Nolan

50+ years ago, I built the 1933 Willys Malco gasser. Evidently my memory isn’t what it used to be, or maybe I was just more accepting as a teenager, because I remember it being pretty cool. So I picked up the AMT Willys Van kit and thought I’d do something a little different and build the panel wagon instead of the coupe. Turns out 90 per cent of the kit is the coupe with a panel wagon body. The flip front end didn’t fit the body very well. To get the bottom of the front end to fit tighter to the body, I warmed it up and then pinched it in at junction between the fenders and side panels. Once it cooled I checked the fit and then repeated until it fit better. There wasn’t much lip for the front end to rest on the body, so I used some Evergreen .010 and .005 sheet to extend the lip and carved a deeper recess into the front end to match. I still have a little clean up to do with the back edge of the front end, but it’s much better. I replaced the non-functional hinge pins with some Evergreen .090” tube and then re-enforced the frame rails with some more Evergreen sheet (after I broke the driver’s side frame horn off, oopsie!) I don’t remember anything mounting to the two half moon scallops in the frame right behind the front cross member, I think I’ll fill those in to beef up the front of the frame some more. I cut another piece of the .090” tube to fit between the frame tubes and taped the frame, interior, body and front end together. Then ran a heavy pin through all 3 pieces of tubing and glued the middle tube to the front end and let everything set until the glue set up. Then I re-enforced all three tubes with some sprue goo. I cut out the floor pan to make room for the transmission and 3D printed a transmission tunnel after failing to make one out of sheet plastic. I also made some new motor mounts to let the motor set lower in the frame and move the engine slightly forward so it wasn’t touching the firewall. With the motor moved forward the kit cross member/drive shaft mount(?) has a gap to the transmission, so I will be move it slightly rearward to become a drive shaft hoop for the longer driveshaft. I made a transmission mount out of some more .090” tube and sheet styrene. I may remake the transmission mount out of some smaller diameter tube or rod, as the .090" tube looks a little out of scale. Lots more work to do, so more to come later. Nolan

Wow! I've seen plate glass that wasn't as smooth and flat as that paint! The vinyl top is literally icing on the cake. Nolan

Finally finished the Cobra. The windshield was nearly a complete disaster (see the WIP thread https://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/196261-revell-shelby-427-cobra-sc-kit-14533/) The windshield frame was damaged straight out of the box and had a lot of flash. I stripped the chrome and smoothed up the frame, then painted it with Revell spray Chrome. The Revell chrome held up fairly well to all the handling involved in getting the windshield glued to the frame. In hindsight, I should have mounted the frame to the body and THEN installed the windshield, instead of vice versa. I used VMS Transpla Fix to glue the windshield to the frame. Pretty easy to work with and didn't immediately turn the chrome paint to aluminum paint! And as the title says "Under Glass" Nolan

Wow, nice work! 2024 was a very productive year. Love the Der Beetle Bug! I had all three, back in the day. I almost picked up a Der Volk Van at the NNL West, "Ein Beach Bunny Blitzen Box!" Nolan

It worked. I forget which was the roughest grit or the smoothest, but I remember going to the drug store and sampling the various brands....before buying! Squeeze out some and rub between finger and thumb, yup, plenty of grit in this one. Kids, what are you going to do with 'em? Nolan

I almost had the Cobra ready to take to the NNL West show last weekend, but I could not get the windshield to co-operate. First problem was getting the windshield to stay in the frame. Second problem was how to get the windshield frame mounted to the body, but was leery of just super gluing it to the body. Plus the chrome had a lot of flash and one of the wing(?) tabs was broken off. I stripped the chrome and got rid of the remaining wing mounts and smoothed out the flash. I glued some very thin strips of .01 Evergreen sheet to the inside bottom of the frame spaced just the thickness of the glass back from the wipers. Then I glued more strips to the sides of the frame and roughed them to the shape of the uprights. I popped the glass into the frame and located the gap between the sun visors for another piece of Evergreen. With all the pieces glued into place, the windshield just pops into place and is locked in pretty solid. To mount the windshield frame to the body, I taped the empty frame into place over the two little nubs on the cowl and drilled a tiny pilot hole through the little trough between each wiper arm, wiper shaft, and the frame, and through the body. Then using gradually larger drill bits worked up to the diameter of some Evergreen rod I had on hand. I smoothed up the frame and painted it with Revell Chrome. I mounted the chassis to the base of a display case with 40 gauge wire wrap wire over each tire and just twisted together underneath the case. Easy to dismount and re-mount to/from the case. The body and interior mount to the frame pretty easily, by inserting the interior into the body and just slipping the nose over the radiator ducts, wiggle everything into it's happy place and then the back of the body snaps over the tab at the rear of the frame. Hopefully my next post will be under glass! Nolan

Howdy, I went to the NNL West, my first model car show in 50+ years. Big difference from the shows back in the day in western Kansas! I took a couple of my motorcycle models, the Harley FXST Springer from my WIP and Under Glass threads and my Kawasaki Mach III 500 H1E. It was a great show, made a couple of new friends, scored some old kits I had been looking for, saw many, many fabulous models. The paint jobs on so many of them made me glad I put my junk on the back row of tables! If you saw an old, bald, tall, greybeard....oh wait, that describes 90% of the attendees! I was the one in a Cletus McFarland flannel. 😁 Nolan

Somebody might be able to 3D print tires, I'm experimenting with soft resin printed tires for some 1/12 and 1/9 scale Harleys I want to build. I've gotten several of the Testors Lincoln Mint 1/9 scale kits from fleabay for cheap that were missing the tires. I don't know if it's because the boxes have end flaps and the tires are getting lost over the years of storage or if they were just missing from the kits from the start. Keep an eye on fleabay, I see tires and parts for some of the big 1/6 scale Tamiya and Testors kits surface occasionally. This looks like a tire for one of the 1/6 Tamiya Hondas. https://www.ebay.com/itm/186636404065 This ebay store (Japan) has parts for the Tamiya 1/6 kits for sale. https://www.ebay.com/str/japanitemstore?_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l170197 My partial success at printing tires and mag wheels for the Revell 1/8 scale Sportster that I'm intermittently working on. The two tires on the left are from the kit and the other two are my prints. Nolan

Nice slice, Corn Pop! I'm looking forward to seeing this finished. Nolan

My wish list would be for a '73 thru '75 El Camino Classic with chrome side trim. My next wish would be a 1997 thru 2004 Dodge Dakota, even in curbside like the Lindberg 1998 Dodge Dakota Sport. A regular cab would also be nice. Nolan

I had a slight change of plans with painting the stripes. My original plan was to paint the body Duplicolor Bright White, mask off the stripes and then paint the body Duplicolor Intense Blue Metallic. I did a test shot of the Blue and realized it would look like a metalflake Bass boat. I also didn't think I was up to getting the masking laid out straight because the edge would be right at the edge of the hood scoop. So painted the entire body Tamiya TS-19 Metallic Blue. I laid out the center line between the stripes and then cut a length of tape to the exact width of the decal sheet stripes. Then I cut the tape into small pieces and used them as guides for laying out the outer edges of the stripes with Nitto (?) vinyl tape. Then repeated for the other stripe. With the body wrapped up in yellow Frog tape, I airbrushed the edges of the tape with some Tamiya Clear in hopes of sealing the tape. I sprayed the stripes in Tamiya TS-27 Matt White, which covered the Blue very nicely. Unfortunately, in my excitement over the success of NO BLEED THRU! I forgot to take any photos. Oh, well. After baking the body for about 4 hours at 113 degrees, and then letting it sit for a couple of days, I knocked down the rough edges on the stripes, then laid on a couple coats of Duplicolor 1K clear. I'll let it cure for a couple more days, then wet sand and polish. Not perfect, but perfectly good enough as a learning process. Nolan

Nice, I like the black hood on the white car. Nolan

Nice job! That brings back a lot of memories. One of my high school buddies had a 40 Ford coupe and another had an early flathead V8 powered Ford Pickup. Both had that very distinctive Flathead V8 engine smell. None of our other beatermobiles had that engine odor or sound. Nolan

Thank you. Now I'm trying to decide whether to build the rigid framed chopped version of the Springer or build the semi-stock version of the Softtail Custom next. I say semi-stock because there is no such thing as a 'stock' Harley two days after a new Harley leaves the dealership, IF it even makes it off the showroom floor without something being changed. I picked up a couple of the Testor Lincoln Mint FXSTC Softtail Custom Kit #7205 on the cheap. Both kits are missing the tires.(?) I'm guessing because the flimsy boxes have end flaps, the tires are getting lost out the end flaps. Tires are pretty easy to 3D model and I found some flexible black resin that I want to try. Nolan

It's as finished as most projects get. There are a couple of things I wanted to try, but they can wait for another day, another project. Re-learning to the paint job took awhile and several baths in the stripper tank. Much harder to do the masking for a scale paint job than for a full size one. It came out looking pretty good for the first one in 50+ years. I still need to learn how to do teeny tiny pin striping, if that's even possible to do. Nolan Since it is titled Under Glass. This shows the wire tying the stand to the frame and the screws holding the stand to the case.

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words! My wife sent some of the photos to our daughter and for a minute, she thought I had gotten another motorcycle. I just noticed the laced leather clutch and brake lever covers in the last photo of my shovelhead. LOL! Another one of those things I thought were a good idea until I went for a ride and discovered how annoying the flappy laces were, whapping against my wrists. Nolan

As promised in my introduction. Here's some of my progress building this kit. Prices for complete unstarted kits for Harley motorcycles are getting pretty steep, so I started looking through the online sites. I found and bought 2 glue bombs to get enough useable parts to build the full kit. The first kit, the engine and springer were not salvageable, but the second kit had an untouched springer and engine. From prior experience with the Revell Sportster kit, I put the frame together on a jig to make sure it was straight. I put the engine cases, cylinders, heads, and intake together, then used a razor saw to straighten out and gap the fins. Once I had them looking better, I painted the engine and frame Rustoleum High Performance Gloss Black straight out of the spray can and ran a Molotow pen over the edges of the fins. I had decided on a black with red scallops paint job, so I painted the tank red with Rustoleum High Performance Red and masked off the tank and sprayed the black paint. Nice first try, but too busy and uneven. That’s when I discovered I needed a lot more practice masking and laying out the scallops. I stripped the paint with QCS Model Safe paint stripper and tried again. This time I tried the original pattern on one side and a wider pattern on the other side. I liked the wider pattern much better. So I prepped the tanks from the second kit and painted them in the wider pattern. I also painted the front fender with a scallop design. The rear fender proved to be much harder. I wanted to paint the same pattern I used on my ’73 Shovelhead, which proved easier said than done. This is me circa 1983(?) tooling down 680 in San Jose at about 70mph, cause I can't drive 55. 55mph makes me feel like I'm parked! I painted and stripped the rear fender 4 times before I just gave up and called it ‘good enough’. Once I had the designs painted, I color sanded them to knock off the rough edges, then sprayed a coat of Dupli-Color 1K Clear, baked it for a day and wet sanded the clear. I put on a second coat of clear and let it flow out for about 30 minutes and baked it for about 4 hours at 113 degrees. It was so smooth, I didn't polish it, just left it sit for a couple of days and waxed it. The kit handlebars were pretty goofy looking, so I got some measurements off the interwebs for a set of Flanders #3 Ape Hangers and 3D printed a set of two piece bars. I have used the Flanders #2 bars on a couple of bikes I've built and the #3 on one. The #3 bars looked killer, and were killer to my shoulders after about an hour on the road. I promptly went back to the #2 bars. I cut the handlebars off the kit risers and drilled them out for my printed two piece bars, but didn’t like the height. I modeled a set of the risers in various heights with separate clamps and printed them. I also modeled a set of drag bars, and the various Flanders #0,# 1, &# 2 bars. I liked the medium risers and #3 bars best. To avoid handling them after spraying them with Molotow chrome refill, I detailed the controls/handgrips and glued them to the handlebars, then masked off the controls and airbrushed them with the Molotow. The seat in the kit looked like it was about a foot thick and didn’t fit all that well, so I cut it down considerably until it fit better and painted it Tamiya Rubber Black. The kit springer actually has some spring suspension movement, as does the softail suspension, but the rear suspension sets the rear way too high, which I didn’t discover until after I had assembled it. I drilled and pinned it to limit the suspension travel to where it sat at the right height. I plan on building a chopped rigid framed version with an extended springer, so I modeled one using the dimensions off the kit springer. I’m working on modeling a factory Harley springer because the kit springer has some scaling issues. I’ll eventually print some scaled 4 inch over, 6 inch over, and maybe even an 8 inch over springer to see which I like best. I’ll probably run the extended front end with a set of drag bars on the short risers I’ve printed and will convert the glue bomb frame to a rigid with a bit more rake, or be lazy and just build the rake into the springer bottom and top trees. I mean who cares if the thing would handle like a wheelbarrow with that much rake in the triple trees? The rear fender struts didn’t fit very well so I had to do a lot of grinding and cutting on the frame and the struts. I ended up stripping the chrome off the struts and drilling them so I could pin them to the frame and fender. I cut the nuts off the struts, which were just round lumps and 3D printed new acorn nuts that would cover the front dowel pin hole. The rear dowel pins went through the turn signal mounting hole and I left those pins long to mount the shorted turn signal stalks. After gluing on the new acorn nuts, I painted the struts with Revell Chrome paint and left them to dry for about a week. The Revell is much more durable than the Molotow, but isn’t quite as bright. It is still very easy to damage with too much handling. The S&S air cleaner started out as one I downloaded from GrabCad, but eventually, I just started over and measured the air cleaner off my old Shovelhead and made a new model. I airbrushedit using Molotow Chrome refill. I liked using the kit stand during the build, but felt it was too tall for display. So I 3d printed a new shorter version of the stand and will attach it to the frame with some wire clamps. I included a couple of #4 clearance holes so I can bolt it to the base of a display case. The supplied tubing for the cables and hose was too soft for keeping it routed the way I wanted it. I slid some 26 gauge single strand wire through the black tubing so I could form them to shape and they would hold the shape and position. I had the wire from a spool left over from the old days of working on electronics that used point to point wiring wrapped around socketed posts that held the Integrated Circuit chips. Old timers will know the joy of trying to troubleshoot a large wire wrapped mainframe board with a short circuit or a loose ground clip. Younger folk, just be glad for modern printed circuit boards and surface mount chips! I just need to finish up the cabling, plumbing, and put a Kansas license plate on it. I also need to find a display case big enough to hold the thing. I'm still deciding if I want to try making either a decal or 3d print a new clutch derby cover with the Grateful Dead "Steal your Face" skull that my brother acid etched for my '73 shovelhead. I’ll post the finished model in the Under Glass Section. Nolan

Back in 1984 after an unfortunate meeting on my ’73 Shovelhead with a drunk driver, I bought a new Harley 883 Sportster to ride while I was rebuilding the Shovelhead. Fun bike, but a little slow. Sooo, 1200 kit, cams, pipe, carb, and then it was a lot more fun! Stock as a rock straight from San Mateo Harley. Not so stock anymore. Don't remember why I'm still running the ham can air cleaner in this photo. I put an S&S carb and air cleaner on it to go with the 1200 kit. (After looking at the measley 6 or 7 baffles on the Supertrapp muffler, I hadn't installed the 1200 kit yet, just the pipe. After the 1200 kit, it took 11 or 12 baffles to tune the pipe.) I wanted to build a model of it, but all the kits I could find were of the 5 speed, belt drive 1200 Sportster. So I snagged the cheapest one I could find on Fleabay. The Revell/Monogram XL 1200C Sportster kit# 85-7310 is rather disappointing, nothing is straight or level and lacks a lot of detail, the frame neck is way oversized and the kit fork stem fits like a hot dog in a hallway, so I shimmed it with Evergreen tubing. Sooo, 3D printer go! I printed the older style curved fender struts, printed a frame jig to get the frame at least somewhat straight. Lugs on the rear fender locate it to the fender struts. So, I laid a stripe of tape down the fender centerline, got the fender aligned with the frame and snipped off most of the right hand side fender strut. Then I located the new curved fender strut onto the stump of the old strut and glued it into place, along with a generous dollop of sprue goo. After it was firmly fixed in place I drilled and pinned the strut and fender with some Evergreen rod. Then tried to repeat the process on the left side, but had to do some more frame alignment work to get both sides aligned using a couple of drill bits through the locating pin holes. You can see some of the warp in the swing arm. I will eventually build a better swing arm and rear brake. The curved fender struts mount the shocks in a different location so I shortened the shocks by cutting a section out of the middle and re-enforcing them with some plastic rod. Next up was the Supertrapp pipe. I modeled one and did a quick print on my filament printer to check the fit. It was close, so I made a few changes and printed one on the resin printer. This kit has spoked wheels and my bike had mag wheels, so I modeled mags, front and back, and a chain drive to replace the belt and pulleys of the kit, and better handlebars and speedo. Of course then I found a Revell XLH 883 kit on Fleabay for $30, that was missing the tires, so I snagged it in case it’s mag wheels were better than mine and it has the correct seat. It’s a toss-up on the mag wheels, but the front forks on both kits are so lame, I had to print new forks, triple clamps, and brakes to go with the mags, handlebars and speedo. At this point I got bored with this kit and started a couple of car kits, but that's another story. I'll post back on this thread when I get motivated to work on this pile again. Nolan

I hear you! I gave up on the larger bottles. I use the dollar store mini tubes and then slip these precision micro-tips over the nozzle. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VVQKHDJ?th=1 The same company makes the Zap-A-Gap brand of mini tubes. The Zap-A-Gap don't seem to outgas (fog) as much, but I've only seen them in hobby shops. Nolan

Thank you. They are not for the faint of heart, and not the most comfortable to drive, but they will produce awesome levels of adrenaline. Building the kit is much more relaxing! Nolan

That looks like an Imai Art Harley-Davidson Street Fighter kit# 523437. According to Scalemates, it was also sold as an Imai FXS Springer Type kit# B-2150-2000 kit, a Revell Harley-Davidson FXS Springer Custom kit# 07975 https://www.scalemates.com/kits/imai-b-2150-harley-davidson-fxs-springer-type--911060/timeline I have the B-2150-2000 kit. I'm not sure what the rules are, but I can scan the instruction sheet. Nolan

One of my friends had a shop in Hayward, California building Cobra replicas and he let me test drive the shop Cobra a couple of times. Great friend, who built great cars (RIP Paul Bennett). After driving the shop car that ‘only’ had a ‘stock’ 427, I can see why Carrol Shelby had heart problems! Talk about adrenalin overdoses. Anyway, I’m almost finished with this 2023 Revell Shelby 427 Cobra S/C kit #14533. It’s a struggle for me to build a mostly stock kit, but I’m trying, and mostly succeeding…this time. Chassis detail painted and together with engine. The interior went together pretty nicely, but I almost stripped the seat belt decals off and used some aftermarket belts, but I’m trying to keep it mostly box stock. I’ll try putting some wash on them to knock down the shine. I installed most of the cooling system and finished prepping the body for paint. Only problem is no door cards. Mostly stock remember, no door cards, Mostly Stock Remember. Nevermind, I’m going to model and print some interior door panels. Ohh, much better. I’m ready to paint the center of the body DupliColor Dodge Bright White for the stripes, and the body DupliColor Dodge Intense Blue Metallic. Hey, Shelby worked for Dodge for awhile right? Plus, I’ve already got the paint for touch-up on my Bright White Dakota R/T’s. I’ve had pretty good results with the DupliColor 1K clear, so I plan to use that on top of the color. I’ll post back when I’ve finished the paint. Nolan

Nice build and photography! Gray Baskerville would have been happy to paste that first photo on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine! Nolan

Thank you. I'll try not to be too boring and post some work in progress stuff. At work, I've usually got about a dozen projects going at a time and tend to do the same with my hobbies. Short attention span? Squirrel? Shiny? I'll work on something until I get bored, or frustrated, or waiting for parts, paint to dry, etc... and I'll switch to a different project until..... I'm having to relearn some stuff, unlearn some old stuff, learn new materials. Back in the day, it was all rattle can paint and Testors bottle paint, toothpaste for polish, cutting/melting sprue for material. Now I got all kinds of new toys to play with air brushes, 3D printers, vinyl cutters, oh boy! Fortunately, I've got 20 years experience in SolidWorks CAD at work, so I signed up for a makers license for $99 a year, which actually gives me a head start at work because our company is usually a model year or 2 behind the latest SolidWorks release. Oh yeah, thanks for the warm welcome and thanks for all the great content! Just what I need, more ideas for more projects. LOL! Nolan

Thank you, thank you vury much! Nolan