microwheel

The MCG has only ever offered it in Black and White as Fred below said. I've been working on wet sanding and polishing out the wagon body the past few days and hope to have a update on it in a day or two. Thanks Fred buddy, as of the other day when I was on the MCG website, they only had the black offered there. Don't know why they weren't offering the white this time.

Hey there Joe, thanks buddy, and it's really nice to hear from you. Sorry to hear you had to move. Anytime you need to yak, just let me know.

Nice start Tim. And I think your gonna have a great time working up all the chassis detail. You'll learn with each build. Trust me on that. That's how I learned over the years. Each build I attempted detail work on taught me something new. My first attempts weren't all that great by a long shot, but they still hold a special place on my shelf for the experience they helped me with. And I still find myself learning with each build I do today. I also learn alot from fellow modelers. So ask lots of questions when or if ya get stuck on something along the way. If it helps, may I suggest, your rear brake line should follow the rear end contour just as you did with your torsion bar only on the top side of the rear end. And you can use pieces of scrap photo etched tree frame from any photo etched stuff you have as brackets to tie the brake line to the top of the axle tubes. Just cut 2 strips from a photo etch parts tree and bend them around a straight pin to create a loop for the brake line, and then slide them over the brake line, one for each side, leave a slight extra length to tack them to the rear end tubes. It really helps give it that realistic look.

Update for today. Got the body on Pop's Toy pretty much covered where it needed it with Bare Metal Foil. Also got the gas cap scratch made, foiled and installed. As far as the body goes it's pretty much done except for adding the glass, bumpers, odds and ends chrome, and photoetched scripts. All that will come during the final assembly when I get that far. For now here are a few pics of the body with the vinyl top and BMF chrome work complete. I hope to start some serious construction on it this coming week. I also plan to get Mom's Toy wagon body wet sanded and polished out so I can get it caught up the where Pop's Toy is at. More to come as I get it it done. And thanks alot for looking.

Thanks Fred. I agree the Vinyl Top material from MCG is good stuff. It takes a little patience to work with but it's well worth the time.

Well for all the issues you've had with it Kevin, it's really coming out nice. I haven't worked on a model yet that hasn't had it's share of issues at some point. I just chalk it up as part of the fun we call model building lol. Keep at my friend. It's already looking top notch from what I see in your pic posts.

.Outstanding conversion on the front suspension Fred. I really love the way the thing sits. It's gonna be one mean duster when you get it done.

Nicely done and outstanding detail!

Beautiful color

Looks like this is gonna be a cool build Miles. Sometimes the longest part of the build is planning through everything and get all the stuff together lol. Keep up the good work my friend.

Nice work so far, I suck at painting white. Yours came out really nice.

Interesting subject so far.

Both are good subjects, you can't go wrong with either one. Though the camaro is a little bit more detailed of a kit. The GTO is a little older kit and has been around in verious forms for a long time. Both build up nicely though.

I prepared another piece of the vinyl material for the center of the roof. It was measured out using the same process I did for the sides. And then cut to it's proper width at 1inch 7/16ths inches. I removed one of the pieces of tape I had applied earlier but left the other piece to use as a straight edge guide when applying the center piece. Then I removed the backing from the center piece and, starting from the back window edge of the model, I sat the center piece into place using the tape as a guide to assure a even overlap. Then I used a tooth pick to trace out the trim lines along the model's chrome trim areas just as you would do for BMF. Doing this gives you a guide for cutting off the excess with an exacto knife. I also used the tooth pick and a soft cloth to burnish down the entire top and bring out the overlap seam lines. With the excess trimmed away, you should end up with a pretty nice vinyl top. I usually give my vinyl tops a little bit of a rub down with Novus 1 plastic clean and shine, just to pretty up the top a little bit. The following pics are the completed top. Pop's toy is now ready for some BMF trimming and some body detail and then I can move on to other parts of the model. That's pretty much where Im at for now. More to come as I get it done.

In the following pic, You'll see the first side complete. This is just to give you a idea of how nicely this stuff lays down, though you do have to burnish it with a soft rage and tooth picks to get all the wrinkles out of it. I lay the sides down first using my pencil lines as a guide to keep them straight. And I always work this stuff from with the pencil lines as the starting edge and then work out to the door side edges. This stuff can wrinkle on you pretty easy, so work slow and carefully, and pull it gently where you need to, it will stretch a little, but you don't want to over stretch it. It's alot like applying a vinyl top on a real car. Once you have it on, just use the same process for tracing out the trim areas that you do with BMF, and then cut off the excess. Here you can see just like the other side, just how nicely it lays down. If you planned out and marked out you starting lines correctly, you should end up with even center lines for both sides. For this model, I have about 1 inch and 7/16ths of center space on the roof allowing for a 1/32 inch overlap on both sides. To make sure of the center piece size, I applied some tamiya masking tape setting it back 1/32 of a inch from the edges of both finished sides, then measured the area, it came out to what I wanted,which was 1and 7/16ths inches. So you should have a edge to edge gap of 1 and 1/2 inches with a 1/32 over lap for each side. Continued in the next post below.......................

Morning Guys, and thanks for the comments. Sorry updates are slow in coming, things have been a little busy around here and Im not getting the bench time I would like. I did manage to get a little done on pops toy the past few days. I got the body color sanded and polished out. Well all but the hood, and I can do that anytime. I also got some work done on the vinyl top which is pretty much the subject of this post. It might take 2 or 3 posts to get all the pics and info in so be patient as I get all this written up. Once the last post is written I will post (more to follow as I get it done) so you know that I am finished posting. For the vinyl top, I ordered Model Car Garage's vinyl top material. It's a little harder to work with than the traditional masking tape painted black, but it's a true vinyl and IMO just makes a model look better. You have work at it a little bit to remove it from the backing, it's easy to get stretch marks in it if you try to remove it too fast, so a little patience goes a long way. What you get when you open the package is 3 strips of vinyl material about 2 inches in width each, on a backing sheet of heavy plastic (almost the type of plastic used for the packaging bag) I applied some tamiya masking tape on the roof of the model so I could mark out in pencil where I wanted the seams in the top to be. Once I had my pencil marks made I removed the tape. These marks will give me about one inch of wrap over each side. Next I cut loose one of the 3 pieces of the MCG vinyl material, this will be enough to do both side pieces of the top. This nice thing about this stuff from the MCG, you can do two models with it, if you plan your use with it carefully. What I don't use here on pops toy will be saved away for another project. I I taped the material down on my crappy well used work bench, and marked it in the center at one inch and then using my straight edge ruler and my hobby knife with a new sharp blade, cut it down the center so I had two one inch wide pieces. Notice I left the backing on it at this point. Aside from it being a little hard to remove from the backing, this stuff is as easy to work with as BMF. You'll see later in the next post to follow. Continued in the next post below......................

Nice work Fred buddy, I really like the scratch built detail level your putting into this.

Evening guys, and sorry for the lack of updates. I havent had much time on the bench the past week or so. Had some personal family issues that had to be taken care of. Thanks for all of you who posted and I didn't get a chance to respond to. I did try to get some time on the bench yesterday and today to get mom's toy started. It got the same body work treatment as pop's toy and then got a few coats of Tamiya fine white primer. Once the primer set up, I decanted a bottle full of Tamiya Dark Mica Blue and then applied two mist coats, one medium coat and two wet coats using my airbrush. When that was dry, I mixed up some Tamiya acrylic clear blue and applied one medium coat over the Mica blue to tone down the metal flake a little bit. Then just like Pop's toy, I mixed up some Tamiya acrylic clear coat at 50/50 with denatured alcohol and apply one mist coat, two medium coats and two wet coats. Now it has to site for a few days to a week to gas out, and I will wet sand and polish it out. I know it looks black in the pics, but it's not, and once I have it wet sanded and polished out I will take a few outdoor pics so you can see the difference. I also decided that mom's toy will get a little bit of a custom street machine look. I plan to go with the Gibson Roadent 350 TPI engine for it. And no it will not get big wheels and it will not be a weed eater. Its just getting a mild custom sleeper look, so it will keep as close to a stock stance as I can get it. It will hopefully make sence later on. I also took some time to start prepping the chassises for the two cars. Got them primered and getting ready to detail paint them. Sorry to say thats as far as I've had time for the past two days. I will try to get more time on the bench to get more done this weekend. Pop's toy is about ready for wet sanding and polishing, so that will probably be my next task. The paints used for mom's toy body The engine I plan to use for mom's toy (but it still isn't written in store on this one). Or I may go with the 283 yet or5 even the stroker engine I was thinking of using in pop's toy. Very early start on both cars chassis And finally a few pics of mom's toy with some color on the body. I hope to have more to post after the weekend if I get to spend some time on the workbench. I'm still waiting for a few odds and ends aftermarket stuff to come in and, I'm still planning out the detail stages.

Hey there Fred, cool ya finally got back to the duster, been looking forward to seeing your progress on it. Nice stance and love the hemi in it.

Morning Fred, nice to see you back at your workbench. Great progress so far buddy.

Thanks alot everyone, It was a long build by very enjoyable to do. I hope the next project turns out as well.

I hope to get a few pics of a couple of my last few build in the sun soon. The weather has been the holdup up here in northen michigan.

Hi Fred thanks alot buddy, I sure look forward to seeing more of your work.

Thans Tyrone, I hope to get back on this project in the next couple of days. I'm finishing up some work on my 1:1 truck brakes. It's been down on my for the past week and I need to get it finished so I can get it out of my garage. I sould have it finished my tomarrow afternoon. So my hope is to finally get back to work on this project this weekend. Thanks alot Gene I'm hoping they turn out the way I'm seeing both of them in my head lol. We'll see as I go along.

Thanks Matt, and yes those kits have the correct rally wheels, several kits do, but at the moment I dont have any of them in my collection and I cant see buying a full kit right now just for a set of wheels. And your right with some modiying for fitment, Im sure the chassis could be used for the 64 or 65 novas to do a stock version. And I totally agree with you. If AMT had released a 3 in one kit with all the needed parts for any of the versions, I bet they would have some even more of them than they did.