Filthysanches

I'm thinking I'm going to make this a beer wagon with casks of beer and a custom brew decal but it's kind of a work in progress at the moment. I was going to convert a Ghostbusters ecto-1 and Bash building with a 58 caddy since the original ecto-1 kit does it come with an engine but since my last build was kind of intense I decided to take a breather with this one. I Sanded and prepped and primed the main body I find the stock bed on these trucks to be too plastic to feel heavy and real, so I decided to scratch build the bed using wood strips as opposed to the normal plastic and decals the kit comes with. The hardware store didn't have the width I needed so I had to rip and sand the planks by hand which is a pain in the a$$ Next I had to glue the planks together The joints are pretty bad but I lack the equipment and patients to make better work of them. The railing (styrene strips) should cover most the crimes I'm about to make. I'm sure some of you are wood workers and for those wood purists please forgive my use of stain as finding darker wood strips is difficult, and I have a color scheme in mind. I'm planning on doing a subtle two tone paint with flat black and this metallic bronze as a highlight. In person the wood matches a bit closer to the subtle color pallet in the paint. This is where I have got so far, tonight I will likely assemble the bed add the bolts and all that fun stuff.

I don't agree that the younger guys just don't have a want to discuss here. You guys don't type old, in my head your all my age, with a love of making cars. there is a legitimate lack of interest in hands on artistry as craftsmenship and what does exist has been directed down different paths. For instance, cos play prop replicas, and garage creature builds are huge now in a way that car models were in the past. So it's just changing with a cultural preference and a lack of exposure. With that said everytime I'm in hobby town or Michaels I never see guys above 40 looking for models next to me, and I live in silicon Valley which traditionally doesn't promote hobbies like this to the youth. So someone is doing something right.

Blender. I didn't expect that answer because I know blender and nothing is ever that easy for me so that's a nice surprise.

As one of those squirly youths I think there is an issue of quality. I was born in 83, I grew up with the US trying and failing to make cheap Japanese like cars. 50s 60s and 70s...think about the iconic cars in those decades. There are less gearheads and subsequently less model makers, I think, due to a generation of kids who grew up with the aggressive built in obsolescence in manufacturing, and cheap and un inspired body style. No one looks back and thinks, "man if only they made cars like the Chevy Citation nowadays." no offense to any citation lovers. Good news is the generation after mine grew up with fast and the furious, transformers movies, and retro style muscle like the new mustang and Challenger etc. I imagine that will influence the next hobiests. It's just a matter of you old guys showing them they exist. Look at forums like prop replica forum, and other maker outlets, 3d printing, Japanese pop culture has atleast kept the concept of modeling pretty popular. So the ground is fertile just have to plant seeds I think most kids don't know this exists. My kids do although they have no interest. But I'm with you it will be here after I'm tits up so I just have to challenge myself and keep things interesting.

Which printer do you have is this sls or dlp. The banding is much finer than most desktop printers ive seen. Dlp and sls printers are not exactly cheap. Also what is the support setup for something like this? How's the clean up? Are 1/24th scale undercuts any issue? How does it handle very fine holes? What software did you use to model? I'm looking to start, an there are so many extrusion based printers, I don't know where to start at this scale. I suspect dlp or sls is the only way to go currently at this scale.

Final update. I believe this is where I left off I then moved on to engine detail This was a good model. Well made. I'm sure I made a bunch of mistakes under the hood, let me know what's wrong i was using multiple sources and I'm not knowledgeable to see where everything goes.

Wow that's a hell of a compliment me thinks. Thanks I appreciate it.

Update,cause I got nothing better to do. Sanded and finished the paint job. Started with 1200 grit then 2000 then 2500 and cause I'm a glutton for punishment, 5000. From there I used a scratch remover to remove the fine scratches left by the 5000 taking care to have my dremel at a slower speed. Learned that the hard way. Faster does not equal less effort, instead it leads to melted styrene. After all this, it was time for bare metal foil. While this car is easier than most to foil, certain areas were just too difficult. The front wheel well lacked any relief to be able to cut against. For this i had to use good ol molotow liquid chrome and a paintbrush. The metal matches optically but now I have to handle the car as if the paint is wet, even if it isn't. I've experimented with different clears and all I have come across leave it looking gray. Any suggestions would be appreciated. While the paint was drying, I also finally attached the rear end and tires. Nows about the time I get too excited and impatient, hopefully I can keep it together, because I have the cabin to complete.

Update on progress. Got started on painting some of the pieces to complete the kit exhaust and engine. I will likely scratch build vacuum hoses and what not once I get the body on. I did my best to create a somewhat anodized look for the normally aluminum parts with some clear yellow. Straight flat aluminum looks a bit flat in my opinion but I Dont know. Here is my attempt at creating strut compression springs. The kit only has a post to represent this part of rear end, likely because it won't show all that well. Here is the process I went through. There is little clearance between the shock and the spring so I used the shock for spacial comparison, as there wasn't much room to fit both. I then soldered the ends for a smoother finish and painted them gloss black. Next I'm on to finishing the body likely.

I'm revamping my work bench and looking for good ideas. What are you guys working on nowadays? Any essential tools? Here's my battle station in its natural state of use. Just 2 2x4 plywood joined together with biscuits, and painted with a semi gloss chemical resistant paint and held up by TV tray tables. I drilled several holes for various use like the rack, airbrush stand, brushes and lamp. I'd say the magnetic strip is the most essential thing I have for organizing files and cutters. Gonna make a spray booth and get a bright a$$ led shop hood.

Soon 3d printers will be high Enough resolution to sustain likely a more robust community of model makers, right now the filament resolution doesn't scale and other technologies are out of reach for most.

There is a pretty large garage kit community, but those mostly cater to monsters and movie props from what I can see. Not much of us young car kitters. I guess start doing some snaptites with your kids and grandkids. Even if they don't get into the hobby now they might later if the memories are fond. Atleast that's how I decided to pick up the hobby me and my pops had when I was too little to appreciate it. Building models is not a teenagers game. No patience

This looks awesome. The washes in the grill make this look real. I'm terrible at bare metal I hope mine comes out as well.

Gotta keep me honest. Haha I appreciate it.

Well look at you. Yeah it does but I got some paint on it and attempted to clear it off by the aforementioned paint stripper, and boom it went from single manifold to pile of goo. Sooooo, I pivoted checked the build in its mock up and decided the air filter will hide most of this, so I used the starsky and hutch dual. Plus I plan on modifying it to appear to be single. But that is further down the line. I'm going to start to buy 2 models at a time cause it seems I always have a sacrificial part that immediately gets pointed out.

UPDATE: here are some interior shots more complete.. Moving on to the engine details. One of the biggest criticisms I received on my last build was of the distributor. I used wires that were larger than scale, and had zero attention to accuracy. After some soul searching I decided I was going to have to start making my own distributors for now on. Easier said than done, through trial and error I came up with a passable solution that seems to be pretty simple in comparison to the other solutions I could find. I cut a scale aluminum tube and stuffed it with sculpey clay. I then took the kit distributor and pressed into the clay that is stuffed into the tube in order to imprint the 8 plug mounts pattern into the clay. I then took an old airbrush needle and deepens the hole to slip the wire into. Then with a heat gunI baked the distributor clay and aluminum tube in all. This hardens the clay, essentially making a plastic distributor. The clay will rise a bit if you have the heat too high but you can sand it down. Behold, this is painted, I ended up stripping the distributor below the cap to reveal the aluminum tube, as the images I found of the torino had an aluminum body and plastic cap For whatever BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH reason I forgot to take images of the wire creation, I'll do my best to explain. I found a spool of fine wire used for fine electronics, looks to be the perfect size. I then stripped an ethernet cable, pulled out one of the smaller wires, and removed the copper within leaving just the rubber shielding. I cut the ethernet cable to make the sparkplug boot. I had to stretch the hole of the boot in order to slip the electronics wire in. I pulled the blue electronics wire through a bit past the border of the boot and glued the bit Tha is past into the distributor. I then crimped at a 90° to resemble a spark plug cable. The results are below. Keeping track of the firing order is a pain in the a§§ at this scale but at the end of the day I sorted it out. I used some scale details wiring whichamacallits to keep order and make a tidy setup. I really really need a spray booth. This clear is so strong and I can smell it through my respirator. But ill be damned if it doesn't come out great. The dust is an ongoing battle, if anyone has tips on keeping dust out id love to hear about it. I'm fairly new to this and I'm mostly flying by the seat of my pants. I decided not to use the "chrome" under the clear as it's not realistic, but looking at the moldings after I cleared, I noticed that the clear pretty much drowned the relief of the moldings making painting nearly impossible. So I regret this decision and now I have to figure out how to make this look realistic. Again if anyone has a tip to pull this off let me know. The last build I used the suggested 4:1 ratio of the u-pol clear coat system but it came out soft so I upped the hardener by a half making the ratio 4:1.5 This did the trick no more permanent fingerprints that need to be polished out. Anyway this is where I landed so far

Molotow is my go to if I had a more steady hand I'd use it in place of bare metal foil on a lot of places.

Man. Now I really want to make a dude torino complete with the failed quiz in the back seat. When I was making my supernatural impala, the only model they have is of the 2 door. Some guy made a four door by frankenstiening another sedan. Looked tedious. I have modified a dinosaur model in a different pose, but man it was a pain in the arse, I can only imagine having to keep the body straight in all that.

Okay so I ran into an interesting detail. There is a CB radio on the sprew but not in the instructions, leading me to believe this is the exact same as the S&H version

Also completed the dash to the best of my ability. The decal doesn't fit perfectly which is disappointing, but I figure the steering wheel will hide most of the crimes. I noticed in my research they have plated moldings around the vents. So I'm posed with the dilemma to take the risk of messing up the dash paint by painting it on or leaving it clean and somewhat flat.

I started painting the body. My old man had a continental this color. I knew I wanted to this build to have that same color. I had trouble finding the right color, fortunately Vallejo has a mech paint set, and there it was. I'm usually hesitant to use acrylics this light as it's hard to sand dust out without messing it up, but I cleaned the BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH out of my brush to get a clean finish. I hate light paint because the flaws are un-forgiving. Here it is without clear, decals and bare metal. The orange peel should flatten out with the clear...should Also, this thinner is the best I've come across so far. I've tried Testors, turpentine, googone, turpenoid, mineral spirits and oven cleaner. Nothing has even come close to taking paint down like this stuff. It evaporates fast but cleans like crazy

Wish it had the full cluster but I get the sense this is a basic model. Still a good looking care imo. Yeah the box gave me pause but the model itself is one of the best I've come across for a non Japanese model. I'm not sure if its the same base model as the starsky and hutch.

Okay good, thanks

I'm using a couple different paints here the blue itself is Tamiya xf-8. I dusted this with a clear acrylic from model master, and pulled the seams with panel liner for more depth. The blue by itself isn't as dark.

Updates. More interior detailing