1955 Chevy 2-Ton Stake Body

This is two version of the box art for the 1955 Chevy 2-Ton Stake Body. The top photo is the box art for the Atlantis 2020 release of the kit. The bottom photo is the box art for the original Revell 1955 release.

I built the Atlantis version.

Decal sheet. This image is larger than the actual decal sheet. If you would like a copy of the decal sheet in its actual size that can be printed, click this link. The image will open in a new tab or window, then right click the image and select Save Image As... . I'm not sure how to do this on a Mac or Linux...sorry.

The actual size of the sheet should be (Width x Height): 760 x 673 pixels, 2.533"(64.35mm) x 2.243"(56.98mm), with a resolution of 300 x 300 ppi. After downloading the image, open it in your image editor and check the size to insure it is as stated. This size keeps everything to the original 1:48 scale. Of course you can scale it to any scale you need, provided the resolution is still good.

These are the parts trees for the 1955 Chevy 2-Ton Stake Body Truck. See my YouTube or Rumble video playlist, Part 01 to view a box opening.

All the parts have been removed from the sprues. They have not been cleaned up yet. There is quite-a-bit of flash on the parts, but I would expect that given the molds are fairly old. According to Scalemates the molds are from the 1955 Revell original release. But then Scalemates is not 100% accurate.

It looks like there might be some filler needed on the body parts. I'll show that and address that later.

This is a close up of some of the stake rails. Even though there is a nice wood grain texture on them, every one of the rails have ejector pin marks as I've circled on one of them. I guess I could fill them, but I'm sure the sanding of the putty will also take some of the wood grain away. I could possibly make them look like the bolts holding the wood slats to the rails, but I'm sure the bolts would not be that big. As I said in my introduction video, I'm fairly sure I'll be scratch building all of them from real wood.

The cab of the truck is 7-pieces. The instructions tell you to assemble parts of the body on the frame. However, to be able to paint the entire cab I thought it would be better to assemble the cab first and place it on the frame after painting, just like you would normally do in other kits. This image shows the cab being dry fitted together. Step 01 and Step 02 is below the photo of my mocked up cab.

If you'd like to view the instructions provided for assembling the cab click the links for Instruction Step 01 and Step 02.

SPOILER ALERT!:
Having the cab pre assembled does not seem to be a viable option. With the body pre assembled, it looks like the cab will not be able to be placed on the frame and over the interior floor. The reason is because the front of the frame needs to be guided into two alignment points on the inside of the front bumper and than the back of the body lowered down over the interior floor to the frame. However, because of the way the battery is molded in, the body will not have enough clearance and can not be lowered. The other thing is that if the seat is install first, the body will not clear the back of the seat while pivoting down to the frame. If the body [could] be lowered into position, with the roof off, (which is also a separate piece), the seat will not fit through the roof opening of the cab. Therefore, I'll be painting all the cab pieces and assembling them after painting. I guess it's a good thing I was planning on making this an old beat-up farm truck because any screw-ups on my part will just feed into the cab being beat-up.

In this photo I'm dry fitting the front and rear leaf springs. The front and rear axles. The floor pan, seat and front fender- dashboard assembly. I placed steps 1 and 3 from the instructions below this photo. In step 3, the bed of the truck is already installed; however, I'm not putting the bed in place yet. I have some modifications I want to make to the bed. I'll cover these modifications in upcoming photos and an upcoming YouTube video.

If you'd like to view the instructions provided for assembling the cab click the links for Instruction Step 01 and Step 02.

Bottom view of the dry fitting of the suspension, axles, front fender and dashboard assembly.

Front view of dry fitting of the suspension, axles, front fender and dashboard assembly. Note the battery on the left. It is molded into the fender, firewall and dashboard assemble and is one of the items that will not allow a preassembled cab to be placed onto the frame. Yes...maybe I could have cut the battery off and reinstalled it later, but at this time I'm just going to proceed with how the instructions say to assemble the parts.

The smaller rectangular 'slot' in the bottom of the front fender assembly is where the engine will be placed. The bottom of that 'slot' is shaped like an oil pan.

I'm actually lying a-bit because I will be gluing the suspension and axles in place so that I can paint the frame as an assemble. The instructions don't have the suspension and axles being installed until step 03 of 04.

Everything except the wheels, engine, front bumper and bed gates are dry fitted.

The engine, radiator and front bumper have been added to the dry fit.

Not shown in this photo; however, the hood is going to have a lot of fit issues. I might have to work that misfit into the theme of a beat-up farm truck?

I glued up all the parts that are part of the frame that will be painted the same color. Here, it's ready for primer and will then be layered with rust colors and covered with flat black.

The dashboard is molded into the front fender assembly. I glued the 'very under detailed instrument cluster' in position in the dashboard so that after priming can be painted the body color.

Although hard to see in this photo I have all the parts that can be put on clips or sticks. They are ready for primer.

Most of these parts are cab parts. Both sides will be primed and then layered with rust colors and topped with the final body color, which I think will be forest green. Since I'm planning to make this truck a real farm beater it might be hard to tell what the original color is/was.

I'm modifying the bed by adding a new edge strip and then will fill the interior with balsa wood strips. The reason is that the bed has some molding dents and valleys that show the bottom support ribs, but also so that I can make the bed look really beat up and stained. See my YouTube video Part 02.

All the bed wooden slats have been cut and fitted. I used Northeastern Scale Lumber Co., #HOSCAL31011 for the bed and a combination of Northeastern Scale Lumber Co. #HOSCAL31211 and #HOSCAL31011 for the side stakes. This lumber is marked as being HO scale lumber and are supposedly HO-Gauge 3" x 12" and 3" x 10" respectively; however, unless I'm wrong, the scale is actually OO-Gauge. When I measured a 3" x 10" it measures 0.038" x 0.124", and when I measured a 3" x 12" it measured 0.038" x 0.145". To determine the actual scale simply divide the real size by the scaled size. In this case:

 The 3" x 10"
 3" / 0.038" = 79.94 Scale
 10" / 1.24" = 80.65 Scale

 The 3" x 12"
 3" / 0.38" = 79.94 Scale
 12" / 0.145" = 82.76 Scale

The closest popular scale would be 1:76 which is OO - Scale.

The same lumber, in 1:48 scale would be:
 0.38" * 48 = 1.824"
 0.124" * 48 = 5.952"
 0.145" * 48 = 6.96"

The closest real lumber sizes would be:

 2 x 6 which actually measures 1-1/2" x 5-1/4"
 2 x 8 which actually measures 1-1/2" x 7-1/4"

The holes for mounting the side stakes have been drilled in the modified bed edging. The holes were drilled with a #49 (0.073") drill.

I made two jigs. The one on the left is for making the wider of the side stakes and the one on the right is for cutting all the stake posts to the same length.

The photo below is a partial view of the type of jig I made to scratch build the stakes for the bed. Part 03 of my YouTube Video includes a description of how I used this jig and other parts of the assembly.

1. I used a 1/4" x 1/4" piece of square stock for the left edge. The wooden slats would than be placed on the stakes "D" and aligned against the 1/4" rail.
   
   
2. I cut small pieces of cardboard to act as a top guide for placing the top wooden slat on the stake poles "D". I needed something that would be thicker than the height of the wooden slats and the stake and the cardboard worked great. The top wooden slat can than be place on the stakes, against the cardboard guide and the left rail.
   
   
3. The top wooden slat in place.
   
   
4. One of two stakes per stake rack.
   
   
5. I cut a strip of cardboard the width of the space between the stake posts. This cardboard had to be rigid and thinner then the thickness of the stakes so that the slats can be glued to the stakes. This allowed me to place the stakes on either side of the strip, tape them in place and have them the correct spacing.

I then used Gorilla Super Glue Gel XL to glue the wooden slats to the styrene stakes. The Gel Super Glue does not soak into the balsa wood yet securely adheres the two different materials together.

YouTube Video 1955 Chevy 2-Ton Stake Body Part 03

I marked the center location of each of the other wooden slats. When placing the slats I did not get too fussy because I want to show the fact that this truck has been heavily used and repaired in the field while being used. Some of them will show that they were held onto the stake with bailing wire.

A closer view of the wider stakes assembled in the jig and glued.

Two more jigs were made. One for the medium width stakes and one for the small width stakes. The wider of the stakes are shown completed, but not painted.

The finished stakes are dry fitted onto the bed. the bed still has tape coving the the wooden floor so that when I glue the wood decking down it is against plastic and not paint.

All the parts except the wheels and tires. The wood on the stakes and the bed still need to be painted. The bed still has masking tape coving the bed surface so that when I install the wood strips they will be glued to plastic and not paint. Also, the stake posts have been painted the body color.

The interior floor, seat, steer column and wheel and front fender assemble are glued in place. This view is of the driver side. The floor has been dirtied. I used tape on the seat to show wrinkles and tears. I rough cut a hole on the driver side seat and used dryer lint to show seat stuffing.

The interior, seat, steer column and wheel and front fender assemble are glued in place. This view is of the front left corner.

I glued the engine and radiator in place. The radiator looks like it is leaning forward, but it's the angle of the photo that makes it look like that.

This is a top front view of the engin and radiator installed.

This is the left side of the truck showing the position of the front fender assembly on the frame and the tab for fender attachment. I'm also showing that to make the front grill, bumper and half the front fender to fit, I had to cut the frame ends as shown.

Left side view of the front grill, bumper and half of the front fender glued in place. I had to make some modifications to the frame to get this piece to fit properly.

Front grill, bumper and half of the front fender is installed. You can see that the fit was not easy and some of the original blue plastic is showing. That will be fixed after the rest of the cab is assembled.

I found these 55-Gallon steel drums and hay bails on Etsy. I got lucky to find them in a scale that is equivalent to 1:48. My research shows that 55-Gallon steel drums are 33-inches tall and have a 23-inch diameter. For 1:48 scale the model drums should be:

 33" / 48 = 0.6875"
 23" / 48 = 0.479"

The model drums measure: 0.692" high x 0.484" diameter; a good match for placing in the bed of the truck.

I research if there is a standard size for hay bails and found that there is basically two standard sizes:

 Small bails = 14-inches high x 18-inches wide x 36-inches long
 large bails = 3-foot high x 3-foot wide x 7-foot to 8-foot long.

The model bails measure:  0.425-inches high x 0.4875-inches wide x 1.046-inches long

These model bails are not 1:48 scale whether using the small or large bail size. The seem to most likely 1:32 or 1:35 scale using the actual small bails for a reference, but I'll still use them.

If you'd like to see how I calculate scales, visit my web page: Calculating Model Scales.

The doors and front bumper and fender assembly are installed. There are major gaps at the seams, even after dry fitting looked good; however, I'm sure they came from the amount of sanding that had to be done to get the pieces to even come close to mounting.

Another shot of the doors and front bumper and fender assembly installed.

The back of the cab does not fit once the seat is installed. The seat is in the correct location; actually, all the parts so far, are in the correct locations; however, the back of the seat is preventing the back of the cab from being put in place against the back edge of the door frames.

To get the back of the cab fitted I used my Dremel tool and ground the back of the seat thinner. It won't be seen when the back of the cab is finally in the correct position.

The back of the cab now seats properly, but still not how I would want it to fit.

The roof of the cab went on fairly easily; however, there are some gaps and rough spots.

The hood will not fit because the rear alignment pins shown in this photo are not properly sized for the holes provided in the firewall. I drilled open the firewall holes; however, the hood still would not fit on. I cut the alignment tabs off of the hood and now it at least attempts to set on the truck, but it's not right.

I started painting the wood for the truck bed. I used Vallejo Model Air paint and thinned it with Vallejo thinner. I then dry brushed four different colors in this order:

• 71.077 Wood
• 71.079 Tan Earth
• 71.249 NATO Brown
• 71.042 Dark Brown

I will be adding some sploshes of flat black later to represent spilled oil and grease.

Stake wood has been painted with the same combinations of Vallejo paints as on the bed.

Tires and wheels are painted. The wheels were painted with the same combination of browns and green as the truck body. The tires are painted in Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black. They are still too pristine for a farm truck and will be dirtied up.

Finished truck right side view.

View from front left.

View from the front.

To make the affect that something hit the windshield on the right side, I used a leather punch, click image to enlarge:

I learned this method from watching a video on BG's Model Workshop YouTube channel Check out Bryan's channel, he has a ton of great video's. I then used several colors of Tamiya panel liner wash to fill some of the cracks.

View from right front.

Right side view.

Back view of the truck, also showing the 55-gallon drums and the hay bales.

View from the right rear.

View from the left rear.

View from the top rear showing the cargo.

Finished truck superimposed on a farm scene. I could not get the right front tire to set on the ground, and I gave up because this kit really tired me out with all of it's problems.

Finished truck superimposed on a dirt road returning to the barn.