom scale model builder Gertjan has recently started his next project of building a

• Caterpillar D25C Water Truck

DJB Engineering Ltd was founded in 1973 in Peterlee, County Durham in England by David John Bowes Brown.

The Firm built its first Articulated Dump Truck (ADT) a model D250 in 1974, based on a Caterpillar drive train. The trucks were marketed exclusively through Caterpillar dealers world wide as the major components were all Caterpillar.

The range was expanded and sales grew steadily with Caterpillar buying the rights to the design & branding them as Caterpillar DJB in 1985 and eventually buying the company out in 1995.

It is our goal for the coming period in this Making-of Caterpillar D25C Water Truck to show how this custom model will be achieved.

Gertjan shares his building skills through the photos with little notes guiding us in the construction process. Gradually it shows the making of a unique model by using the resin Kit from CypModels in 1:50th scale to create his Caterpillar D25C Water Truck.

Enjoy reading & watching!

Gertjan and Wouter

The Kit

The parts

After the kit made by CypModels is unpacked follows the first inspection to check if all resin, aluminium and photo etched parts of the Caterpillar D25C Water Truck are present. Secondly each individual component is checked very accurate and made ready for building and if needed this includes mainly the very careful filing of excess molding material and making all the parts so that they can be later joined together without any fitting problems.

Also in this 1st round all the individual parts are been thoroughly cleaned and degreased for the first time.

The Water Tank

Despite the fact that kit was executed perfectly by CypModels and almost in every detail has been reconstructed on the basis of old photos and technical brochures of the 1:1 machine Gertjan nevertheless decides to make his own version.

The actual construction begins with the necessary adjustments to the Water Tanker upper body construction: stairs, hand rails, rails on top of the water tank construction and all piping are made by Gertjan completely from scratch from brass material.

The main pipe of the spray nozzles is through Gertjan self constructed and soldered.

At the back of the structure of the Water Tank are small metal plates arranged to be able to mount on the lighting units.

At the bottom of the Water Tanker construction is by Gertjan at each corner affixed a brass material fabricated filler neck.

On top of the Water Tanker structure are mounted on all four corners a lifting eye made of brass material.

Subsequently, the existing molded, fill hatch on top of the Water Tank structure has by Gertjan milled completely and replaced by a very detailed and ready-made plastic specimen from the Bulk Tipping trailer in 1:50th scale from the collection of Tekno.

Most of the scale models of Tekno can be ordered in separate parts. Thus one can order the manhole Gertjan used under item #1466 at Modeltruck Onderdelen Service (MOS), founded in Werkendam, The Netherlands.

Easy does it!

To be continued...