Peter Lombardo

Extremely well thought out and beautifully executed….so far…..Very impressive. The roll cage is very nice and very beefy. Keep it going. The rear defuser is very precise looking…..I think this will be a killer build when complete….a candy red over gold finish and WOW!!!! Eye popping!

Great looking build so far. You can really see how all of those "small" things like re-scribing panel lines, and fine sanding the body and adjusting the grilles make such a big difference in the end......very nice work. I really like the color choice too...I am growing tired of red Italian sports cars. I have this exact same kit....some day I most likely will get to build it.

Yes, the first one I did had a few problems that I had to touch up, but I learned my lesson and I handle them carefully and only bend them when necessary. The touch up worked fine with Tamiya flat paint....so it is no biggy. I do recommend them because the photo etch material is much easier to work with then either painted masking tape or fabric. I do not think i will be going back to the others any time soon.

I have used these belts many times and really like them. These are the four point belts, they also make the six point units too. They have a number of colors and brand logos available. I ordered these from Strada Sports....two belts for $9.95....not bad. Thanks...I like the paint too. I have wanted to try a snake skin type of effect for some time now. I was never really satisfied with the idea of using lace because the space between the scales is dark so that means after the dark layer, you must paint a lighter layer over the top with the lace on the car. Then it hit me to design the scales in the computer and create decals. The other thing that I really love is the effect I got on the two racing stripes. I wanted it to look like the stripes were painted right on top of the scales. If you did that to a real snake, you would still see the scales and the space between them, but they would be the same basic color. So by making the space between the scales where the stripes are at 20% of the color of the other gaps between the scales the effect is subtle but interestingly different.

GUYS!!!! To all the kind words....Thank You...I really appreciate them.

WOW, that is really something! I love the color scheme of black and orange...it looks great on this one. The engine bay looks great too....and you are right, there sure are a lot of pictures of it.....I think you must really be proud of her....and for good reason. Very nice workmanship!

2010 Dodge Viper ACRX Converted from a Viper ACR. Here are the final pictures of the Viper ACRX now completed. Here is a recap of the work done and modifications made to the stock Revell Viper ACR kit. Opened the doors and made hinges from brass rod and aluminum tube. Inside of door scratch built frame. Wheel wells were flared and smoothed. The 6 air vents on hood were opened and covered with “see-thru†screen. Chrome plating on wheels striped and painted pearl white, wheel air valves added. Tires replaced with racing slicks and Bridgestone decals applied. Front wheels made to turn. Driver seat converted to a racing seat and covered with back embossing powder. Eduard #24001 “Sabelt†photo etched seat belt installed…Viper logo installed on seat. Full factory roll cage fabricated. Steering wheel replaced with non-airbag Momo wheel. Second smaller upper air foil installed on front fenders Custom Viper logo cut from vinyl and installed on inner rear window. Custom vinyl twin stripes painting mask designed and installed over pearl white paint. Body painted a custom mix of Jacquard yellow and green pearl pigment powder mixed with clear lacquer to replicate a Pit Viper Snake coloring…..yellow blend on bottom, medium green in center and darker green on the top. Custom Snakeskin computer decals created and decals installed over paint to replicate a snake like look. Sponsor decals lifted from Tamiya Calsonic Skyline. Engine bay detailed and hoses installed. Thanks for looking…..comments are always welcome

Speechless....I am speechless, and for me, that is saying something.....great work....the detail painting really impresses me.

If anyone wants these, I could send out a set. The cost would not be crazy...a few dollars each ( Decal sheet is $7.50 and the vinyl would be $2.50 ) and the postage. If you are interested, just e mail me your address and I will get them out to you. I am at : aegisgolf@optonline.net. Thanks, Pete

Guys, just today I received a new batch of styrene sheets. I have to produce a few more bodies tomorrow for previously ordered cars. If anyone else is interested, I will be happy to produce a body and tops for you. The the whole thing, with shipping, in the U.S. is $10.00, slightly higher in Canada and overseas. If anyone else wants one, just send me your address, to my e mail account which is : aegisgolf@optonline.net. I will get it out to you in a week or so. As you can see, you can let your imagination run wild on this one. I am building one that is true to the original design, but you guys can go any direction you like....with or without wheels....and if you go without wheels, you don't even have to fill in the wheel wells because there aren't any yet.

Curt......I love'ya..man! It looks great.

Very nice job. I like the fact that you can not see, what I think looks silly, that carbon fiber panel behind the door. I like the cars looks, but find that element of the styling a little strange. Yours looks very classy just the way it is. I have had that kit for almost a year now and could not decide what to do with it. Someone here posted so pictures of a roadster he was building....I liked that. I have finally decided to do the car as a club racer. I like what you did though.

To my wifes chagrin, yes, I tend to keep them for no known reason. I think I am just too lazy to clean up after a project.

Pretty neat....I like the Prowler grille amd lights...they look like they belong. There seems to be a rash of wheel-less cars all of a sudden. Does Goodyear and Bridgestone approve of this? Anyway, it looks like an interesting project.

Hey Raoul, very nice job on her. I like your color choice....Vetts, always look great in blue. I just picked up this kit and plan on building it as a race car. Not a heavy duty Daytona or Le Mans style racer, but a "club" racer, like what the Viper ACRX is intended for. I am currently converting a Viper ACR into an ACRX for club racing and I want to have a Covette ZR1 "X" to go with it and then an Audi R8 "X" also. Anyway, you did a very nice job on yours. I will have to watch those hood hinges....thanks for the heads up.

Well, Bob, I was worried at first about the interior and chassis fitting because of the lower rocker panels being fit to the body first.....I had no choice in the matter since I opened the doors....but it all goes together well....it just requires some gentle nugging. As for the decals, they worked much better than I expected. I printed the decal sheet and then, following the directions, I clear coated them. The only difference was that I very slowly and carefully cleared them with lacquer since I wanted them to be compatible with the lacquer paint and clear coat I was using on the car. When I first applied the first section of decal to the car I applied a heavy dose of Mirco-sol to help soften the decal sheet. That turned out to be a mistake as it began to "eat" the decal and I had to be very careful with not over working that piece. From then on I was very careful with the decal solvent....it was only used very sparingly. The best "tools" for the application of the decals ( in this case, for me, at least) is an old soft medium paint brush, a cotton swab and my old hair drier. I have a small two speed hair blower that I use for the decals. The heat, on the low setting softens the decal sheet and the wind pressure of the fan forces the decal down and helps hold it in place. I set the decal in place with the paint brush, moving it around until it is where I want it, give or take, then, after the decal set up, I begin working it down with the cotton swab, dipped in water and a little decal set to work out the folds and ridges. It takes patience and careful light but controlled pressure on the decal to work out the folds. Once the decal is set in place I turn to high heat for a few seconds to firmly set the decal in place. I cut out the larger openings, like wheel wells, as soon as the decal is set-up and begin working them on to the back side of the body to insure that the decal "wraps" around the body edge and holds tight. Then once that is set and about 80% dry....you know, still a little softness to the decal, but not so it moves, I use a very new and sharp knife blade to cut away the excess decal. It takes a little time but the result is worth it.

I have applied the snakeskin decals, along with a few sponsor decals and numbers to the Viper. I am very happy with the result, especially considering this was my first “in house†designed decals and because it was a very large decal installation. Here are a few shots with the decals half done. There are a lot of bends and curves on the Viper body and I was applying some large sheets of decal. I replaced the kit supplied tires with racing slicks from my parts box…..then I sent away for a great sheet of tire manufacturers decals. I choose the Bridgestones for this car. I love the bold look of the tire makers name on the sidewall. Anyway, the decals were just clear coated….actually, they are still a bit damp here. I need to apply flat black to the cowl area and around the hood opening. The trunk area will be flat black too. I need to finish the doors inner panels although they are basically vacant due to the racing nature of the car. I need to complete the roll gage and the headers into the free flow exhaust. The engine gets some detail and wiring and then the interior gets completed. Here is the windshield with the visor applied and the rear wing with carbon fiber decals and a sponsorship decal on top of it. I know….you guys want to see customs and rat rods…so most of you don’t get off on these race cars…..or in this case, make-believe race cars…..I get it.

Here you can see the body painted with the Viper Snakeskin Green that I blended from the green and yellow pearl pigment powders. Here you can see the very faint darker green that is on the top surrounding the white stripes. It is much more noticeable in real life…..the photo does not really show it well, but trust me, it looks great. Also, it is not clear in the pictures, but the lower area of the body has a decidedly pearl yellow glow to it like the real snake has. I mixed up a batch of pearl yellow powder and sprayed it on the lower area of the body. So, basically, there are four colors here….the pearl white stripes, medium Snakeskin green mid section, the more yellow lower area and the darker green area around the stripes. Here you can see the Viper logo on the rear window with the first coat of the black surround. The inside of the interior under it will be flat black so the logo will stand out very well. And finally, here is the car next to the decal sheet that is drying. I have no illusion about how difficult the decaling will be. I will have to cut and trim this sheet to make all of the edges match up, but I have done many carbon fiber jobs without the benefit of templates, so it will be difficult but I expect it to be completely do-able. Also, I like to challenge myself with new techniques and try new approaches. This is the first time I have ever made decals, so this will be a new technique for me to use in the future, and I plan on using it quite a bit. Just like vacuum forming, it opens up a whole new area that I can use to create unique and different models. Once this Viper is done, I have a Corvette ZR1 that will get the same treatment as this Viper (race car with the full wing, flared wheel wells, racing seat and roll bar and unique paint) and then a race version of the Audi R8 with all of the body modifications and crazy paint. I want at least 3 of these things to go together. Oh yeah, and then finish the Dual Cowl Art Deco and the Chrysler 300 EX and the rear engined bubble top 3 seat Ferrari concept that I have designed and will build with a vacuum formed body and bubble. I should be set for the next few months.

I have completed some work on the Viper ACRX conversion I am working on. The first thing my brother and I did was create the masks for the dual stripes. I began the process by tracing out the design I wanted on tracing paper directly from the car. Then my brother scanned the drawing into the computer and “cleaned up†the drawing to tight lines. Next we laid out variations of the basic stripes with different width center gaps. I choose design 2B. Here I cut it out and just laid it over the car body to get a feel for the look of it. Next, we cut the painting masks out on the vinyl cutter that he uses for his sign making business. The vinyl is “picked†which means the unused part of the vinyl is taken away and the remaining pieces are placed under a “pre-mask†film that is used to transfer the vinyl onto the body and than the pre-mask is removed and the vinyl stripe is in place and burnished tight. Next, I wanted to create a graphic of the Viper Logo for the rear window. The shape of the rear window is very close to the shape of the logo so I figured it would fit “real nice†with a little fudging. The graphic was designed and printed out on paper first. Once it was sized properly, it was cut out of a translucent vinyl that is used to add simulated etching on real glass. I did the same thing here as I did with the stripe vinyl; I cut the un-necessary vinyl away and used the pre-mask to center the graphic on the inside of the rear window. Here the graphic is attacked to the window before the border is painted black. Originally, I had planned on making painting masks for the snake scales I want to add to the body paint, but after thinking about it, I figured it would be too difficult to do because of all of the layers of paint necessary to get the results I wanted. After I gave this some thought, I decided it would be better to create the scales in the computer and then print them out on decal paper and after the body is painted, apply the dark decal spaces between the scales. Here you can see the first computer generated scales in three different sizes as we were working on getting the scales the right size. Here is the final 8 ½ by 11 inch sheet printed with the snake scales. You can see the area where we created a different look for the stripes. The goal here is to make the stripes look like they were painted directly over the scales. If you painted a white stripe on a snake, the entire area would be white, but you could see the raised area where the scales are. So here you can see how the stripe area has a much lighter looking scale gap area. This is the actual decal sheet that was printed and coated with clear lacquer and will be later applied to the model. Also if you look closely at the scales, you will see that they are a bit random and have a pattern that changes depending upon where they will go on the car. Also, look even closer and you will see that there is a slight darker drop shadow that will be on the low side of the car pattern depending upon left or right side. Lastly here is the motor with the air intake in place. Yes, before you guys comment on it, I know the “Viper†decal, that was supplied with the kit does not fir the valve covers, but I stuck them on anyway because they look kinda’ cool a little too small for the raised letters.

Yes James, the events of 9 years ago were at the very least shocking. Savage, barbaric and ruthless, I think is closer to the truth. It really should be no great surprise to any of us that there are people, fellow human beings that are capable of such atrocities. Just look back over this planets history since we have been in control of it…..The Mongols, the Huns, the Vikings, the Saxons, the Romans and more recently, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, PolPot, Ho Chi Min, and of course our old buddy, Saddam Hussein. Millions and millions killed for no real reason. Many humans are not only capable, but find it to their advantage to kill others for their own power consolidation. It is a dangerous would out there. Say a prayer for all of those brave men and woman who are hero’s everyday…..fireman, policeman, ambulance drivers, EMT’s and of course the men and women of our military who are in harms way most of the time.

Yes Curt, photo etched parts and cartograph decals and then, an inflated price

Yea

Thanks Clay, and yes, dual pearl white stripes that begin at the nose with a rounded point and run over the center bulge getting a little wider to the rear and stop just short of the carbon fiber rear end. I like how the pearl white stripes will match the pearl white wheels.

Looks great Curt. I have two versions of that kit and have yet to get to work on it. I have one of the original production runs of that kit and a more recent clear body version ( I will never build it with the clear body though). One of these days I will get to it. I was always a Niki fan so I will build his version of it. I had always hoped I could convert one into the "fan" car. Not sure what that would take to accomplish it but maybe one of these days....anyway...get job as usual and I like the variation with the different decals......Nice!

First of all guys, thanks, I always appreciate the kind words, and if I am going in a crazy direction, I expect you guys to straighten me out. Now Rommell, yes, I am planning to use the green on the top and sides of the body and fade it into the yellow down to the lower sides. I spoke to my brother this morning and reviewed the plan that I have for the snakeskin pattern. My brother is a graphic sign maker and he has the greatest vinyl cutter. We design the pattern in the computer and then cut it out on the vinyl cutter. I "pick out" the area that is un-necessary leaving just the mask pattern. That is transffered to a "pre-mask film" an then applied to the car and the pre-mask "holder" is removed leaving just the mask pattern. First I drew out the the design for the double white stripe starting at the nose and running back to the tail, just short of the carbon fiber rear end. Next we will design and cut out the painting mask for the snake skin pattern. That will be charcoal gray in between the scales. If it goes to plan, it will be pretty crazy. I will try and document the entire process so you guys can see how it is done.