Big_John

I have one of those kits and I've been thinking of building it so it looks like the LO23 Darts that just came off the car carrier. Gray primer(?) with black gel coated fenders. This is Bill Bagshaw's Red Light Bandit before paint.

I've never fooled around with any of the Barry Grant carbs. These carbs look like they have accelerator pumps on all the carbs and a mechanical linkage as I think the Rochester setup did. The Mopar setup was venturi vacuum controlled with no accelerator pumps on the outboard carbs. The Corvette Tri-Power Holley setup was very similar. I've looked into the EFI for a couple cars and I decided the learning curve was just a tad too steep for me. Carbs are just simpler and for a car with limited use, the "bang for the buck" just isn't there for me. Of course, I've been called crazy for liking my Carter Thermoquads LOL! The cam failures are perplexing. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the failures. It seems like it isn't just one company. My personal thoughts are that all these cam grinders are buying offshore built cores and I'll even bet that they are coming from the same place. I don't think they have the hardening correct. I have a solid lifter Isky cam for the 273 I'm building for my Barracuda and I'm just hoping that it works out ok. So '32 Ford? A '32 Highboy was on my bucket list for a long time... I seem to have gotten over it, but I still lust over them when I see one I like.

How long? Geez.. I never kept track. Some car bodies go together easier than others. The chassis was pretty much the same for each one and I have a jig that makes things much easier. For the car body, I would either use a kit or eBay often has kit bodies for sale that saves a few bucks. My advice is go find something cheap to build and just do it! The worst that can happen is you'll screw it up... and even then, so what? Put it together and go have some fun. The building technique is slightly different than a conventional model.. Remember that this will be hurtling down the track. I use E-6000 glue or Shoe-Goo to reinforce all the bumpers/grilles etc. I also found that side windows were a necessity to keep the air out. If you'll notice, all the bodies I built have an extended spoiler in the front. That keeps the air out from under the car... The local track had a problem if the guide even lifted slightly. The answer for most was to add guide weight, but this solved the issue for the cars I built without adding weight. Leave off things like side mirrors or anything that can come off easily with handling. I like to just fill in the headlights with Testor's clear glue in place of the lenses. Painting is always the biggest challenge.. But take it slow and don't get too crazy with it at first. I liked using Tamiya acrylic paints with an airbrush, but the airbrush is another investment (I've had one for years) and more learning curve, so stay with the spray cans and just take your time. Clear over the decals, but don't use the Future floor coat as a clear. That looks fantastic on models, but the first time someone picks it your slot car with alcohol or Coleman fuel on their hands, the finish is shot. I learned the hard way on that one. If you want, look at some of the pre-made chassis. I built a car for a guy with a Parma drag chassis and a JK "mini brute" motor. He sold it (he sells and trades everything) and the guy that has it now tells me it is the most consistent car he owns. I really encourage you to try... What's the worst that will happen? It adds another dimension to your slot car hobby. I always enjoyed the building, probably more than the racing!

Mmmm.... Pie... But back to the subject.... I've owned a couple cars with the 440 6bbl setup (Plymouths were 6bbl, Dodge was Six Pack) and worked on a few others. I put ~75K miles on my A12 Roadrunner back when they were just cars. That included back and forth to work and the grocery store etc. I drag raced the other one. The setup is simplicity at its best. You run around on the center Holley 2300 2bbl carb until you hit the gas and the end carbs opened up. The secret to making them run was staying simple and not straying too far from the factory setup. The 2300 Holley was about as complicated as an anvil... In fact that carb was used (just one LOL) on quite a few economy type cars in the 60's. So, IMHO, while the FI is nice, but really it overcomplicates things. Yea, you can tune and match fuel curves and all that stuff, but the simplicity of the carbs wins out for me.... Then again, I'm an analog type old guy... This pic was from the late 70's.. Sold this car after I got married the first time. In hindsight, it would have cheaper to stay racing. It sits behind the guy's house and I'm told it the frame and floor is completely rusted away. No, it was not a real A12 or 440-6bbl car. Basically stock engine with headers and a different cam, this car would do 11.70s in this trim. This one was a real A12 and a friend owns it now. This car got driven everywhere! My friend drives it a lot now too.

This happened to my Ford Edge at the car wash... It's a minor annoyance, not really "irking" me... but it happened. $25 will buy a used one on eBay or I might try 3D printing one. My son stopped over to borrow my truck and mentioned he had to replace one on his Edge from the same thing happening. His Edge is a year older with a different grille or I would have "borrowed" his just to have some fun.

Metrologist? You mean you predict the weather? Just kidding... I was partners in a calibration lab before I retired. Yes, we even owned a CMM, although I never spent enough time with it to get proficient.

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I was curious... So I looked at the MSDS and it's mostly made from vinyl acetate. That should dissolve in isopropyl alcohol without too much drama.

A couple more... This was kind of Plain Jane with no decals, but I really liked how it came out. This was one of my favorites. This was a real pain... A friend wanted this and gave me an old kit. The decals were too brittle to use and I couldn't save them so I bought a NASCAR decal set and improvised. He was real happy with it, but I said "never again" with people supplying the model.

I built this one for myself, but only ran it once before selling it to a guy that wanted it bad enough to pay the price. I told him that I had special permission from Mr Spacely to use his business name on the car... and he believed me. I wish I had taken more pics of this... It turned out really nice. Another attempt at making decals. And this last one involved no modeling skills... But it was done as a challenge that has way too long a story to type out... It involved using junk that was sitting around along with a toy ice cream truck. This thing sits in the case at the track and gets dragged out (pun intended) for a lot of laughs. It took a lot of tweaking to get it to go down the track every time... but it is always good for laughs, especially when things get too serious... And, yes, the cone on top lights up!

I built this as a give away for the track for a big drag race they were hosting. A little girl won it! Complete build with chassis, this was my first foray into printing decals. This Nova was a tough one... I have a lot of work trying to get front fenders right. I screwed up the paint 3 or 4 times and got annoyed an painted it flat black. It actually turned out better... Looking like a primered street racer. That big scoop was an issue too... At speed (and this was a fast one) the air would catch the scoop and lift the car out of the slot. I ended up placing a piece of clear lexan in the opening and that cured it.

Another complete build. Complete build... This was tough to do the decals. The pic doesn't do this one justice. Another complete build. I used some scrap vinyl to accent the hood. Biggest problem with this one was the guy had started to build it and tried to dip coat the body. The oil (or whatever) was soaked up by the plastic and it was tough to get paint to stick and not fisheye.

Back when I was a kid, I raced slot cars for fun. That ended when the tracks started closing (late 60's) and my interests were changing as I got older. Fast forward about 25 years and I got back into it again with my kids. That track closed and my kids were growing up so I stopped again. Fast forward another 20 years and a track opened near me and I got into it again... They had a drag strip too and I built a couple cars and suddenly I had some guys wanting me to build them cars. Here's a few. They all were either cars I built to order or some I built to sell. I never seemed to get around to building one for myself... and when I did, someone would make me an offer that was hard to turn down. This one was done during the Covid nonsense. I did the chassis for this too, but don't have a good pic of the completed car. I did the interior/roll cage etc. and cut it all to fit the chassis. This one was a complete build. The white plastic looked pretty good and rather than paint it, I just decaled and cleared it.

Took me a couple tries and I finally gave up trying to paint the stripes. The car is painted with Tamiya white acrylic and I bought a sample of red vinyl on eBay and cut the stripes by hand. The vinyl was meant for wrapping cars and the sample just cost me just a couple bucks. Since then, I bought my wife a Cricut machine and I notice some of the vinyl she buys for it is a little thinner, so if I had to do it over, I'd look at using that vinyl. I kind of like that 1/32 size though and have thought about doing more in that scale.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I recognized them right away. Appliance wheels, popular in the 70's/80's. One of the first, if not the first, imported (Japan) aftermarket wheels. Decent quality with good prices. The speed shop I used to help out in sold a bunch of them. I think they went out of business in the early 90's.

Thank you. The Barracuda is an automatic. I looked for one for many years. When one would come up, it was either too rough or the timing was bad. I had actually given up on finding one. It belonged to a friend and I had told him "if you ever want to sell it". He called 6 years ago and I didn't hesitate. This one is an original California car and it's loaded with everything except A/C. I have some work on the interior though... The mice had gotten to it and destroyed the headliner and carpet. I pulled everything out and what couldn't be cleaned was replaced. It's not perfect, but it's really a fun car to drive. I built a 1/32 Monogram model of it and 3d printed some Rally wheels to match the ones on my car. The 1/25 AMT version for 1965 is $$$$, so this one is good.

I have posted pics of my old cars in this thread. I haven't done too many builds just yet, but I'm working on it!

I've got a few cars for fun. My '70 Chrysler 300 parked next to my '65 300L. This was at the Syracuse Nationals in 2023. I also have a '65 Formula S Barracuda. Another pic from the Syracuse Nationals, this time in 2021.

OK, the so the new guy digs up an old thread... Drives everybody a little nuts.. Right? Been an admin on a couple forums and used to see this regularly. But here I am... LOL! I was wondering if anything came of this. One of my real cars is a '70 300 convertible and I'd love to build a model of it. I have a work in process '70 300 Hurst that I 3D printed but haven't found a good 70 300. I did buy a STL file of a '70 300 hardtop, but it wasn't anything that would print very well. The WIP 300 Hurst. It still needs some detailing and clear coat, but it's coming along. And the real car...

Thanks for the welcome!

Hi everyone! I have been getting back into building model cars after many, many years. It's a funny story how this happened.. I got back into slot car racing when a local track opened. At their shop is a drag strip and that lead me into building a couple drag slot cars and that lead me into building a few cars for other guys, which meant building the bodies too. That got me back looking at model cars and really appreciating things like acrylic paints and super glue that weren't available back in the 60's. I don't build slot cars for others too much anymore. It just wasn't what I wanted to do. But the model car bug did hit me again... I also got into 3D printing, then purchased a resin printer and got into printing a couple cars and that brings it all together. I have my "real" cars too... and of course that was originally fueled by my model car interests from when I was a kid. I did a lot with them.. some drag racing and then did some car shows. Now I do an occasional show and some cruise nights. One of the things I'm looking to do is replicate the cars I have along with some that I used to have. So, here I am... Back to building model cars... Kind of a good place for me to be.