Straightliner59

Thanks, JC. I hope it's a relatively smooth journey!

Hahaha! I am ready. Armed with the new plan, I have one side of the chassis soldered together. I set the engine/motor plate assembly on top of it, and held a slick in its approximate location. Already, the iconic look is forming.

For over twenty years, I have been pondering and preparing to build a replica of The Surfers dragster. I have now been educated by one Roger Lee as to why my two initial attempts to build the chassis were not right. Turns out that the things I'd read, and heard about the chassis, over the years, didn't provide the whole story. The plans from the old Popular Hot Rodding article are only useful for the front-half of the car, and for the roll cage, itself. The back-half, previously unbeknownst-to-me, was actually a copy of the chassis that Rod Stuckey built for Karamesines (not, as is most commonly written, an RCS/Frank Huszar chassis). Roger provided me a plan for that chassis, along with a couple of notes regarding the chassis. The car was front-halved by RCS, and they moved the differential uprights forward four inches--so, that's where that all came from. Armed with the two drawings, I used my favorite photo program to scale the drawings to one another, gave one some transparency, so I could see what I was doing, and overlaid them. I then imported that composite into AutoCAD, and drew the attached plan, using only the sections of each drawing that were pertinent to the Surfers car. I submitted the new drawing to Roger, and now my chassis drawing is "Riceman certified"! I'm about to head out on a couple of quick errands, but, I'll be melting solder, later this evening. I mentioned that I have been planning this project for many years. I wanted to make this my best piece. I have several new things I want to try with this project, not the least of which is to complete a project with a brass chassis, and an aluminum body. Now, I have done a body in aluminum, and a couple of "playing around" chassis, and I feel confident that I can put it all together!

Nice work! Nice job capturing "the look", too. Very nice piece!

It's always nice to get the girl!

Textures, details and surface finishes that “scale” in miniature have always impressed me. Not that I’m not regularly blown away by spectacularly glossy paint jobs and super-detailing, but building a model that looks “real” and “natural” to the eye is a challenge that I take on from time to time, usually in combination with a project that’s otherwise fairly technically straightforward. As I approached the middle of summer which would see me away from my workbench for a month or more I decided to take on a simple project which I could complete in a few weeks where I would focus on this naturalistic approach to modeling Beautiful work, Bernard! Your finish work is one of the things I enjoy most about your models. They look natural and real! Thanks for sharing your work with us.

Nice save, Snake! There's a certain satisfaction to resurrecting a glue bomb. I've saved three old, original Monogram dragsters (Slingshot, Long John, Sizzler). They are some of my favorites in the display case.

My old friend Mark Brown used braided fishing line for all of his small diameter braided fuel lines.

That guy took the power from a room in his house, to fetch those plug wires!

Absolutely stunning! No more words!

That, sir, is awesome! Easily the best scale "Frankenstein" I have ever seen. Beautiful, beautiful work.

Beautiful work, Tim! That mag is to die for! Is it scratchbuilt (I would assume--never seen one that looks that good)?

Geoff, this thing is looking sweet! Nice work with the trim.

Man, that is AWESOME! I'm so jealous! I've exchanged emails with Tom Jobe, but never met him. Super nice guy. Congrats, Tim!

Looks great, Brad! Nice work with the detailing.

Yep! I missed this post, before I posted my comment.

Bill, you just gave me goosebumps! It happens, whenever I see/hear a Rush song, in an unexpected place. I frequently hear news, regarding cars, that makes me think of Red Barchetta and "Motor Law". Neil Peart wrote these lyrics based on a short story from Road&Track, I believe, entitled "A Nice Sunday Drive." On a related note, one old guy is soon, or just has (over the past weekend, maybe?) attempting to set a new record with an electric dragster. The "Old Man" hisself, Don Garlits.

Awesome! I have a few Vegas, already, but, one can never have too many of them.

They used different thicknesses of gaskets under the manifold, until they found the one that worked. They were able to run such high nitro loads, partly because Tom Jobe learned a whole bunch of stuff about how nitro "burns", and they ran a very high nozzle pressure for the injectors. Compression was only about 7.5:1, which was somewhat lower than what was common. I have a folder with a air amount of stuff that Jobe posted on the old Header Flames board at Nitronic Research. Very interesting stuff!

Eight years is entirely too long to go without seeing Shane's fabulous replica! It's my favorite dragster of all time, and this is (so far) my favorite model of this car. I hope that mine will come somewhere close to looking as good as Shane's. As soon as I get my B.O.Y.D. SS/GT Firebird done, this one's next!

Love it, Mike! It just looks badass! You're welcome, RE: the cutting of sheet. I've been doing it that way for at least a decade, now, and, in most cases, it works, flawlessly.

I knew it would be helpful. Did you happen to find this part of the site?: https://www.gmheritagecenter.com/gm-heritage-archive/vehicle-information-kits.html These have EVERYTHING! Glad you guys found it interesting.

What the hell? I'll jump in with this SS/GT Firebird. It's a slammer. I just need to figure out how I am going to add the garnet red paint, to what's here. I didn't plan the paint layout, very well. It's an AMT Snap Fast kit begun in January of '07. It will be good to get it in the display case!

Here you go. I was wandering around and found this, and remembered this thread:

I'm surprised Garlits didn't sell them Coca-Cola space on his dragster kit!