AMT Depth Charger Showrod

[CabDriver]

I got this gift for my birthday from my Mother In Law back in the summer, and I've been thinking I wanted to tackle a (mostly) box stock showrod build for a while...so here goes!



I'm going for a straight replica of the box art - I think it'll look great with the miniature display box that comes with this kit:



This is really nicely done kit, for the most part - a huge sheet of decals, the miniature box, an AMT toolbox sticker and 4 (!) sets of glass in various colors



First up, was ordering some supplies, so I got some Tamiya rattle can black for the 'body' and chassis, and spent some time looking for a yellow/gold candy that would match the box art nicely.  I think I found it!!



First up, gluing the engine halves and prepping the engine parts




You can't see the engine in the box top art, but it's on the side of the box so I'm going to replicate that.  Candy yellow block with plenty of chrome.



Whilst I'm working on the yellow parts I figured I'd prep all of them and paint them all in one go - especially as they're going to be a multi-coat process.  Next up was the pontoons - I smoothed out some little imperfections with some putty, and added some thin styrene strips to help locate them good and square




One of the pontoons has a little red and white flag on, and the other a chromed speargun.  Fun thing to note - the instructions show them reversed, not that it makes any difference to the build.  The flag has a locating hole, but the speargun doesn't, so I drilled some holes in the back of the gun, carefully so as to not mark the chrome on the top, mounted pins, and made a couple of holes in the pontoon to help locate it when it's done.  Excuse the wonky pin - it moved when I was photographing it as the glue was still drying.

Next up, the rear aqualungs.  I clamped them together overnight to dry, smoothed them out and primed to check them.  Then, I assembled the regulator valve and some of the pipework



The headlamps have some little shark fins to attach to the top of them.  I was trying to think of a decent way to be able to keep the parts separate so I can paint the lamps black and the fins yellow like the box art easily...but they're too small to pin really and there's no holes or pegs or anything to locate them so I decided to glue them now and mask later.  A harder painting job, but it'll look better in the end



With them done, I glued up the 'body' and used a bunch of rubber bands to keep it in place overnight.  As this will be gloss black, I really want to make sure that seam doesn't show so I'm going to prep this part carefully



Whilst I was looking at the body, I came up with the idea of having a little working interior light in thereto illuminate it - kinda like a fish tank has!  There's not much interior detail, but I figured it could be a cool detail to have the windows glow a little.  I spent some time researching LED lighting kits for trains, dolls houses and stuff like that but couldn't find anything cheap enough or small enough.  Then, I was getting off the train the other day and walking past a local grocery store and they had some little 50 cent light up keychains.  Perfect!



That little light, in the bottom of the pic, will work perfect!  Small enough that I can hide it in the 'lid' of the body, but bright enough that it'll look cool and I can mount it in there with some poster tack or similar so that I keep this thing basically box stock.



And a quick test...excuse the blurry photo...



Perfect!  You can see a little filler showing through the body here - there were some sink marks that I cleaned up in there before gluing it. 

Whilst I was messing with the interior, I decided to mock up the floor (which incorporates a seat and the pedals) with the periscope that also acts as steering in this design.  The fit of the periscope to the floor wasn't great - really sloppy...so I found some plastic rod that gave a nice snug fit, drilled out the floor and inserted a short length of bar in there



Worked perfect!  Now it fits without even needing any glue, although it'll get a tiny drop when it's assembled anyway.



So, with most of the candy yellow parts prepped and test fitted I'm just racking them all up ready for primer, then silver, then candy yellow



Need to wait for the snow to clear here though, its way too cold to do any painting at the moment.  Plus, I ran out of room on my turntable pretty quickly, so I need to find something else to mount them on.  More soon though!
 

[BIGTRUCK]

I built one last year and found out you need to do alot of pinning of parts on. The design of this kit is sketchy at best, but it came out alright. Vince aka vintagedragcrazy sent me the Sponge Bob. Good luck with yours and glad to see another one being built

Edited December 11, 2017 by BIGTRUCK

[Mr mopar]

AS Goofy as they all are I still like them ............... here is the one I did ! and have fun with yours .

[CabDriver]

Thanks fellas!

Just a little update - got the silver laid down on all the parts that need to be candy yellow. Well, most of them, anyway...




I got one little drip of paint on the interior part that I was hoping would level out, but didnt...so I had to sand that back for a recoat.  Noone would probably notice, but I'd know it was there...



Much better!



More soon, when the weather allows!

[bobthehobbyguy]

Nice start. Coming along nicely. Very clean work.

[crazypainter]

I started one in the past year -i'll have to dig it out and finish --NNL-EAST will be here soon 

[Vince66]

Cool looking build going on.

[PatW]

Looking good James so I'm keeping an eye on this!