jbwelda

i find i mostly use my (newly acquired and not quite comfortable with yet) airbrush for detail parts like spraying paint on tubular chassis etc, where with a spray can you cant really get a thin even coat on something intricate like that. but for most bodies i still use the rattlecan especially tamiya. its not a problem; its more like the appropriate method for what youre trying to achieve.

not to get too far off the topic but have you ever seen a stock bantam? i dont think i had either until i came across this one at a local classic and rod show:

>Jb, These sre really cool...are they 1/25 scale ? thanks for the compliment! yes they are, well, mostly 1/24 scale but some 1/25 scale parts in there too. body is the austin seven rebadged as the BMW 3/15 Dixi, from Revell of Germany...the fenderless one was a resin pop of that body with some modifications and i modified it more for example i chopped about 3 scale inches off the cowl and used the tweedy pie chassis and the ala kart hemi. the fendered one basically used the BMW kit but of course it has been modified a bit. Search for "austin" in workbench and under glass for more pics and a build thread for each. i am digging that bantam right above this post, that sort of thing was my inspiration for the fenderless car and one of these days i am going to sacrifice one of my bantam bodies to build something similar except i might find some fenders and running boards to use on it.

really great build and very inspirational; i see a number of things there i will try to replicate but maybe i can ask, how did you mount those front cycle fenders? i see very thin wiring there but could you explain how you went about doing it and making the fenders follow the circle of the tire so well? thats gonna be one of my soon-upcoming challenges.

not that one would really want to do it on a 1:1 car, but i have always wanted to use that rochester mechanical fuel injection on some 1/8 build. yours looks particularly nice under the hood. i wish someone would resin cast those pieces.

the only thing i like out of that kit is the front wheels. the rest of it just looks, well, off. on the other hand there have been a couple of really nice builds of it posted here in the past so i guess it just takes some work. but compared to monograms offerings in 1/8, i always thought the lindberg, and particularly this twin engine dragster, were just inferior in most every way.

this picture cracks me up: it just looks so mangled! that was a fantastic save, it sure came out looking spectacular!

that looks super and i dig the idea of everything out of the jc witney catalogue that i used to get all the time back in the 60s! one thing though, when i have seen curb feelers, they have both been on the right side, one in front, one in back, usually right in back of the rear wheel opening, but both on the right side. thats so when you are parallel parking you hear the curb feeler scrape the curb back there before your bodywork hits the curb, whereas the front ones are for when you nose into a curb. looks good with them both on the front because they are symetrical that way but i think i real life both are on the same, curb, side. i used to love building the "kustom" version of 3 in 1 kits back in my youth and pile on all the accessories, yours bring me back to those days!

i think lowering it really improved its look a lot, it was already nice now it looks super nice!

i thought about bobbing the rear fenders, but then thought about how those peaks are really part of the identifying characteristics of all the T series cars, so i left them as is. my first inclination was to bob them though so we are thinking on the same wavelength!

there is nothing like a toyota. oh what a feeling. or a miata...i know that will offend your sense of "manhood" but you want cheap fun? 91 miata has your name on it.

i think i just paid 9.99 at tower hobbies for the #2 set. i started looking at the back of the package and it mentions various parts packs they intend on bringing out, including decals sets "& more" along with tires, bodies, custom accessories, wheels, motors... motors? how about a nice Buick nailhead with some few building options and maybe including something like hilborn fuel injection with aluminum preformed intake tubes. that would be sweet and there arent many depictions of this very iconic motor out there. didnt amt have a decent one in the Electra that was recently reissued? maybe that one has a hole in the oil pan, but if so that would be a nice upgrade to offer it without the hole. oh and the bonneville style go kart and the triumph motorcycle from the early sixties pickups would make a sweet parts pack, but thats probably crazy thinking.

that drum set is available on ebay right at this moment for $22.50 with free shipping. edit: from more than one source, must have been reissued recently? do a search on pearl drum set model youre welcome

oh yeah, i forgot to mention one thing: i was also Prince Charles in this vision. so that took care of a lot of those problems! nice background, thanks for throwing that in, and yeah the lotus rear suspension and only running a lotus 1+ liter motor, this thing wouldnt really be for the drags, more like as you say bombing around the countryside or trying to pick up birds at the pub. to go to their place. norweigan wood and all that. actually as you rightly point out, this thing wouldnt be around at all most likely. or it might be cobbled together by some total clockwork orange types or even road warrior nuts to drive around doing their thing. i am trying to keep it kinda "prole" and imagine that someone with connections could come up with the parts for it for a reasonable price. i remember back in the 60s here in the states anyway, a TD went dirt cheap though more exotic stuff like Lotus motors brought more serious change. i am planning a third car, this time with either an E type jaguar motor, probably using the monogram kit for it, or perhaps the twin cam motor from tamiyas jaguar Mk II sedans. that would fill up the engine compartment a bit better than this little lotus motor does. thanks again for the comments about time and place. it certainly helps set the scene for a car like this even when i am taking liberties with reality here and there.

thats a nice clean build there. maybe that is a monogram E Type kit? does it have full engine detail? sweet job all around, even down to the nicely painted undercarriage!

i bow down before you sir. that is incredible work that i can only wish to be a mere shadow of! just incredible! that tangerine looks good enough to eat!

>It would have been more appealing with a special edition PE set. bingo.

those 2cv's look killer, we can only hope. and that 1/24 scale bantam jeep looked incredible. is that going to be on the open market or more a boutique deal for multi hundred dollars?

here is where its at for now, and a good view of what i am trying for: additional 2" scale drop of the front axle courtesy of those little white lowering blocks: and a couple of views of the body stance and wheels and tires: thanks for looking and all comments welcome; if you have built something similar or this same MG kit a different way feel free to post some pics!

tom thanks for posting your build in this thread, i love seeing others build of what i am trying. yours turned out real kool too and yeah i love the surf shack, kit wouldnt be the same without it. i had the same issues with the interior bucket leaving spaces between it and the body but i filled them in with my favorite trick: black india ink in 5 minute epoxy flowed into the gaps. works great and you dont even see it. i didnt think the surfite never got re-issued (back in the day, 90s did see a reissue obviously) because of a spat with roth over something; i was always more believing that when ed became "the supply sargent for the Hells Angels" (according to Look or Life magazine back then in articles on "hippies") Revell cut him loose because he was harming their "family values reputation", which i thought was a pure crockocrap...more like ed was living the rebel image he had cultivated. thats the problem with corporate sponsors of "rebels"...they tend to rebel and corporate types are by definition anything but rebels...and tend to look at rebels when they do what they do best as hot potatoes to get out of their hands asap. at any rate from reading later books on roth it was obvious he was moving way ahead of his time using smaller engines in smaller vehicles along with the choppers and trikes he was building. i have to say i didnt really feel it back then too much but in later years his genius became more apparent. just the fact this surfite was based on an austin mini when no one here hardly even knew what that was, came to me as a revelation. pure genius that guy. now i wish revell would engineer some of his later cars like that one he drove up to alaska in or even the yellow fang dragster!

thanks for all the comments folks, let me address some of the questions: indeed the paint is tamiya british green over tamiya olive green, with the olive green left on the undercarriage and all non-top surfaces as a sort of DP40 primer look. the wheels, well all four are resin wheels i had in my stash, i dont really recall where they came from as i buy wheels i like as i see them and then throw them into a box for later use. the rear wobbly web wheels are one piece resin including the tire and there are a couple problems like the outer edge of the wheels are chipped but i left it like that...run hard and put away wet. the fronts are some minilite style wheels that i cut apart and reassembled so they are very narrow. bicycle fenders on the front wheels is essentially what i am going to attempt; as i mentioned above i am going to use the triumph bonneville front fender X2 and as they are 1/25 and the car 1/24 they will look like bicycle fenders. thanks again for the comments and for looking...will update as appropriate, was hoping to have this done for NNL West 2 weeks from now but homie dont play that game...

thats an excellent suggestion with the flathead from the midget kits! i havent glued down the lotus motor yet!

as i mentioned above i plan on trimming the radiator shell a bit, slanting down the hood line and also lean the radiator shell back a little to give it a more flowing look. anticipating that the motor with air cleaners would not fit under the hood, i trimmed the side pieces off and left just the hood (bonnet) top in place. however i set aside the side panels which have really nicely molded louvers and a kool little speed tumor on one side and i have been attempting to worry out the back of the louvers to open them up. this is highly time intensive so i have only gotten one side started but its gradually come around to where i am breaking through to the outside i have eaten down the panel to where its almost scale thickness. it remains to be seen whether i will actually use these parts and if i do tilt the front end back they will have to be modified even more but for right now its a little side project. its amazing what one can get done after a couple months off!

with the rear suspension under control so to speak, i started thinking about the front suspension and some of the other details...now i wanted the front end down in the weeds if possible and there wasnt much on the stock suspension i wanted to keep although i was going to keep the molded-to-the-frame friction shocks. i started looking in the parts box and i came across a partial revell parts pack of roadster speed equipment and there was a nice chrome beam axle with kool azz chrome brake backing plates so i set that aside. it fit in perfectly and looked to provide the proper drop. but then a few days later i happened to run across another white plastic front axle of the proper size with molded on shocks and a nice mounting bracket. it fit nicely too after some trimming and drilling and stuff so i transferred the backing plates to it. the problem with it was it was detailed on the front side but not on the back...that is to say for example the front of the shocks were round but they were just flat on the back side. i fabbed up some messy looking stuff for the back of the shocks which i will be sure to come to regret but hey i was lazy! they look a little better now and i dont really want to make this car my career! heres an early shot of the unpainted axle posed on a mount on the frame: and a later shot of the axle near finished hanging from the front of the frame, though i have now added further lowering blocks of about another 2" to the frame: more prep: fitting the motor to the frame: random pieces: the interior is nearly finished: and just this past week in got some paint on the body, a couple of problems but overall a good start: problem area: paint crackled on rear fender! but shouldnt be too bad to polish out or at most do a spray touch up. oh yeah, that metal version of this kit? looked through it and pulled out the fuel tank. looks very crude out of the box but after a couple of hours polishing time (not really, probably 30 min max) it starts to look pretty serviceable.