ScaleDale

^^^ I believe Don Youst uses one of those. A single action is good for finish body jobs. I have an Iwata double action. I like the extra control for hitting small areas and stuff like that. Dale

Scale Finishes still shows up in a web search. I got two URLs and a Facebook page. They sell through Elm City Hobbies in Canada, too. http://www.scalefinishes.com/welcome.html http://server512.webhostingpad.com/~scalefin/welcome.html Dale

Helmet? Check. Shoulder Harness? Check. Driving gloves? Check What't the big deal? dale

I have a water trap and regulator on my compressor and one that fits on the bottom of my air brush. I keep lacquer thinner, enamel thinner and water handy depending on what paint I use. Mostly lacquer. for Final cleaning I use an airbrush cleaner and a few drops of regular Windex. Get an airbrush cleaning station. It's a glass jar thing that you shoot the cleaner into to catch the spray. Amazon and TC Global have more stuff than you can imagine. Airbrush lube for a monthly cleaning and lube is good too. What brush do you have? Dale

I don't do opening doors but I did a removable front end on a Pro Stock Mustang and used the thin strip styrene thing to clean up the edges. One thing I did was to try it on a scrap body first to find what didn't work without wrecking a work in progress. EDIT: That's one of the most complicated doors I've ever seen for cutting. Dale

The Nostalgia Gassers Association has snippets of NHRA rules from the '65, '62 and '58 years. Here's the link. http://www.nostalgiagassers.com/category/nhra-rules/ Dale EDIT: Most of the cars in the photo gallery of this site have their tires inside the wheel wells. All are period correct.

TL;DR: Life is short. Build when you can. Dale PS: For you other old dudes out there, that's "Too Long; Didn't Read "

What vintage gasser are we looking at? Are you going for super or naturally aspirate? I don't recall gas class cars having to keep the tires inside the wheel wells and I date back to the late 60s. Stockers, yes. Gassers, no. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. (that always happens) Good luck on the build. Dale

I'm with these guys. I did no building at all until I retired and went looking for a hobby to keep me busy during the Winter months here in the NorthWest when I'm stuck inside. My best advice to Ace is to try to schedule a solid hour of bench time each day. When isn't as important as getting the time in. Dale

Competition Resins has the Slixx Decals and is in the process of reprinting a drag race tire sheet. It's item SL 7037. Check with them so see when it will be ready and if it's what you need. Dale

Things are going well in the paint shop. I have three coats of Racing White on it. It seems a bit dull, so I added two coats of Pure White and will overcoat that with Pearl White. The paint will be two-tone so it will have masking tape on it for a few days while I overspray the white with red. My usual way of doing this is to put a good coat of finishing wax on the body before the tape to keep it from sticking. I replaced my pesky distributer with one with smaller wires that will let the carb hat sit low enough for the front end to fit OK. I also glued the front and read wheels and tires in place, so all it's waiting for is the body. Pics when I have 'em. Dale

What OS are you running and is your version of Java up to date? I don't use that service for my photos, but I do know that there are issues with Java and the Mac OS. My wife has an HP running Win 7 and every time I turn it on it wants to update a Java something or other. Dale

Thanks for the compliment. I do the best I can. I got through my eye surgery thing yesterday OK and should be back at the bench in a day or two. I did a final fit of the front end and scoop Monday and the plug wires on the engine were just a bit too big and prevented the hood from setting like I want so I had to pop the distributor and make a new one with thinner wire. Should be able to get it in today or tomorrow depending on my depth of field vision. My left eye es a bit screwed right now. Dale

To find reference sizes for race car stuff, I go to the big performance auto parts sites like Summit.com and Jegs.com and look up the part I'm interested in. Race car spark plug wires can be thicker than what's under the hood of my truck. X 2 on the digital calipers, and add a calculator or smartphone app to that. Learn to convert inches to metrics, too. Millimeters are easier to work with on a small scale. Dale

^^^ I went through your Finnish drag Racing thread and was surprised to see the number of US muscle cars that find their way over the Atlantic to a new home. I knew drag racing was big in Australia and the muscle cars there didn't surprise me after Mad Max and all, but Finland? By the way, there was a West Coast Championship, right? Is there even an East Coast there? Too lazy to look it up... Dale

I spent a day with the Dremel fitting a seat under the nice roll cage I built for my Mustang. Live and learn... Dale And don't forget the headers. Please don't forget the headers.

Nothing beats a 1:1 in the garage! Lucky you! Dale

I used the chassis made by Chris Alston at ChassisWorks as guides for the frames I have built. I looked a lot on line and they are all basically the same in design. Alston's site has a lot of pictures of chassis and components for reference. In building anything with a scratch chassis, follow this sequence: Do any modifications to the body first. Build the engine and transmission and have the rear suspension with wheels and tires handy. The chassis needs to be built to fit the body and drive train so you need these things on hand before you start. I can't tell you how many times I got to the engine and it wouldn't fit the chassis or the roll cage was either too tall or short. https://www.cachassisworks.com/cac_products.html Dale

Here are full specs on the 1960 Impala. http://www.oldride.com/library/1960_chevrolet_impala.html Dale

I read about this on IMDB about a year ago and was hoping it would date back into the top fuel days of the late 60s when this all started. Even though I was in Ohio, I couldn't wait to get the newest issues of National Dragster to follow the California scene. Even slipped into the seat of a dragster at a Detroit car show to flash that V for Victory thing to my camera friend. Those were the days. Dale

Maybe this with Racing White and Mica Red. Dale

Thanks to all for the kind words of encouragement. They are very much appreciated. I jumped over here from another forum that just didn't get drag racing and I'm glad I did. This is my last out-of-date post for this project and will bring everything up to where I am with the body. (July 14) I separated the front end from the rest of the body by marking a line just ahead of the leading edge of the door and scoring it with the back side of a fresh razor knife. After the cut I added a thin strip of sheet styrene to each edge to replace the lost material and maybe add a bit since the front wheels came in a bit on the short side. I didn’t like the ragged look so I added a shroud of thin styrene to overlap the cut and filled it with thinned putty. To make the connecting joints, I went with a bayonet mount thing with tabs to center the front and a tube and rod setup for joining them. The rods are wire covered with a plastic material from Plastruct and are both strong at a small dimension and flexible. all in all it works pretty well. I have several coats of putty and repeated trips to sanding land done and the car is in primer and ready for the first coats of paint. I’m going with a red and white paint scheme of some sort. Not real firm yet. the white is ready to be sprayed so I’ll do the whole car in it and make my decision from there. See you all soon. Dale

Brett: Outstanding body and paint work on those cars. Are the blue flames on the T-bird decal or free hand airbrush? Dale

Looks like Surf Green. http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/default.aspx Or maybe Cascade Green. http://paintref.com/paintref/model/green_Chevrolet.shtml There were four shades of green offered by Chevrolet in 1957, Dale

How about this? It's not marked Private. http://imageshack.us/a/img28/271/larrymorganps.jpg Here's one on PhotoBucket that's not Private. http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag43/ScaleDale/TheBurkholderBrosFuelFiatblazesthehidesPhotofromtheDragRacingMemoriesCollection_zpsbdb8e4f9.jpg Dale EDIT: All of the photos I posted using the forum Image button give a save option in the window that opens when you click it. the links don't. Saving an image from an outside host would trip the bandwidth counter that started this thread in the firs place.