Muncie

Well done. i like the color, too. I had a buddy that had one. I carpooled to school with him. The factories build a few lemons and a few on the other side of normal that are whatever this one was. It was fast!

This is probably and old trick, and I bet that I've seen it here... credit to those builders that shared it before. With a piece of.030x.060 or .040x.080 Evergreen Plastic rectangular stock, shape and drill the fitting in the end of the stock leaving the simplest cut to remove the part with a saw or file for last. That will give a good handle to hold onto.

just a heads-up. I was recently looking for half round to use for trim and was surprised to see that the available plastic half round is not a full semi-circle, and the edges were kind of tapered instead of perpendicular to the straight side that would go on the mounting surface. it may take one size larger and some sanding to make the shape.

I remember going to grandma's house when I was a kid. One of the treats was fresh biscuits for breakfast. One morning all the cousins were talking about how good it was to have "scratch" biscuits. Grandma was almost offended - to her "those aren't scratch biscuits" and corrected our terminology - the flour, milk, and butter came from the store. As I remember it, she did have her own biscuit starter in the fridge. Years later, I realized that she could go back to her times fixing breakfast for the harvest crew on the wheat ranch when she was a kid and helped till the soil, plant the seed, grow the wheat, harvest the grain, grind the wheat into flour, raise the cows, milk them, and churn the butter by hand. I think one of the few times the term "scratch" may be used or important around model cars is in contests. GSL had a definition in their rules.

Glad you are all OK, and thank you for the heads-up

Roll tape - with practice, this gives a little more control. Stick one side of the tape to the surface and roll the other side above the surface about a 1/4 or half an inch, whatever works and shoot over the back side of the raised edge of the tape. Works better with an air brush. Sorry, about as clear as mud, but best I can do this early. It will give blended or faded edge.

The top, the wheels the fenders and the stance are really going to make this one. Digging it! I'm picking up lots of ideas that I want to use. Thank you for posting.

Ace Decals (also available at Mikes Decals) makes a very nice decal sheet for Hershel McGriff's NASCAR and Winston West race cars. Although it does not include some of the Lemans numbers and logos, it has some useful decals. They also have some good Olympia decals in bright foil on their Ray Elder sheet.

Not saying things were great... Things did happen but drag racing was different in 1955. 100 miles per hour was a rare and an extremely fast car. There wasn't much to run into because most sanctioned local dragstrips were airport runways - there wasn't much to run into. (racing stopped so planes could land or take off)

just a couple random thoughts --- it may be easier to attach the brackets to the side pipes, then to the frame after paint and finish. The generic universal parts store side pipes have brackets attached to the pipes with u-bolts under the shields. The sidepipes for more specific applications like Corvette's have tabs welded to the mufflers. The brackets have a tab that bolts to the frame with or without a rubber isolator. This can all be simplified to suit. I like Stitchedup's ideas as well. Here are some instructions from Patriot Exhaust. 28-06-22-h1050-h1060-h1070-h1080.pdf (shopify.com)

some history here... This 1932 Ford sedan became the Orange Crate with another chassis. I kind of like it this way.

There is plenty of great advice here already. Most important thing is to keep it fun. Start with the basic things. As you add more detail it's more like building a full-size car and it will take real car references - manuals, books, magazines... lots of information in the real car parts of the internet. Trips to car shows can be helpful as well as enjoyable.

A buddy and I had the good fortune one day to randomly and unexpectedly hear Jim Hall tell a few Chaparral stories with three of the race cars behind him... He explained that the Chaparral race cars are not white. What???? Yeah right, go tell that to anybody. They put a very small amount of black in the paint so the cars did not look like refrigerators on the track. It was so little that the cars still looked white.

The local hobby shop has some screen in various material and mesh - some in the general supplies section and some over in the railroad section. Brass or aluminum are easier to cut with basic shears.

I found them at a plastics supply store when I was looking for something else. Tap Plastics - a local store that is part of a west coast chain. There may be similar stores in your area.

Oh so cool! Nice work! I have one of those kits that does the same thing - out of the box every five years and right back in. It really can be saved.

Totally blown away! (again) Thank you for taking the time to share your great photographs - always enjoy your posts. Watching Speed at Bonneville is one of the big things for me, so this set of photographs hits close to home. You always get a good image and interesting photography so I knew it would be a treat. This time, you got some of the feel of being there with multiple images of several cars that makes me feel not so bad about missing speed week. Overall, it sounds like you had a great road trip. I'm still recovering from the salt pictures, but I'll go back and catch the museums as well.

I saw the real truck at Freightliner in the Daimler Truck lobby a couple of months ago. Certain things I wouldn't worry about on this build, it's looking good. The AMT Freightliner COE is a kit that goes back to the early 1970's and has its problems. The truck that you are building is based on a Freightliner COE from the 1990's so there are some differences (like the doors and fewer rivets) just in the basic cab. People won't be looking at the details on the cab, probably best to remove the emblem and marker light on the cab skirt, smooth as many rivets as you want and make the seams disappear. The cool part will be all of the Transformer/Optimus Prime pieces that you build on the chassis. Looking forward to this one!

Well, I hate to be negative about a kit I want, but Salvino's has a game and they are doing it again. It's not my primary interest or scale but I was hoping to get one. But, not without both speedway and road course aero packages and wet tires and slicks. If they are consistent with their past, it looks like this will be a starter kit and those features and detail will come later. i was hoping everything would be there from the get-go. Hopefully it's just premature thinking on my part.

no, the thinner in the lacquer softened the enamel and lifted it near the hood vents. try it on a spoon. one question, how long did you wait between color and clear? I'm going with what some of the other people have said - no clear with the Testor's enamel looks like the best plan.

yes, lacquer over enamel will cause both.

Old School enamel, which I believe is what Testor's enamel is, dries by evaporation of the thinner as the first stage and oxidation of the binder in the second stage (reference 1976 Ditzler manual). It may take 6 months or longer for an enamel to completely dry. If the enamel is not completely cured, the thinner in lacquer thinners are hot enough to lift the enamel color coat. That looks like what you have here. That's old school but it applies to the paints Testor's enamel color and Tamiya lacquer clear that you are using. There is a lot of newer technology in most of the available paints and those need a little testing to ensure compatibility. There is a learning curve here., yeah, i did this... we've all had some experiences...

for that reason alone, they should be 1/20. As Monogram did with their batch of Indy cars, these kits also need both road course and speedway aero packages as well as slicks and rain tires.

Wow! it's been a while since I have checked in and the progress is amazing. Love the incredible detail on the fuel system. Fascinating. I've been spending some time in a friend's shop. this summer where he has been tutoring me on some of the parts and how they work, including some lessons on the flow bench. His fuel injection parts come from a box with some work. You are making all of your parts... in scale.

some differences, but the kit will definitely give you the big American truck feel. The blue truck is an FLD132 Classic (132" from bumper to the back of cab) with a 60" integral sleeper. A kit is not available with the 132" cab and integral sleeper. The kt is an earlier FLC120 (120" BBC) with a 40" sleeper box and a corresponding shorter wheelbase. The difference in the BBC dimension is the length of the hood aft of the front axle.