I knew I'd want custom plates for this truck and rather than spend money on some custom ones, I decided to try my hand at making some. Being 1/14th scale, they're only about 1" long so it won't be obvious if they're not perfect. And it costs me nothing to try so why not? I went online and copied a few JPGs of license plates I'd want. I printed them and then trimmed them out. Here's a super close-up of what my mediocre printer could do:
Then I adhered them to some .015" styrene with some glue.
Then I trimmed them out with some clear tape applied over them to protect the ink.
The thin overall thickness feels pretty realistic and from a short distance I think they'll look just fine.
Another thing I've been thinking about lately is the front bumper. I haven't found an aluminum one that I like so for now I'm going to use the stocker. I cut off the two "buck teeth" from under it to help the approach angle.
I like weight in my scale RCs. They perform more realistically that way. In fact, I'm rather disappointed the Pete is only weighing in at about 9 lbs so far. So I decided to add some weight in the form of touring car weights glued into the front bumper. I Dremeled out some room inside the bumper, glued the weights in, and will paint them silver so they're less obvious. Those 80 grams really gave the bumper some heft!
