mr moto

It's doll house carpet. See my earlier response up above for a little more info.l

Revell had the Jag roof that you're looking for in their old XKE roadster kit - at least In some releases. There's a very slim chance you might find the Cobra roof from Revell's mid 60's slot car body.

Try googling Scale Equipment Limited. Their line isn't quite as extensive as it once was but they have a lot of that kind of equipment and good quality and service.

Doh! How could I forget the Hudson?

AMT's ancient customizing speedboat kit has a Chris Craft marine conversion of a Hercules six. It's poorly detailed but might be worth saving. The only other flathead six I can think of is in the 1941 Plymouth kit.

Here's what I do. I don't know if this reflects how other people do it but it works for me. I've never seen a tutorial or known anyone else who does this. Here are a couple of "masters" used to make the molds. It's just Evergreen half round strips glued on to sheet styrene. You can choose the size strips and the overall size to suit: The molds are made of Alumilite silicone that can be bought at Hob Lob. It's the same that you would use for resin casting molds. The molds are very flexible. You should use a mold release compound on the master when you make the mold but you won't need to use any mold release when you pour the acrylic paint. I've had good results with both of these brands of paint and really bad results with one other brand: The DecoArt is inexpensive and Anita's is dirt cheap! I put plenty of paint in the mold stopping just short of actually overflowing - it shrinks a lot as it dries. It takes a long time to fully dry because it's so deep - usually about 2 days. I've never tried to use heat to dry it and I would be very careful with that because I've had it crack like an old river bed as it dries. That's the bad result I mentioned. You can have a problem with tiny air bubbles in the final product. To prevent that I pour it into the mold slowly and then slowly move a 1/4" wide very soft paintbrush through it to get bubbles to release from the mold surface. Then I wait a couple of days! Here's some of the end result from a recent project. Very flexible and easy to cut to shape. Then apply to a model using white glue, tacky glue or almost any other glue without strong solvents in it:

Thanks, Dave! I wasn't aware of Scale Survivors. Very cool site

Thanks, Spex! I'm glad you're enjoying it and I'll look forward to seeing your finished truck.

I'm pretty happy with www.scalehobbyist.com . Their prices and service are great. The recommendation to get foil directly from Bare Metal is also great advice.

Wow! That is beautiful. The engine looks real in the photos and the interior is totally stylish. Everything is perfect.

I actually built that kit back in the 60's when it was new. Yours is far, FAR better than mine was. Great job!

Thanks, Claude! The frame and engine block were painted with Duplicolor Metalcast over the companion silver base. I already had them from a previous project.

Thank you, everyone! I really appreciate your appreciation! This build was very purposely intended to have a period look and it's great that it was noticed and is still enjoyed. This is one of my "Tomkats" builds - you might have noticed the club plaque. The idea is to build some of the early Trophy Series kits in a style that was around at the time the kit was first issued. By early Trophy Series I mean the kits that were first released between 1959, when the series started, and about 1963 or 64. That includes most of the classic hot rods that you might have found in a car club back in the day and that's how the Tomkats were born. Here's a sort of bonus photo. It's an under construction shot that shows some of the stuff that gets hidden on the finished model. The tuck and roll seat is intended to resemble the work of Eddie Martinez (no relation). His name is probably not familiar to everybody but he did the upholstery on the Ala Kart, Outlaw, Beatnik Bandit and many, many more famous and not so famous hot rods.

Hi Everybody! Here's my latest Trophy Series adventure. This time it's a '34 Ford pickup from the recent Round 2 release. The original idea was to build it close to the custom on the box art. It didn't get TOO far away from that but it gradually evolved in kind of an Ala Kart direction. The top has been chopped a little (the box art truck definitely has a chopped top also) and the bed's been shortened a lot. Headlights are resin copies of the Roth Outlaw items and the taillights are cobbled up from rear view mirrors. The tailgate was scratch built to go with the restyle and the tuck and roll is made from poured acrylic craft paint. Speed equipment from the '50 Ford convert kit was adapted to fit the '34 flathead. The paint is Duplicolor white pearl (a Toyota color). The side mount spare comes from AMT's old '57 T-Bird full custom kit - it was one of the "Barris customizing tips" on the truck's retro style instruction sheet and I just happened to have the part so I did it! Hope you enjoy looking at it!

You did a fabulous job on that! It looks beautiful and the color choice is excellent for that car. I built the coupe equivalent a few years ago so I know all about the fit issues that you faced. Those kits can be quite a challenge.

That's the best treatment of that kit that I've ever seen. Great job!

That's actually the 1963 race.

There are several options that I use that haven't been mentioned. First is doll house carpet. It's similar to using felt but I think it looks better. It's available in a few colors at hobby lobby and many colors from on-line hobby stores. Another option is one of the many textured spray paints that are available. There's a Rust-Oleum truck bed paint, duplicolor trunk paint, krylon makes textured craft paints, etc. Don't worry about the color. Just spray it on and then paint over it with the color you really want.

If you can get Turner Classic Movies you'll be able to see a young Tommy Ivo in the movie "The Lost Volcano" this Saturday at 9:00 am Central time. I believe that's 10:00 Eastern - check local listing, as they say. No hot rods or dragsters involved - he'll be swinging through the trees with Bomba the Jungle Boy. Bomba was played by Johnny Sheffield who played "Boy" in the old Tarzan movies. There's a short clip from it on You Tube. It might save you from watching the whole movie but Tommy doesn't get to do any tree swinging in the clip:

Wow! Fabulous! I wouldn't know where to begin on a project like that.

My jaw just hit the floor! That is too cool and excellent work besides.

I just love this and thanks for giving full details.

That is one good looking build! Excellent work.

BTW, for $1.49 you got the instructions AND the '32 Ford kit.

Smitty's deuce pickup was in the Auto World catalog at least as early as 1961 - I checked my copy. The only suitable pickup kits in that catalog were the Black Widow and AMT's 1925 T. The Black Widow might be the ticket.