1/16 Scale Army Vega Funny Car - Finished 10/14/2018

[Mooneyzs]

Bob... thank you. The reason I choose Brass and not Aluminum is because i am still debating if I am going to add a small lip to ther rear of the spoiler vy soldering the piece in. I had tgougjt about bending the lip it is so small that I wasnt sure if I could get the bend correct.

Jimmy.... thank you. Yep gonna be ready for primer soon . The "L" shaped blocks are from Micro Marks they come in 1"x1".... 2"x2" and I think one other size. I also go my 123 blocks from them too.

Mark... thank you for the words of encouragement I appreciate it. Your guy's feedback helps me get the motivatiin back during those times when I feel I am loosing steam during the build.

Danno... thank you sir.

Rodger... I went the brass route because I knew I had .010" thick brass at home as well as I mentioned to Bob above I was debating on soldering a lip to the spoiler. The spoiler on the real car wasn't polished, it was painted black and I was going to try to make it look like the 1:1 as best as can. I will have to show a pic of the real cars spoiler when I get home from work.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Mooneyzs

[Magic Photos]

Nice work Chris looks great. Nice talking last night, got the files thanks.

[Mooneyzs]

Mike... Thank you, it was great catching up with you. Glad to hear the files went thru this time

[Mooneyzs]

Here is a shot of the rear spoiler on the Army Vega funny car.... Thought I had a better one than this, actually it looked better on my ipad mini than on my computer...lol....

Edited July 4, 2014 by Mooneyzs

[dragcarz]

Thanks Chris, I get it now.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Chris I do to. Thought the spoiler was raw aluminum. Didn't realize it was painted. What are you going to do for the rear window for all of the vent holes?

[Mooneyzs]

Rodger.... No problem. I do have to agree that doing a spoiler in aluminum and polishing would look awesome but would have to be for another project.

Bob... Thank you. As far as the rear window with the vent holes goes. I will be making a piece with the holes in it either from some .010" thick plastic, brass or some Aluminum Printing plate. It's still up in the air. I have a buddy that was gonna scan the back window of the body into his computer and print it out on a thin piece of plastic for me but I may try to make something first or even try to draw a pattern up in Solidworks and print a template out.

[John Teresi]

Chris……..my 'Little Gras Hopper"……..what can I say????……..except that it was nice talking to you today…….and BTW,this is just one Badd A$$ model………love it !!!!!

[Mooneyzs]

John... Thanks brother. It was great to talk to you earlier thanks for calling this build Bad A$$.... I don't think it's quite there though... Maybe one day...lol ok so after talking to you I went to my local hobby shop and picked up both magazines and love the coverage on both of your builds. Proud of you. Hope to be like my big brother one day.

[Mooneyzs]

Hello Fellas and Happy 4th of July to everyone. Hope everyone is having a wonderful and safe day with friends and family. Well I got a little more work done on the spoiler and now its ready for some primer. Here are a few pics to hold you guys over for a day or so...lol

Here are the materials I will be using. I picked up some of this small brass stock when I was at my local hobby shop (Hobby Depot in Tempe, AZ). got the stock cut to length and ready to solder:

I had set the parts up how I wanted to solder them together and used my different blocks to hold the parts in place. I think I need to invest in some kind of steel plate and magnets to hold things in place now:

Here is my equipment that I will be using a Weller adjustable 40 watt soldering Iron and some tix flux:

Here is the part after I soldering the lip on it:

[Mooneyzs]

Side profile, not the greatest pic:

Here is a shot of it on the body and next I need to drill the mounting holes into the body by transfer drilling the holes from the spoiler:

Another side view with the spoiler on the body:

[Dragfreak]

The spoiler looks great Chris, keep plugging along at it

[gtx6970]

All I got is,,,,,WOW.

And I can't wait to see how you tackle that perforated rear window.

[jwrass]

Chris, Very nice job on the soldering! Just a FYI their is a tool that is used in the HVAC trade and siding contractors use them as well, it's called a wide fold pliers, they are basically a small hand held sheet metal brake. They come in various sizes width, throat depths. You could have used a tool the like this to make the kick up on the spoiler, they act like a mini sheet metal brake, they work really well on sheet styrene too to make various bends. On your pressure relief vents how to you plan on cutting them? I have a accessory for a dremel tool that holds the tool like a drill press. I have used this in conjunction, with a cribbage board as a jig, It can perform some nice linear milling on the X and Y like a mini horizontal mill.

looking great Chris!!! Hope you had a great Forth.....jimmy "rass"

[Mooneyzs]

Jason.... Thank you very much.

Bill.... Thank you. I still have a few ideas of how I am going to do the perforated rear window. still not sure if I will go plastic or brass, either way the back window will get painted black. But I am really thinking abot breaking out a Micro Marks photo-etch kit that I acquired from the "Master Caster" Greg Wann who lives here in the phoenix valley.

Jimmy.... Thank you so much. I do have a tamiya photo-etch pliers that I could of used to bend the piece but when I made the spoiler I didn't account for the bend and didn't want to remake it.

[Mooneyzs]

Hello Fellas..... I got a little bit of bench time in today and finished getting the mounting holes in the body for the spoiler. Here are a few pics of the progress I made.... Thanks for looking.

Here is the spoiler held in place with the rivets installed:

Here is the backside of the spoiler. I chose to drill completely thru the body to make sure I could press the rivets all the way thru. I will go back and trim the rivets and fill in the holes:

Another View:

[bobthehobbyguy]

Chris looks great. One question the actual spoiler on the body looks really thick compared to tge new brass piece. Is there a side shot of the rear spoiler to see if it needs to be thinned down.

[jwrass]

From were I sit the extension of the spoiler (on the 1:1 Fiberglass to Alum) Styrene to brass is spot on to scale. The extension was a kin to a INDY CAR wickerbill back in that era. The Army car could be found at Interscope Racing being tweaked by the indy car team in the area of aerodynamics. It is a well know fact that the Snake wanted to do the Indy 500 as a one off deal. He could be found at the speedway during the month of may with Danny Ongais on a regular basis (and I saw him there many times) in 1981 he almost got the chance to make a attempt to qualify the 25T car of Teddy Field (Interscope Racing) Two INDY CARS built by a very creative designer by the name of Roman Slobodinskij the car had a very curious shape and was deemed the batmobile. Danny was to qualify the primary car on the first weekend of qualifying and Purdhomme was to make a attempt to qualify the 25T car on the second weekend. On the Thursday before the qualifying weekend Ongais tried to knock the wall down in turn four and the primary car was a write off. With that being done their was no car for the Snake to make a attempt to qualify for the INDY 500 As it was Dannys team and they readied the 25T car for Danny and the Snake was the odd man out. The Army car was very dominate during that time period much in part with the alliance the snake had with Interscope racing.

Didn't mean to hijack your thread Chis I just thought I would share some fun facts about the snake and the alliance he had with a INDY CAR team to get the aero advantage jrass

Edited July 7, 2014 by jwrass

[Mooneyzs]

Bob... thank you... as far as the spoiler side shot, are you wanting to see the real cars side shot or a side shot of the model. Guess I am a little confused on what were asking needs to be thinned down. I will dig up the the fes side shots of the real car to show you.

Jimmy.... thank you. No worries its cool that you posted the fun facts about the snake

[Dragline]

There are 19 rivets. I counted them. LOLOLOL

Looking particularly great Chris. Let's get that motor going again broski.

Bob

[Magic Photos]

Nice work on the spoiler Chris.A jig is a jig just as long as it gets the job done, and it sure did work here. Looks great.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Chris the side shot of the fullsize car. Just curious about the rear spoiler thickness on the rear of the body where your new brass plate sits on top of.

[Mooneyzs]

Bob... thank you. You know I had to get the correct number of rivets in the spoiler. You can go back to the ref pic of the real car and you will see there is 19 there . I will be back in the motor really soon.... hopefully tonight. I need to add some more vindo to my tins and another coat of primer then its time to go back ti the engine.

Mike... thank you my friend. You know i have to make a jig for a bunch if things. It helps me keep thinks straight...lol it worked perfect in this situation.

Bob... I will get some pics up of the real car when I get home from work to show you. I know the real car they bend the lip unlike how I didt it but at first I wasnt sure if I was gonna add the lip or not because I didnt think i could bend such a small lip as to why i chose to add hebpiece the way I did and I know the piece i added was a little thicker than the main spoiler.

[Davewilly]

Chris....Nice Spoiler Looks great! Keep up the great work!

[jwrass]

Chris, The spoiler looks awesome and period correct.

Seems like a fuss is being made about the spoiler, the FACT is that the car during a season most likely had many changes to help with the aero in the rear.(my highjack of your post 7/7/14 sums it up fairly well)If you added a larger spoiler(alum)it would produce more force on the fiberglass spoiler on the body which could lead to failure. The cure was not always to make the spoiler on the body larger (although some did) with more fiberglass. Often the spoilers on the bodies were made smaller with balsa as a reinforcement(glass/balsa/glass) to combat the extra pressure as it's lighter than all glass, that may seem trivial but pounds are pounds and when your livelihood is based on performance you take all you can get to pay the bills. Could you build a exact replica of a car on a particular, day, week, or photo, YES a whole season NO. In my opinion there is no wrong way! Based on what you have built so far is artfully and skillfully prepared, with plenty of reference for sure.

Keep doing what you are doing!!!! No matter how you slice it chances are it won't be 100% for a full season of racing anyway. Make the interpretation based on your reference and your own artistic license. Your build is way beyond a plastic kit. Seriously, it's a piece of Art! Jimmy "Rass"

P.S. The wide fold pliers I mentioned, start at 3-4 inches and go up to 8-10 in width. Not smaller like some of the photo etch pliers that I have seen.