In his hobby room, filled with finished truck models and more ready to build, Tim Ahlborn of St. Ignace holds one of the trucks he will display at the Richard Crane Memorial Big Rig Truck Show, Saturday, September 13. He is holding a replica of a Peterbilt 357 truck designed for oil field use. Shelves of completed truck models line two connecting hobby rooms at Tim Ahlborn's St. Ignace home. Posters and photographs fill spaces, and model boxes are neatly stacked and waiting assembly. A computer, rulers, glue bottles, and supplies sit ready atop a work desk. Marked containers hold necessary items to change a standard boxed model kit into a customized truck.

Mr. Ahlborn specializes in Peterbilts.

Each year, he displays his trucks inside Little Bear East Arena as part of the Richard Crane Memorial Big Rig Truck Show. He plans to exhibit more than 20 of them Saturday, September 13.

"I build them so they look good on the shelf and look good for a photograph," he said. "Other modelers

do details well beyond my ability. I'm just in awe of some of these other builders."

His model trucks are made of plastic, although they look like metal replicas of the real vehicles.

The Mackinac County sheriff's deputy works on the models in the evening and on weekends. He has a Web site showing his models. He also writes a monthly column in Model Cars magazine about truck models, often including photographs using backdrops that help make the models look like full size rigs. His photographs have appeared on the magazine's cover and on model boxes. He also was asked to build a model for the Peterbilt factory in Texas, where it remains on permanent display.

Although Mr. Ahlborn has won awards for his work, he prefers to make the models for his own enjoyment, although he now is testing a kit for a company and he occasionally agrees to make a commissioned piece.

His favorite commission was for a truck driver in Ohio. He had shown his semi at the truck show in St. Ignace, where he met Mr. Ahlborn and asked him to build a replica of his rig. When it was finished, the man flew to St. Ignace in his brother's airplane, met Mr. Ahlborn, and with the model in hand, flew back to Ohio.

Mr. Ahlborn's model building career began in the 1960s. He later lost interest, until renewing his hobby in 1999, when he bought a kit.

When he was nine, his first model kit contained a Peterbilt truck. Peterbilts then were built in California. The model captured his attention.

Now, he has made about 400 models, and most are Peterbilts. He estimates he has about an equal number in boxes, waiting to be built.

When he was 14 years old, he visited his grandparents in California and toured the Peterbilt factory. He was taking pictures. One was of an experimental truck. They asked him not to take any more photographs of the vehicle.

Over the years, he never saw that truck again. Ten years ago, he called the factory and described the truck, hoping someone would identify it for him and tell him what happened to the vehicle.

The photograph led to a friendship among Mr. Ahlborn and some of the engineers at Peterbilt, including Huston Marlowe, who worked on the truck. Mr. Ahlborn visited the new factory when the company moved to Texas.

The experimental vehicle did not meet its goal, which included a quieter engine, so it was scrapped. Through his friendships, Mr. Ahlborn received help in making several models of the truck for himself and friends at the company.

When he is not building Peterbilts, he will make models of trucks he remembers from his childhood, or a fantasy truck.

He advises those just beginning not to get frustrated on their first model. The less expensive model kits, he said, sometimes are harder to make, as tooling used is older and parts are not as crisp; they require more work.

After the St. Ignace truck show, Mr. Ahlborn next will travel to Texas, where he has been asked to display his models at an open house at the Peterbilt factory.