Wild Child

Neat trailer Tony. Love the real vintage trailers too.

Thank you guys. I had an inquiry about the Ed Roth figure. The older Road Agent kits included this figure, and I think one of the other older kits may have had another one in it also (perhaps the Surfite). Review the outside boxes for this info.

Very nice car, like the color. I always enjoy looking at the dirt track full body cars. My dad raced circle track cars from the early 1950's to 1970. I built models of his 6 cars, and my favorites were his '55 Pontiac and his '64 GTO. I should get around to posting them someday. Nice Ford though!

Over the last month or so I posted several of my large scale 1/28 Revell WW1 planes, including 4 planes that were custom built. This is one of my favorites, the Fokker D VII. Many believe this was the best all around fighter of WW1, and was the only German plane that the Allies insisted on being turned over to them at wars end (to be used by various countries for years after the war). This Fokker was fun to build, and went together beautifully. The lozenge camouflage was really tuff to do on this larger scale to get everything to line up well. The personal graphics were hand applied. The pilot I changed by modifying his arm to hold a walking stick, which Anthony Fokker gave many pilots of the era and was made out of actual airplane propellers. Overall, I think it came out well.

Wow, thank you everyone for your positive comments. Many of us have grown up around these cars, both real and toy. Mike, I too love everything related to Ed's cars and the Rat Fink memorabilia. Hope to see more from all the Rat Finks out there, including your cars too!

As a long time Show Rods fan, I have always loved the cool cars built by Ed Roth, George Barris, Dean Jefferies and others. Having built a few Ed Roth cars, and a couple that were in the works, I wanted to come up with a cool way to display them all together in my curio cabinet. I wanted it to be compact, easy to set up and tear down, and easy to transport. This is what I came up with. The store front is a replica of the front showroom area of his mid sixties shop. It is fairly accurate with only a couple upgrades and is based on a couple old black and white partial pics I was able to find. I first drew up plans, then built a bass wood framework which I covered in poster board and applied brick to. I hand made the display windows, framed them with channel material, and added the windows. The roof is hand made and s like the cheap shingles used by Ed, the yellow wood sign backboards were hand cut, and the signs were also hand made. Overall I think it came out pretty nice and serves as the perfect backdrop for his cool customs. The custom cars include the Beatnik Bandit, the Road Agent, the Surfite, the Mail Box trike, Ed's '56 Ford shop truck.,and a customers cool T-Bucket. I also have an Outlaw rod in the works to add in later. The cars are all nicely detailed and feature high gloss paint finishes. The Ford truck also features a highly detailed engine with wires, lines and hoses as well as a cool custom painted and pinstriped dash, and a hand finished wood grain bed. I plan to post the Ford truck at a latter date and fill everyone in on the difficulties associated with doing this build. All in all, I am happy with this multi-car build. Plus, it looks great in my curio! T

Thanks Carl.

Thanks Mike, I appreciate the input. With the rising costs of all these kits nowadays, and the rarity of stuff we used to see all over, I think more and more people will be re-doing old kits or buying partially done old kits more often. At the big Detroit show this weekend, I was amazed at the prices of old beat up cars in baggies now that we used to buy for a couple bucks as parts cars. At least some of these shows are still around, so there are still deals to be had if you look hard enough. Redo some of the old cars or kits laying around before winter is over. Then it is time to play with the full size cars!

Nice convertible. Cool color choice.

Very cool. Kind-of Mad Max meets IMSA with a bit more horsepower. Neat.

Thanks Craig. I have always liked nice paint jobs. They really set the tone for the rest of the car. Just takes a bit of effort sometimes.

Thanks for the kind remarks. These cars were just a couple previously built, broken cars when purchased. McEwen's car I could not even get the body apart, so I had to paint and assemble as it was. Always glad to salvage old cars.

Beautiful car Scott. The '71-3 Vega's have always been one of my favorite '70's Funny's. I have several 1/25, but never did one of the big-ons.

Thanks guys. It is always fun doing custom builds, though most of mine are Funny Cars and customs.

This is one more I had done. I was experimenting with the undertone effect using more pronounced colors. I have always loved the Triplanes,...a very cool era. Also, you will note the large Iron Cross logo on the tail section. Early on, the German Triplanes were being shot at by friendly fire because their own troops thought they were British Sopwith Triplanes (which were already out). This was hopefully going to aid in identification. This plane was from one of a couple air units (Jasta 36) who tried this.

Thanks Mark. By the way, is the Nova in your pic yours by chance? Nice car.

Yes, this Jasta 11 Triplane has the most yellow, but the Jasta 27 planes had yellow tails, nose, struts and wheels too. As you said, why did Homco make theirs all yellow? That's all right, always good to repaint it any combination you like. Cool pic though.

Thanks guys for the kind comments. Alan, I believe you are spot on about the old style photography being light and slightly washed out, due of course to both old reproduction photos as well as the quality of old style pictures. The darker streaks I observed in old pics probably were even darker in real life. I tried this paint finish (which still looks correct to most people) because of it's visual pop when on display. The 1st plane I like most, pattern-wise. The 2nd one I put the pattern on thicker for experimentation purposes, but the 1st is still best. Glad you liked them. Also, I like the old Homco metal planes, and had mine well before I even had the WW1 model planes. I love the re-finished planes in more correct colors. Always hated the Triplane in yellow!

Recently I have posted my custom build 1/28 WW1 planes, but I thought I would share my very first builds, several Fokker Dr1's. They all have full rigging, custom made aluminum exhaust and carefully applied unit markings. For quick reference without getting into all the pilots and bases, the black/white stripped tails are Jasta 6 planes, the yellow tail is Jasta 27, the Black/White fuselage plane is Jasta 11, and of course Richtofen's red Jasta 11 plane. Now, the true purist will note that the original Triplanes used a poorly applied wash effect to the fabric. While this looks great on a nicely built model on an open shelf or a table, I ran into a weird issue. My 1/28 planes are displayed in a non-lit wood curio. The wash paint effect looked nice enough in the light, but terrible in the curio. The lack of bright lighting made the planes all look like blah looking light tan. There was no 'POP', no contrast. I like displays, and this just did'nt cut the mustard. After looking through dozens of old black and white pics, it was obvious many of these had much darker streak effects that made the planes look cool in the pics. I decided to highlight these planes with more pronounced accents. I first used a multiple tan, brown and khaki base, then hand applied a bit more streaky camouflage scheme in the angles seen in the pics. This effect allowed the paint to stand out much more in a poorer lit environment, and really makes them stand out with all the other planes on display. The various unit and personal markings now really stand out too. I know, not exactly correct, but..... What are your thoughts...thumbs up or thumbs down? ALSO- The last pic is an old set of the large size Homco cast iron biplanes from the early 1970's. I bead blasted them and repainted them in realistic looking paint schemes. Looks cool on the wall above the curio!

Great build. I love the old bi-planes, especially the more uncommon ones. Colors look nice.

Awesome build. Love cool Hot Rods,.......go big.

Thanks DA. The decals were especially tuff. Because they are made for the slightly longer Comp Resins bodies, the long ones have to be carefully cut down and sliced together so each piece exactly matched. But I love these two cars, so it was worth the work.

Years ago, I purchased these two 1970/71 Prudhomme and McEwen dragsters as previously built and broken apart parts cars in a box. The original kits made a few years ago were decent, but used inaccurate decals due to licensing rights. I was able to get these two classics apart, rebuild them, and redo them. I felt it was a worthwhile project because I did not know if these would ever be made again. I used some misc decals along with a lot of careful hand painting to come up with proper logo's to look like some original pics I came up with. Keep in mind there are often multiple logo versions in any one year. I believe these are early car logo's, 1970. I hand painted some of the cowl logo's, the helmets, and the Hot Wheels logo's. The engines have been nicely detailed, and the paint has a nice finish. As a side note, Atlantis has re-issued these kits again, but with more accurate decals representing slightly later paint schemes. I was just glad I was able to salvage these.

Ken, those are very sharp planes, especially the Avro floatplane. I started on the 1/28 because I always wanted to do a large size Fokker Dr1, then bought the rest. Afterwards I wanted more, but as with my car models (most of what I do), I like to stick with one scale for display purposes. I never intended to do dozens of the early planes, though I love them. That is when I decided to do some custom builds. I posted the other custom build planes elsewhere on here (Fokker D2, Nieuport 16 and Hanriot HD2). That said, I did look at the site you mentioned. Amazing builds, and great reference material. Thanks for the info, and for showing your sharp planes.

Ken, that looks great! I like the paint scheme. I do not recall seeing this kit until you mentioned it. Because Revell only made 4 planes originally, I was forced to make my own planes once I got hooked on the big 1/28 scale. Sometimes I wish I had went with the 1/48 scale, or something smaller, just so I had more variety. But then I look at these bigger ones, and I can only say....awesome. I did make two other 1/28 Scale posts of the other 3 custom builds I did. Let me know what you think. Thanks again.