Speaking of hydraulic cylinders and such . . .
Here is a free-lanced HEMTT Dump Truck (WIP) with midships mounted crane. After my HEMTT LHS and Marine Mk 23x builds I had a full vehicle’s worth of Italeri HEMTT parts left over. I also wanted to try my hand at the lift hydraulics and detailing the midships crane.
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Not at all sure I got these working cylinders right. Probably should have mounted their top end pivot point closer to the load bed for greater mechanical advantage. However the bed does fold totally down as intended.
As to painting those cylinders; I plan to mask the upper part of the cylinder, paint the rest and then create the silver on the cylinder actuators using a felt tip marker so as to not gum up the workings.
Wood grain seen on the upper splash boards. On most dump trucks these heavy upper boards are sacrificial and are frequently replaced therefore saving the main loadbox from most “dropped load” damage.
Fully Functional (posable) 3-section midships crane.
(Italeri chose to make the center crane arm section non-functional.)
An earlier article on altering the Italeri crane and adding additional detail can be found at: