Smoke Wagon

My guess is that a side mounted spare doesn’t lend itself gracefully to custom culture and from a practical standpoint blocks a lot of access to the bed from the side step in front of the driver side rear fender. It does look good on a stock pickup though, and one advantage is that you don’t have to crawl under the truck to retrieve it. As for mounting, was the round stock welded directly to the bedside?

Thanks for the tip Greg. Beautiful clean work there. I’ll have to do that from now on, what I did on this one was glue styrene pegs to the bed and tailgate for the chains to mount onto.

Some of these cheap spray cans work out pretty decent. If they didn’t then I wouldn’t have started this thread lol.

I don’t mean to sound rude or insensitive to your guys’ situations with Rustoleum, I get it. A few cans I bought turned out to be lame ducks as well. If you guys remember the color and finish (flat, satin, semigloss, gloss) of the cans came out super runny, the ones that remained tacky for days on end, or the nozzle not working at all, then it would be pretty helpful for the list of bad paints to include that within your posts, the bad paint list’s purpose will be to help others (mainly beginners and kids (who can become easily discouraged by bad experiences while modeling)) from having to experiment with bad paint formulas.

Sorry for gettin’ ya started Mike lol. Some of their colors are just stinkers, and some are reliably decent.

I agree, it’s one of the good ones, goes on great and is durable afterwards.

I’d hope so, but I tried 3 different cans. I just don’t think Nutmeg is a good one.

With the BRAT finished up and done, there was about a square inch of bare space on my work bench, so I figured I’d remedy that and start another project while working on the other ones. Jokes aside, my intention with multiple projects is to not get burned out focusing on just one. This kit was the Trophy Series reissue that came with the Wildkat decals and mini box. This is a great kit despite its age, the only gripe I have is with the interior, but the frame, engine(s), and detailing under the bed floor more than make up for it. I chose to make it stock, but not a Deluxe, so I hallowed out the grille and took out the Deluxe grille teeth. The grille will be painted a warm white, and I’ll be using Goof-Off to get rid of the white wall pad printing on all of the tires. I modified the driver side rear fender to accept a side-mounted spare after I saw how good an image of it online looked. I also made some tailgate chains out of jewelry chain and electrical tape, we’ll see if those work out or not.

If the metal springs don’t want to stay in the holes, try putting a little bit of an inward bend on the metal springs, this will help them stay in the holes since they’ll want to bend in towards them.

Over this year while model building and inevitably painting said models, I’ve come to notice that not all Rustoleum 2X spray paints are the same (quality). Some colors just don’t perform that great, and others turn out pretty good. For instance, every time I’ve used Colonial Red, it’s always dried into a durable, glossy and uniform finish. Whereas almost every time I’ve used Nutmeg (satin), the paint doesn’t mix well in the can and comes out very runny, doesn’t like to adhere to raised surfaces, and will remain tacky for days on end. (disclaimer, all parts I painted with Nutmeg had a coat of Rustoleum primer to begin with, this wasn’t just paint directly onto bare plastic. And I’ve tried Nutmeg multiple times, all similar results.) Long rambling aside, I’m starting this topic with the intention of us brainstorming and experimenting (or speaking from experience) to form a list of which Rustoleum 2X spray paints work well, and a list of those that don’t. Once the 2 lists are comprehensive enough, we can post them in the modeling tips section.

My washing machine went out today, but after I cracked it open and removed the nastiest wads of hair, dirt, plastic, and grime from the drain filter, it’s up and running perfectly. And I popped off the plastic trim pieces and dispenser tray and gave the ol’ girl a much needed cleaning and wipe down: A useful tip for anyone interested, if your drain filter gets clogged and you’ve got your shop-vac handy, do what I did and vacuum up the water that comes out from behind the large thumb screw as you untwist it, takes a minute but you won’t be scrambling around trying to find towels while your washing machine pees nasty water out onto the floor.

I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I hope her partner recovers and that justice is brought swiftly to who did this. May she rest in peace.

Nice place Steve. An address plaque tied into the landscape via rock face always comes out nice IMO. Looks like you and your family had a lot of fun in the snow Anton. I figured I’d make a snowman before it all turns into slush.

When I got my copy of this kit and mocked it up, it reminded me of that scene from Are We There Yet? when the Navigator received replacement wheels and tires: Needless to say, your 3D printed wheels and tires are a lot better fit that the kit’s parts.

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This is starting to get off topic, but what the heck, I’ll throw my 2 cents in regarding the Mach E. You can slather lipstick on a pig all you want, but you won’t be able to convince me to pucker up and kiss it.

Nice!

I wish you a speedy recovery.

My condolences to your retinas.

Hehehe, I plan on keeping this one. Although, these ‘92-‘96 F-150s aren’t hard to find over in the pacific northwest if you and/or your son are in the market. I bought my ‘94 earlier this year for $5,500, has 130,000 miles on the odo, 4x4, and the 5.0 V8. My advice if you’re looking for one is to try and find one with the dual fuel tanks. You’ll get twice the driving range. Another thing, ask the seller if the radius arm bushings have been replaced (those are a pain to do) and see if the third brake light lens on the back of the cab isn’t broken (Ford stopped making replacements a few years ago). Starting in ‘94, all the half-tons came with driver side airbags standard.

If you’re building it as a stock Lightning, keep in mind the tires in the kit are a little bit under-sized. I haven’t found a good replacement, but if you don’t mind doing some minor modifications to the Lightning rims, and the rear tires being a little bigger than the fronts, then the low profile tires that come in the Revell ‘65 Chevy stepside kit are an option that fill the wheel wells a little better.

I know you folks in the midwest and you neighbors to the north must be rolling your eyes at this and collectively saying, “Hold my beer, I’ll do you one better”, but last time this valley in particular got any real snow was in 2018. I think we got more than that this year and we’ve still got snowflakes scheduled on the ‘ol forecast this week. What’s funny is that it started snowing the day after Christmas. Anybody else having unexpected snowfall this winter? (This photo was after I knocked most of the snow off the vehicles and took the Dodge for a drive). Looks like I’ll have more time at the bench this week than I thought I would, not exactly the best weather for doin’ concrete.

I can start handing out business cards at towing yards.

The pickup is sitting just right now. Hope you had a good Christmas.

He really digged it. His first question was “Where did you get this?” His eyes lit up even more when I said, “I made it.”