PHPaul

I have a 1/64th cereal box diecast truck that I want to add to a diorama as part of a junk pile. It's a 30's Ford. I'm going to strip it and repaint with a lot of rust but I'd like to add dents and bent-up body work and maybe a few "rust holes". Can diecast be worked that way without breaking pieces off? If so, what's the best way to do it?

The longer I looked at the first version, the more the problems stood out. The metalflake paint was inappropriate for a working truck and (as is often the case) the flakes were way out of scale anyway. Also, there were bodywork problems on the tank, mostly a "glue burn" on the side skirt and I didn't like the domes. So, I built a new body, left off the domes and used thicker material for the skirts. My first attempt at paint was okay-ish until I tried to buff it. Not sure exactly what happened but even using a VERY light touch with a soft, dry cloth it rubbed right through the paint. I used buffable metalizer over a coat of gloss black. Might have been the enamel base coat vs. the acrylic top coat. So, stripped it, re-glazed the seams, wet-sanded and did the gloss black again, this time with a chrome acrylic vs. buffable. Then decals and a coat of acrylic clear gloss. Still can't hold a candle to the paint jobs I see here, but significantly better than the original. And that's my goal: Each build is an improvement in some way over the last one. Edit: Once again, pictures highlight areas that could use improvement. I faired the joint between the skirts and the tank too much. Should have left a shadow line I think.

VERY nicely done! Very convincing. The first car I owned on my own was a '62 Impala. It was a 4 door with a 6 cylinder and 3 on the tree which was disappointing at the time but probably wise, if you know what I mean. ? Mine was black with a red interior. You NAILED the interior color!

Got 'em and Thanks!

Do you have any detail pictures of the '49 Ford? I love that era of Fords. Might be a little biased, that's me with my Grandfather's Ford. Not sure what year the car is, the picture would be from 1951.

Sweet! I had a 1:1 '69 Nova SS. Only really cool car I've ever owned.

REALLY like the paint!

Unfortunately, HL is the ONLY hobby shop within reasonable driving distance of me and that one is 60 miles away. I was just there yesterday. The model section consists of both sides of one short aisle. Decent selection of plastic, didn't pay any attention to the diecast section as that's not my thing. Their selection of scratch building supplies is extremely limited. Some K&S brass sheet, tubing and rod in limited sizes and a paltry collection of Evergreen plastics. Tool selection is not much better. They do have a reasonable assortment of Testors and Model Master paints but overall, it's not really worth the trip. Used to have a really great Mom and Pop place about 20 miles away had a full display of K&S, Plastruct and Evergreen, models out the wazoo and pretty much anything you wanted in HO train stuff. Sadly, they closed up shop 4-5 years ago. Thank Goodness for online shopping.

Looking forward to watching this build!

"Built like a..."

We had a combination corn crib/equipment shed on the farm I grew up on. It's visible in the upper center of the home place picture. Decided I wanted one for the diorama, couldn't find anything even close in kit form so scratch built it from scale lumber. Just needs a little more weathering on the corrugated roofing. Oh...and an addition onto the diorama table so I have some place to put it...☺️

Step awaaaaaaaaaay from the crack pipe...

No direct experience, but I have some VERY tiny cog belts from scrapping old printers that might well work.

For years, I thought 9/16ths and 10mm wrenches had microscopic little legs and walked off on their own. Back when I was young and limber enough to crawl under cars, I had a dog that loved to "help" me. He had two favorite tricks. One was to catch me when I was wedged in a position I wasn't at all sure I could get out of and then give me an exceedingly thorough tongue bath. The other was much the same, except that he'd lug off a tool on his way out. Exceptionally smart dog, he knew precisely which tool I'd need next...

Yeah, me too...? I've got a corner of a chilly and often damp basement. The good news is that, like my garage, my wife won't go near it, so I don't have to worry about her "organizing" or "cleaning" it.

Yes, I wondered about the rigidity. Don't have a need for it right now, but I do keep a stock of brass tubing on hand. When I get around to trying it, I'll post up the results here. Assuming, of course, that it isn't a complete disaster..."8^0

Nice work! And I hear ya on hibernating. I've spent most of the Winter in the basement working on my farm diorama and associated builds.

Thank You, Francis. I'll have to try that. I'll need to mount my vise on the mill and get it squared up.

Wow! VERY nicely done! Question for my own learning: How did you cut the quarter rounds out of the .500 tubing? I can see that being a very useful trick.

Just finished reading the entire thread (waiting on Step 437 to cure before taking on Step 438. Scratch-building a structure in 1:64 using near-scale 2x4's is time consuming...) and laughed out loud several times. Great to see that a little humor is allowed. I've been on too many sites that were so straight-laced it made my teeth hurt. One of my personal mantras is "If you want to get better at something, hang out with people that ARE better at it." This is that kind of place. I'm in no danger of ever achieving Perfection, but my standard of Good Enough goes up a little with every build. Regarding pictures...I regret posting the picture of the milk hauler in the truck section. It REALLY pointed up the errors and how bad the silver metallic paint looks. Should have waited until I could find something to better simulate polished aluminum. Now I'm going to have to take it apart and start over...

Had to reverse the link (put the site designation on the end) to get it to work, but yup! Should have thought of that. Thanks!

I've seen several references to "polishing" models, either to restore the finish or as a final step to a new paint job. I scanned through the "Future" thread (and learned a lot about that product and it's uses in modeling) but didn't see anything specific about polishing the paint. So... Are we talking about applying a coat of wax, or using rubbing compound and actually rubbing/buffing out the paint? Is there a tutorial somewhere I'm missing about how to do this?

Things are progressing. Have done a LOT of filing-to-fit on various pieces. Thinking gloss black fenders, almond bodywork, chrome trim and still contemplating the interior. Initial thought was perhaps teal green upholstery, but need to see the colors next to each other to decide. Choice B would probably be a tan leather look. On a whim, decided to see how diecast/zamac responded to polishing. I'm pretty pleased, the picture doesn't really do it justice.

+1 on the Horror Fright/Wallaby Mart LED's. I tried one on a whim, and now have 4 in my wood shop, 2 over the heavy bench in the garage, 2 over the junk spare parts area in the garage, one over the lathe/mill in the basement, and 2 in the hobby room. Thinking I may replace the motley assortment of leftovers in the laundry area with another one.

I wondered if you could solder zamac. Might have to experiment with that a little. There's a problem with top-to-body fit issue that would be a lot easier to fix if it was assembled. Off to work on daughter's 1:1 Pontiac, I'll let y'all know what I wind up doing. Thanks for the information!