slowlylearning

Concave (right) and bulbous (left) rim centers made with love... and lot-sa sanding!

*Only do this part if you have no 2 to 3mm SHEET styrene* Cut some lengths of the rectangular rod and a piece of sheet styrene to glue it on to. \ This will make up the center of your wheel, so make sure there's enough rectangle rod to fill the rim. Glue the rectangle rod to the piece of sheet styrene with plenty of glue, let dry. Drill a hole that the screw of your sanding-drum bit will fit into in the center. ** Miunt it on your sanding-drum bit like so and put on your safety goggles 'cause we're gonna make a big mess! (CAREFULLY) Using a blade or whatever works best for you, lop off the corners then start sanding it down to a perfect circle shape. Sand and test it until it fits snugly in the rim you made. See how it's flat? Boring! Make some more mess... ... To shape the face of the rim-center! I've found tools like there help a bit, using them to 'machine' the front surface of the rim-center. Blades work too, but theyre pretty dangerous. Use those tools and sandpaper/sticks to make the shapes you want, this one's a concave shape.

You'll need: Dremel 2 to 3mm styrene rectangle rod OR 2 to 3mm styrene sheet (I didnt have that hence the rod) Sanding sticks/paper Glue Blade Grinding/engraving bits that come with Dremels Sheet styrene .5mm or slightly smaller Spare Tyre Sanding-Drum Dremel bit Cut a strip of .5mm or smaller sheet styrene. Cut it quite long incase of any mistakes (I made plenty of its too short practicing this). Cut the strip as wide as the tyre you're using. Curl your strip of styrene around your hobby knife handle from both ends a few times, it help the strip of sheet styrene to keep its curve. Curly whirl-y! Test fit it in the tyre and chop off the excess to make a since ring of strip styrene, and glue the ends together on the inside while it's in the tyre. Once the glue has dried pull out the rim about a third of the way and put some glue on the outside of the rim, repeat for both sides. Cut a much thinner strip to set the deepness of the wheel, Mine will be quite deep-dish so the thin strip is glued almost all the way around towards the back of the rim. Use plenty of glue, it helps with the rigidity of the rim. You can see here I left a gap because I cut the strip too short, silly me!

Tom- I'll have to look into those, I knew they existed just not that small, thanks for the tip! Mike- You're welcome Chip- lol thanks! The camera I use is the one in my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4), When there isnt good lighting and a plain white background it isnt all that helpful lol

Thanks guys Tucker, you're welcome to save the pictures to your computer

Thanks JC, my saw came to me through a freind who got it from Brunel Hobbies in Victoria Australia. You'd need to contact them via email to see if they ship overseas

Plug Boot Tubing What you need: Hobby-Knife Tweezers Coloured wire from electrical cables. Slowly and painstakingly remove the small copper strands from inside the coloured wire. This takes some patience! You can build up a good supply of a huge range of colours fairly quickly. Slip it over your plugwire leads and you're ready to wire up that engine! Dont throw this away! It can come in handy for making things such as carburetor return springs. If you're not making a mess you're not doing it right! Have Fun!!!

Deep Dish Wheels What you need: Sanding sticks Hobby-Knife Adorably small saw (cutting-wheels leave a lot of molten plastic slag) A Suitable Wheel Use your adorably small saw to shop the front of the wheel from the rest of the rim. Like this- Clean that sucker up! Using the backside of the rim as the front, you now have a deep dish! If you want to use a smaller tyre, and the only ones you have come with too-tall sidewalls... Carefully slice them off to fit! Find different iterations that work for what you want them for.

Couple of simple small tutorials Custom trim (side mouldings) (takes a little while) You'll need: -masking tape (I used Tamiya and a bigger low tack type) -easily workable putty -model car body (I used an old one for practice) Tape off a design Make a big mess, build up the putty a bit over theasked off area, remember, its easier to add more than enough now rather than later. Wait for the putty to become slightly tacky but not overy clumpy, I waited about 5 minutes but it would vary with different putties. Unmask it carefully and let harden. Once its hardened you can very carefully shape it with sandpaper (I used 800grit), the end of a file for the edges and an exacto for those trickier bits. I shot undercoat on it at this point so it was easier to see where I skrewed up and took too much off/chipped it. After this its just a matter of adding small amounts of putty to the problem area and working it more. Its a bit of trial and error, but thats why its fun! Stickin in a dipstick! (5-10 minute detail modification) You'll need a pinvice with 1mm drillbit,sparkplug boot tubing, .5mm wire, engine and your trusty xacto. Drill a hole in the side of your engine, from reference you can decide how accurate you want to be. Wrap the .5mm wire around your 1mm drillbit so it forms a loop like in picture 3 and cut off the excess. Put the straight end of the looped .5mm wire in the end of the sparkplug boot tube. Place it in the aformentioned super-accurately placed hole you drilled in the engine and bend it about until youre happy with the way it looks and youre done! You can also add a tiny 'washer' between the loop in the 5mm wire where it goes into the sparkplug boot tube to add a bit more detail, or use smaller copper tubing instead of the sparkplug boot tube for a smaller scale look.

Thanks for the friendly words guys It's an eclectic way of doing things, but I like jumping from built to build trying out different styles and ideas. The fun really ends for me when the paint goes on, so most of my builds usually dont get 'done'. Right now Im trying to come up with ideas for this TBucket, I saw a picture of a red hotrod, I think it was a 32, that had a snub nose and a supercharged flathead mounted behind the body. Might give it a go. I have a gearbox from a Jaguar V12 LeMans car that I could modify to look a bit more dated. Some feedback would be appreciated, also some ideas. I want to do something a tad different than the usual T Bucket, not that theres anything wrong with them I just want to push myself to do some silly things with model cars.

Thanks for the kind words and info fellas Did a bit of organising and a few mockups to get an idea of where I'm at with a few of my hotrod builds, the result is..... eclectic lol.

I shall be completed Richard I just need to build up a better stash of styrene, tools and skills

Its taken a backseat I'm afraid, I think I need a lot more scratchbuilding/detailing practice before I attempt a build like that. Heres a coupe pics of what Ive been working on in the mean-time. GTX engine 31 'Balsa-Fun' at the very start, scratchbuilt a chassy for it.

Making a 'blank' wheel to cast so I can chop the copies up into other designs. Inspired by Mopar68's awesome smoothie wheels

Thanks for the kind words guys Chris M- Yeh theres enough shapes on that trailer in the prowler kit to make quite a few bits and bobs Oh and it would be sweet if you didnt quote lots of piccies, kinda clutters up a thread aye Heres a couple updated piccies. Just been sanding and bogging, still more to come! Shortened the mounting bits for the front wheels so theyre sucked in a bit too. Sorry for the quality of this pic, still sorting out a setup to take piccies in.

:) Made a front with bits from a Prowler trailer and made disks for the front wheels instead of brakes. Also made a new front spring mount which you cant really see in the pics. Will do more on the chassy tomorrow.

Mini-update Got some disks made up, just need to alter the mounting tube to bring the front wheels in closer, (sorry for the crummy pic ) The start of the front end suspension mount ... And here's how I'm planning to make the track-nose, from the pic posted on page one by Chris I got the idea to start looking about for bonnets, but all I could find was this trailer from that modern hotrod kit (forget the name). Im gunna start chopping it up when I can be bothered to replace the circular blade thing for my dremel

Bill- I hadn't really noticed the lack of front brakes while looking for inspiration, thanks for pointing that out A couple of disks on the back of the wheel will help make the front tires look less pokey out-y Chris- That is a BRILLIANT idea! That picture has given me a bunch of new ideas, thanks man! There shall be an update today sometime, 3-day weekend baby!

Thanks for the overwhelming responses guys Thanks for the pics and info about the suicide front mounts, I'll definitely be doing that instead of what I have 8) It looks much nicer asthetically. As for the space issue, Im not worried because Im planning to scratch up a track nose... eventually when I figure out how Im thinking of cutting up a soft-drink bottle and using one of the 5 'legs' they have as a base to start shaping, Im open to any other ideas though! Thanks for those pics mate, much inspiration was had!! Those are meaaaaan looking lake cars Should have more progress after tomorrow :D

thanks guys Id love to see some of those pics Shardik! Only a tiny bit done tonight... This is the engine Im going to use. it'll be a tight fit...

GOt this chopped TPB 5-winduh a while back, got the itch. Heres what happened to the tyres. Drilled some speed-holes on the back plate because fast!! Got the bare framework for the front mount of the suspension, switched it to a not-as-long one for a more arrow-like effect. This will be the stance more or less. Probably barely a mil higher in the front. Heres where I grinded some material off the back of the speed-holes to get it looking thinner. Gotta chop up the firewall to get that Dodge donk sitting a bit further back so the rocker covers dont hit, wish me luck lol.

Thanks for the input THAT would be a cool thing to watch, a group building session! In my test-streams I usually bounce off of what the commenters are talking about if Im not explaining what Im doing at that moment. Youre right about the dead air, with sanding and painting, but I think if Id leaver a lot of stuff like that out, to an extent. Watching someone sand a model for 20 mins would be useless and ridiculous.

While what you wanted to do may have been seen as 'grooming' by other people, I suppose the only way to avoid this situation is to talk the a child's parent before approaching them. I know it sounds silly to announce your intentions to a parent, but there are so many situations in which a child has misplaced their trust in an adult. Another way to help out a younger builder is to invite them and their parent to club meeting or model show, so they can see for themselves that there are genuine people in the hobby who would love to help younger builders or builders just getting into the hobby. I have been studying a course in Community Services and let me tell you, the statistics for the mistreatment of children are very depressing, and the most appropriate way to approach a child is through their parent/caregiver. Instead of sounding like a creepy guy wanting to hang out with a child, you should always explain to the parent who you are, what you do and a non-intrusive/non-suspicious way to help their child with model building (suggesting library books etc). Don't feel bad or 'seedy' for wanting to talk to a child at your LHS, but always make sure their parent knows why you are talking to them. Maybe take a card/pamphlet with some links to model car websites or even a couple of small building tips and advice points. Its great that you want to help younger builders, the hobby needs more folks like you!

There are 'pre-modified' Diecast cars that have become wildly popular, that could be another thing stopping people from buying models to modify themselves. Although there is a big following for out of the box builds, I can only speak from my experience.

No offense taken, thanks for clarifying your reason Sometimes I want to build models and muck about making a mess, but I have a lot of study and assignments to do, and I would love to have model-related noise going on in the background, but thats just me