BigTallDad

You're more than welcome. Hope this opens some more doors for you.

Go to the scene of a car wreck. There will be lots of red (and probably amber) plastic on the pavement; pick some up and shape it as desired.

If the nail polish remover contains Acetone (a lot of them do) DO NOT USE IT ON PLASTIC! You will end up with a molten blob.

Very crisp build. I think the satin looks so much better (on this car) than a gloss.

Street legal? Not with those red headlights.

Perhaps you should build a model of it

The side/trunk emblems look great...are you going to do the same with the FORD trunk script?

Very nicely done! I can't recall seeing a pickup that had a fender-mounted spare tire. Nice touch!

That appears to be real glass...I make mine out of mirrored plexi-glas

Are there any differences between the two paints that might justify the difference? Can the LP be sprayed without thinning? If thinning is required, the cost per unit goes down.

I think I'm missing the point.

Where did you get the mirrored base?

That's where the heat gun comes in handy. A 1,500 watt, dual temperature gun costs about $15 at Harbor Freight.

You can always make your own fan belts... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/102506-fanbelt-tutorial/

Yes, you can heat the sheet plastic on the box, but the buck needs to be wood so the buck won't melt. If you use metal, the metal will absorb the heat, prolonging the heating and cooling processes.

Not that I've seen

I use an el cheapo heat gun from Harbor Freight, and made some frames that look like large, rectangular ping-pong paddles with a large hole in each (about three or four frames, 3/8" plywood or 1/4" pressboard). The hole size varies depending on how large the part being formed is, and the paddle frame is always slightly larger than the vacu box. Imagine picture frame with varying widths on the sides and having a handle. The paddle approach allows you to focus heat on the plastic, while keeping your hand away from the heat source. Attach a piece of plastic to the paddle (tape, clamps, etc.); heat the plastic with the heat gun until the plastic is sagging/drooping (it might take a few tries to learn the best "softness") then place the sagging plastic on the vacu-form box, and close the vent. If necessary, continue to heat. You can do multiple pieces, and they would be held in place by the vacuum of the box with the gate open. If the parts are too small for this, then use double-sided masking tape, as in that used to replace grips on golf clubs. After the plastic has cooled, remove it from the frame and trim etc. Windex can be used to accelerate the cooling process...the evaporating Ammonia helps a lot. I used to make the buck out of wood, lay the plastic over it, and heat it until the vacuum took over. I had to use wood, because heating plastic on top of a metal buck required that the buck reach a very high temperature, often leading to less-than-desirable results. A friend of mine built a similar box and shared his approach described above. Bill? Does that answer your question, or did I miss something?

Did somebody say vacu-form? http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/101743-poor-mans-vacu-form/?tab=comments#comment-1421187

Try it out on some old sprue and let us know the results.

I mixed some Pearl X Interference Gold with black paint, airbrushed this spoon, the sprayed a coat of clear. I had no problems with airbrush clogging while spraying the Pearl X, and the picture below does not do the final results justice...the spoon was awesome!

There's a product called "Pearl X" available at Michael's. It's a dry powder you add to paint for the metal-flake effect; it's also available in several different colors (gold, silver, etc.).

Very nicely done. Are you going to put some non-V8 emblems on the hood and trunk? I see the "ghosts" for mounting the V8 emblems, and they might require you to mount the real script a bit too low, or (arghhh) sand off the existing ones and re-paint.

Krylon makes a product called "Crystal Clear Acrylic Coating 1303" I use it to seal decals, so it should be fine for clear coating acrylic finishes.

Thanks. I've never seen a vinyl top that didn't have every edge ending in chrome, although I've not ween every example of a vinyl top. Fixing that should take you about five minutes...me, a few minutes more.

The sticky section of a Post-It note also works well, and is easier to remove than tape.