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CabDriver

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Everything posted by CabDriver

  1. Nice start - are you using the engine from the Infini-T, or something else?
  2. Oops, forgot to reply to this one, sorry….I really like Aleen’s tacky glue for stuff that I CAN’T pin in place (or don’t want to permanently glue yet) but anywhere I can I’m starting to use as many pins as I can. Those headers were a bear to drill for pins, but I was glad I did because they fit right in the block and hold in place perfectly everytime without even a drop of glue. This poster tack is SUPER useful too: https://a.co/d/4ZVorrd It’s endlessly readable and you can ball it up to be just the right size to support whatever you need it to - and it’ll hold about anything to about anything else and pull right off when you’re done
  3. Thank you sir! They make a bunch of these little dots - I always check the card marking aisle in Hobby Lobby for anything useful…occasionally they have some domed clear ones that are good for gauge glass or even some types of light…plus I recently picked up some more dish-shaped ones that look like Baby Moon hubcaps. Love grabbing potential scratchbuilding supplies, even if I don’t need them right away! Frame is slightly longer than is really needed - the Coupe version has a similar long-nosed look to it too…but I don’t hate it, just part of the look of this particular kit… Agreed! (Although I have seen some ‘wrong’ in my time too…but it was right to someone 🤪) Thanks for all the nice comments fellas! This week was prepping-for-paint week…not the most interesting, once I had wrapped up a couple of loose ends… That unusual back-on-the-frame body position means that the shifter would exit close to the firewall, so I borrowed a boot from a Revell 29/30 kit and mocked up a shifter that would clear ok…for my own amusement I also used the stock T pedals. I’m not sure if anyone ever modified a set to work ‘conventionally’ (they’re not clutch, brake gas in a stock T) but I’m sure you could if so inclined - and if I’m wrong you can barely see them anyway 🤪 The hole in the body for the firewall is bigger than the firewall, so ran some strip in there so I’d have something to glue to, and smoothed it all out and made it flat: Levelled out the frame rails with a touch of Bondo ready for paint: And after a few hours of messing with the frame and the body got far enough along today to get a bunch of stuff in primer: A coupla three rounds of tweaking and fine-tuning (mainly on the body) and it’s time for color! I had a colorscheme in mind for this one since before I started it…now I just have to hit the colors in my head and hope it looks ok when it’s all together… The body, grillshell, headlamps, dash and some other parts are going silver…I wanted a fairly coarse flake but not too dark and not bass-boaty….settled on Wicked Colors Aluminum which is a nice bright silver with a large (but not TOO large flake to it): Closeup: Flake is probably a little large for the era I have in my head, but I do like actually being able to SEE it - plus I think T buckets are more fun when they’re a little cartoony anyway… For the interior, rather than the standard black I wanted to do something a little inspired by the old 60s Cadillacs that had a blue interior - something fairly eye catching and unusual that you don’t usually see in a T bucket. I had a particular shade and look I was trying to hit, so I did some paint experimentations today and then shot a Tamiya dark blue base… Then, once that had dried, some light mists of a pearl artist’s acrylic by Decoart: The darker base color not only allowed me to tone the finished color to where I imagined it, but I could also feather on the pearl heavier around the top edges of the tub to lighten them up more than the lower portions to force some ‘shadow’ and depth to the tub somewhat…kinda worked I think… More on that (and everything else) soon…ran out of weekend already, but I’m excited to be laying paint! Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!
  4. Awesome looking build - love that color especially! And I don’t remember seeing another one of these that had a chop. Killer!
  5. One of my favorites! Great looking build! I built the full-detail version of this kit too, and despite endless mockups and tweaks to TRY and get it together nicely, it still didn’t go together too well in the end…I seem to remember the hood being problematic, and the interior tub maybe? Regardless, great looking build - nice work!
  6. They’re good for wheel tubs too, if you’re into building things that need new (larger) wheel tubs
  7. This is a great looking build - one of the best I’ve seen of this kit, I think LOVE those wheels!
  8. I think you’re doing a fine job of beating this one into submission…thanks for detailed step-by-step on the improvements you’ve made!
  9. Tint looks good David! Tamiya Clear Blue acrylic is another option that works well - but yours looks good! Making good progress, keep going!
  10. Thanks fellas! You’re right - they DO have the body sit way back…that’s something that, if I were designing this, I would change too - it looks more ‘right’ to me with the body forward a little. That said, I really wanted to build a loosely (!!) box-stock T Bucket from each of the available kits for my shelf, and that long-snout look is definitely a distinctive feature of these. Of course, ‘loosely’ box stock means I’m also changing a BUNCH of stuff on this, but I’m trying to keep the bones mostly as it comes out of the box 😬 A little more progress today…first up was figuring out the tail lights. I wanted to use the old lantern-style ones that come with the kit, but the detail is pretty soft. Stripped the chrome, sanded flat the domes and replaced with with some scrapbooking half-spheres that were about the perfect size: They’ll mount to the bedside like so: Lenses are from the parts box…there was some old semi kit that came with trees and trees of little round red and amber lenses of various sizes, and these are from what, whatever it was…super useful to have in the stash if you ever see them… I wanted to make some brackets to mount the fuel tank, and then realized that the kit COMES with the perfect part, assuming you have two of these kits on your shelf… there’s a little two-part Moon tank in this kit, and I used the end piece (just a tank-end and a bracket) times two: I had some engine parts to print, so I printed a cap…this is SUPPOSED to be a Ford Falcon radiator cap, but it made a nice cap for the gas tank instead… Also fresh off the printer today was all the bolt-on stuff to finish the engine, besides one piece I forgot…dohhh. I did print up some headers though: Plus, I don’t know how legit an electric fan would be for a mid-sixties period guide but I didn’t want a mechanical fan on there so I printed an electric one: That kit radiator is crying out for some more detail, so I’ll probably work on that this coming week…I also need to figure out the pedals and shifter, but before I could do that I had a big hole to fill in the floor…couldn’t find a perfect diameter piece of styrene rod so I spun up a scrap piece of sprue to make a plug instead: Plenty more to do, but I’m pleased with my weekend’s progress…more soon, soon as I’ve done more!
  11. Thanks fellas! Got some more done on this over the past week or so… Figured out the headlamp situation…I really liked the idea of using the stock T headlamps, but cleaned up the installation somewhat by mounting to the grille shell… I didn’t like the chunky hairpin suspension linkages that came with the kit so I swapped in some from the Revell 29/30 kits…I REALLY wanted to find some AMT ones that would work but didn’t have anything suitable in my stash… Added some spacers to the frame to get the rear bed sitting where I wanted it, and added some mounting pegs to help locate it consistently: Got my holes in the right place! I wanted to use the upright-mounted steering wheel setup like the kit gives you, so I modified a Revell steering box and the kit pitman arm…replaced the plastic linkage with a more in-scale one and got that mostly wrapped up: As you can see, the kit steering wheel is pretty disfigured so I’ll have to mess with that a little still… Made a driveshaft out of some parts-box UJs and some thin-wall styrene tube: ‘Sketched in’ the start of the gas tank, and made a dash panel: I’d like to play off the idea of a dash that references the stock T dash, which has two gauges in a panel on the center - modified the custom kit dash (which has, like, 8 gauges) into something more modest: Found some early ‘Vette valve covers that I had printed a while back that would dress up this base-level Small Block Chevy nicely: And that’s about where she sits right now…plenty to do still - probably tomorrow I’ll handle the pedals and what I’d like to do with the taillights, but it’s coming along ok! Thanks for looking; more soon, soon as I’ve done more!
  12. I love that looks - how big of a tip did you have to use?
  13. I don’t believe I’ve heard of these before…are they rubbery, like rubber o-rings, or stiffer where you can glue to them? Any particular size that you like? I’m always looking for decent hoops for steering wheels! Great looking build so far!
  14. Same here - since I discovered that trick I’ve used it on all kinds of kits - works great on the kits it works on!
  15. Hey, look at me following the rules and posting this in the right section (even if it is only just barely going to be a pickup). I’m such a rule-abider. Anyhoo, I don’t have the pickup flavor of T-bucket in my collection yet, and I’d like to change that, so here goes… I’m using the AMT 25 T double (triple?) kit for this one because I’ve collected a bunch of them from Hobby Lobby and they fall together pretty easily - plus it has most of the parts I’d want to use all ready to go in the box. I’ll make a few changes tho, just to improve it a little, but I’m TRYING to not remake every little part on this if I can help it… First up, tweaking that nice (ish) V8 60 front axle with some pins to help the fit a little… I’ll be adding some detail to this whole assembly, but I’m trying to get a roller together to start, and pinning helps with that… On the rear end, I’ve found that adding just a 1/32” or so of styrene to the ends of the leaf spring helps SO MUCH with mocking it up - just stops everything falling apart constantly whilst you’re messing with things, so I did that and added some tabs to change the wishbone mounting situation to my liking: I love how quick and easy it is to get some of these older kits to ‘roller’ status… The Lincoln Y-Block that comes in these kits doesn’t look much like a Y-block to me, so I’m swapping in a small block Chevy (*Tim Boyd sighs*): Note: I realize that the geometry on that rear end wouldn’t be that great now that I’ve got a longer trans and a different pivot point for the driveshaft (*Dennis Lacy sighs*) but A- I don’t want to modify every little part B- the suspension travel is pretty minimum and it might not be THAT bad and C- I’ve found more than a few 1:1s (particularly period cars) that have this same imperfect setup so I’m allowing myself some leeway… Still need to figure out how I want the linkages for the front end to look, but the kit ones are pretty lumpy and I’d like to improve the fidelity a little. After all that typing, time to test fit the body and interior to see how my new trans and engine fit… And next job is removing the ‘fabric’ cover from the pickup bed and making a floor for it so I can add some detail later: The kit has it sitting pretty low and I’d like it a little higher - just sitting on the frame it looks like this right now, but I’d like to bump it up some more still: Just doing the ‘sketching’ part of the build right now - broad strokes to get the basics down…more soon, soon as I’ve done more!
  16. Slim pickin’s at my local store tonight… Had a 40% off coupon tho, so a Deuce kit followed me home even tho I don’t really need it…
  17. Glad to see this one back in rotation! Fabbing exhausts is about a -1 on a scale of 1-10 of things I enjoy, but you always do a nice job of that
  18. Next car kit from Atlantis, presumably…posted on their Instagram today:
  19. Convert the ambulance kit back into a surf wagon 😂 This is looking great David - enjoying this build! Nice work on the little details
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