bill-e-boy

Been sharing my time between this and my 65 Plymouth build I have worked out the motor fitment and have made up some new motor mounts that push the motor back a tad. This necessitated some massaging of the floor pan to get the trans to fit Got some work done on the brake lines on the axles and master cylinder. Hard lines are 32g craft wire and the flexibles is spark plug wire. I made up a junction block on the rear axle and chromed it with Molotow

Did a bit of work on the exhaust. Needs to be done before I assemble the rear end of the chassis. Although a new kit and should not have nasties like 30-50 year old kits have but it still needs time to tidy up the mould parting lines. Go to tools here are a sharp blade for scraping and a flexi-file for finishing off. So after an hour or so of scraping and sanding its off to the paint booth for some undercoat and a couple of coats of SMS stainless steel. I also opened up the outlet a tad with the point of a #11 blade. Clean up work - what a mess on my felt pad. And straight from the paint booth - and I cleaned up the felt pad. I mocked up the exhaust and rear end into the chassis. The rear end has had a bit of lowering by de-arching the springs a tad. This necessitated slotting the rear spring mounting holes and will mean the shocks will need some love to fit up too. By dropping the back end I needed to visit the front end Wasn't too difficult. I cut the original axle pin off and drilled a new hole as far up as I could for a 1.4mm rod. This will have a 2.4mm OD tube glued to it to mate up to the wheels. I got about 1.5mm lowering by doing this. Any more would require a fair bit of work and does not fit into the build theme. Will certainly look at lowering the front end in more depth in a future build. The pix shows the original axle cut off and the new mounting pin glued in. And to add to finish off a little tire rake. The wheels are from the Moebius 65 Belvedere with Satelite front tires and rear tyres from the parts box. Still undecided on whether to chrome the wheels without caps or to paint body colour with poverty caps Thanks for looking

I concur with @Dave G. I now only use hardware store LT with Tamiya acrylics - it was the plane guys that put me up to that years ago. A recent paint job I did I left for at least a month before colour sanding and now it is nice and hard - see below I have found using the X20-A thinners that the paint does take a long time to harden and a good few days in a dehydrator does help. But here is the trick - after clear coating and dehydration time and when it comes time too colour sand put it back in the dehydrator overnight after the first cut and before sanding with the next grade. And the same process for each grade. It takes a few days to get from say 3600 to 12000 grit sanding cloths but it is worth it. Then leave it a few days before hitting it with polish. It would seem that the paint gasses out faster when the glossy coat is sanded back and will go hard. At least that's my story. I have had issues with fresh Tamiya LP lacquers misbehaving under masking tape too. The same goes for acrylics. It just takes time I have not tried Mr thinners yet as it has not crossed my radar I know the acrylics are water soluble but don't ever try thinning it with water - it just don't work - sprays horribly, and I mean horribly I use the LT for clean up too

Thanks Jim, but that would be an expensive exercise being that I live at the other side of the world and with the expensive shipping costs these days. Shaping the masking tape is very much like foil - you need good guide lines and a fresh (and very) sharp blade and a truck load of patience

With resin 3d printing with us these days it is a wonder a subject such as this has not popped up. I have friend who is into large scale models and he has printed all sorts of 1/8 scale stuff - mostly early drag stuff.

Checked the reference pix and found I needed more chrome on the doors. I have added the two chrome strips on either side. The dash has had the decals for the instrument cluster and radio added. The Moebius decals are quite thick and take some effort wit Tamiya Markfit Strong to get them to settle. Aslo got chrome on the front seats

What a stunning paint job. @Speedpro is the master! And the whole package is stunning too. - Colour - sublime - Stance - perfect - Wheel/Tyres - spot on - Looks - stunning

And as to the hood differences - I seem to remember the coupe hood has no sides while the SD has. They can be swapped around which is a bonus

Got the second door card chromed up! Next up is body prep. I have scribed the door and trunk gaps and now need to move onto the trim scribing - I have been procrastinating again Also from my reference pix I see that the console has carpet part way up so may need to get that detailed up too

Thanks for reminding me of your post. I remember it now after the nudge

Is the Touch Tone Terror the same kit as the Little Red Wagon? They are both Dodge A100 pickups

I have been spending some time with my 32 Coupe build and I was waiting for paint and glue to dry I dug ot a door card to detail. I used BMF on the arm rests and Satellite emblem and used Molotow on the window cranks and door handles I must say that the engraving on the interior parts of these kits is very good in that the details are crisp and of good depth. The foiling and masking so far has gone reasonably smoothly. Kudos to Moebius

I have a Emco Unimat 3 that I got second hand a while ago. It was used but came as a kit with the drill/mill attachment and a whole heap of additional stuff that made the deal worthwhile. I di spend some time cleaning it up and fitting new headstock bearings and setting up a new workstation for it. I am real happy with it and in reality I think it is a step up from the Proxon and may even nudge ahead of the Sherline but unfortunately the Emco brand is no longer so you can only get second hand. A lot of the DNA from Unimat 3 can be found in the likes of the small Sieg lathes (and copies) which are another avenue to look at

Thanks Jim. I have done it the other way a lot of times and it is painful masking up around the gas tank so this time I reversed the order. Much more better

Worked on the interior to get it ready to fit up. The combination of colours has worked out. The green body colour for the dash, dark green which is carried over from the motor and running gear and the off white as a contrast. Not seen here is the back side of the fire wall which is pleated and finished in off white. The carpets a flat dark green. The hood liner is off white too. I went to fit the interior into the body and it does not fit. OOPs. Lets read the instructions - looks like the rear inner fenders for the high boy version are fitted AFTER the interior is fitted. Oh dear. Well in for a penny. in for a pound and hoping I would not stuff up the top chop, I wedged it in there by spreading the body apart more than I thought it would go and in it popped. Yahoo!! Now that it is in there you can hardly see it coz of the chop. I need the body ready to fit the chassis for the next step of sorting the motor placement. Thanks for looking

People may not respond but I see you have had a numbers of views. Not everyone knows about the like button or are surfers who have not joined up to the forum. I know I was one of the surfers for a while before I joined. Post em and we will LOOK.

I have the induction set up ready to be installed onto the motor. I have installed .4mm nylon fishing line for the fuel lines to the carbs. I have also made up a small fuel manifold and have "chromed" it. A shot of the motor assembled and waiting for the exhaust manifolds to be fitted. While I am at it I took the opportunity to test fit the motor into the chassis. All is not well. The motor is too far forward and there is not enough space for the radiator and fan. I will need to remake the motor mounts to get the motor back a bit. And that leads to fit issues elsewhere. The joys of monkeying around with non-stock kit parts - and this is what keeps the hobby interesting The body is on its nose waiting for the glue to dry after fitting the windscreen Thanks for looking

Thanks for the conffirmation David

I think I got my answer here

This installment shows the dash panel painted with SMS ally and clear coated. Did a body colour seal coat on my masking and looks OK. Other side of pix is underside shot of the chassis with the gas tank shot with the same ally paint. Now for a detail session with the dash panel and the door cards A conundrum I have is with the body - the chrome detail around the windows and wheel arches is very fine and I am frightened that the separation line for the foiling will be lost. Has anyone scribed along these lines and to what success.

Nice cleanly built model

Cool build Russell

I have had issues with clear eating into the colour below and messing up the paint. Also had ghosting, the worst being on chopped tops where you can still see the stretch line on the roof. I believe that silver or gold metallic paint can help here like blocking bleeding of dyes from coloured plastic. I have had some success with resting of a week or so between colour and clear coating. A modeling friend went as far as only applying a coat of paint to his model each weekend when he was at home. Took ages to paint but the effort was worth it as it is one of the best paint jobs I have seen.

Yup done that too - but thought I would give the base colour a try to see how it goes.

Thanks Jim. Yup the masking wasn't too bad - just tedious. It is not one of the jobs I love to do. I found from somewhere here a trick to lay down a coat of the unlaying colour to seal the masking and to decrease the likelyhood of bleed through. We shall see how this goes as I have masked off the dash panel and layed down some silver which is a greater contrast colour to the red