OldNYJim

I decided that it’s science experiment Sunday today - had a few new techniques I wanted to try and see if they worked. First, I’d never tried using 2 part epoxy for gauge glass so I messed with that for a while and then I got curious and wondered if I could mix a little candy paint into it to make some little colored-glass-looking knobs for tiny switches or shift knobs maybe: Not bad - I’m going to leave them to sit for a while and make sure the paint doesn’t affect how well the glue sets up before messing with this some more. Then, I tried using my scrapbook cutter as an etcher to make some little gauge faces...sprayed a light coat of flat black on some styrene sheet, and had the cutter ‘cut’ as lightly as possible with a pin rather than the blade. The first test was the lightest blade pressure and the third was the highest pressure...I wanna put a blob of epoxy over the good one and see how it looks!

I remembered that you had reviewed one of these kits recently but hadn’t taken the time to look it up to re-read it yet - you beat me to it! Thanks Tim! Appreciate the recommendation! Jim

Thanks bud! ❤️ Did the hood and trunk today: Next job on the body is to lay down a bunch of clear and then polish it out - got PLENTY to do yet but glad to have the body (almost) ready for clear!

I can already see myself ending up doing them all, like I can see myself doing all 6 of those MPC trikes too ??

I still agree ?

That’s pretty much what I figured the answer would be from reading this thread and googling pics of them, but I figured it was work asking in case one was a LOT better than the others for some reason. Thanks buddy!

So, as someone who would like to build one of the kits from this series, is there one that stands out in particular as being a better builder than the others? I don’t much mind WHICH of the series it is - I just feel like building a roundy-racer! Any recommendations before I pick one at random?

Well, the art for this series of reissues says “collect all 6” so it seems like that’s the plan. I hope so too - I’d particularly like the Black Max and Cobra myself!

A saw a news report a while back on someone who was planning to test (and eventually launch) a fleet of autonomous cabs on the streets of New York...but they figured out that because the sensors would stop a car if a pedestrian walked in front of it the New Yorkers of the future would pretty quickly just start wandering in front of cars on purpose knowing that the car would HAVE to stop because they’d trigger the sensor. Automatic always-right-of-way for everyone on foot! Of course, a real life New York driver is as likely to speed up to scare a pedestrian out of the way if they dare trying to cross the street in front of them as they are to slow down for them, so it could be a while before they can programme something to work well here ?

The Future will work as a good barrier coat for jobs like this...plus you can USUALLY then spray your clear of choice over the top so you can actually polish, if you want/need to. I’d be cautious of Future over Tamiya acrylics personally, I seemed to ALWAYS have it craze and crack on me if I laid it down too heavy, but it’s really useful as a kind of in-between coat to protect the paint underneath if you’re doing a bunch of masking or trying to bury something that might get hurt by subsequent coats

Wrap it up boys, case closed ???‍♂️

https://instagram.com/metalrys_chroming?igshid=1f0nq3bi4tyvi

Thanks buddy! Once the clear had dried a week or so I hand-drew some flames in a kinda Larry Watson seaweed style, scanned them into my cutter software and then redrew them for the other side and scanned them again to cut masks. There wasn’t really any need to draw them a second time (I can just flip it in my mask-cutting software and cut a perfect copy) - but I figured a builder in the 60s would probably have laid these out by hand and there would be some differences from side to side so I did it the needlessly complicated way instead. I tried to get it similar enough from side to side that it didn’t look weird...but different enough that you’d be able to notice a couple of changes if you were observant ?‍♂️? Of course, if I was braver I would’ve just foiled the body, drawn them on there and cut them with a blade...but I wasn’t super excited about redoing all that base color if I didn’t like it so I cheated some there ?‍♂️?. First up, one of the drawn out versions that has been scanned then redrawn by my cutter so I can figure out if I got the sizes right before cutting the mask: Then, mask cut and applied to the body: Then a silver base, followed by candy yellow, orange and red: And then a little highlight of white at the front: Then after a couple of hours to let the candies set up and some nervous unmasking... Still got the hood and trunk to flame, but it’s a start! I think it’ll look cool with those yellow wheels and the tan interior/roof color I’m going with: More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

I understand how the “photo” part of photo-etching is done - I’m trying to figure out if you can use a cut vinyl graphic as the resist instead. What would happen to make a “toxic mess”?

My wife surprised me with a couple of cool little add one for my Silhouette cutting machine today - a set of their pens and the collets that they sell so can mount a pen of your choice in the machine and have it draw instead of cut: I’m not totally sure what I can use the pens for yet - maybe have them draw patterned interiors on some kind of stickable fabric? I’d wanted the holders for a while though - I was wondering if I could mount a little scribing tool or similar in one of them and have my machine do a kind of low-budget engraving on metal or plastic. More experimenting awaits - but if anyone has any cool modelling ideas on what to use those pens for I’d be interested to hear it!

A little more on this one - laid out the lettering and flames which make up the biggest parts of the graphics: Then gave them a coat of black in the relevant spots and laid out some extra details: Then misted all THAT with some gunmetal silver in the relevant spots and pulled the masks off: Next up will be some candy colors over all this mess - It’s looking as bananas as I hoped it would though so far ?? More soon!

Interesting! Thank you so much for your feedback! Guess I need to get some material and enchant and try this out!

Ahhh...I figured that might be a joke but it was close enough to what I’ve seen on someone of the armor modeller sites that I couldn’t tell if it was or wasn’t ?

This sounds interesting - is that a specific example of a real thing that happened? Panzer tanks were slightly different depending on which workers made them?

I found that set on eBay from one of the Chinese sellers for a dollar shipped, or some ridiculous price like that. Took 2 months to get here but it did arrive and the quality is pretty good - plenty good enough for fishmouthing styrene rod! The red handled one is my most used one by far, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for all of them eventually ??

So, I’ve read about every topic I can find on here about DIY photoetch, and I’ve had an idea brewing in my mind for a while...and I guess I’d like to know from someone more knowledgable than me why it WOULDN’T work. I have a Silhouette scrapbook cutter here, and it occurred to me that I could maybe cut “masks” from signwriting vinyl, apply them to some brass/copper/aluminum sheet and use an appropriate etching fluid or acid to make my own metal parts Without going any further with my experiments, is my theory sound at least? If amateur electronics makers use a Sharpie or similar do mark out the parts of a PCB they don’t want etched I figure this might be a quick and easy way for anyone else with one of these scrapbook cutters to make some cool stuff!

I really like both of these Elmer’s related tips! I always assumed Elmer’s wouldn’t be strong enough for a job like you demonstrated in the first tip - I guess I was wrong! I’ll be filing that one away for future reference. I like the technique for the pinning too - super clean precise work!

That’s a great idea - I should research that! Thank you!

They’re really outstanding - I’ve been thinking about how I could make gauges as crisp and scale-accurate all day! I wonder where one could find a 2400dpi (or higher) printer nowadays? Seems like it SHOULD be possible to find that easily in this day and age, but I’d bet I’d struggle to find one that the public could have short run work done on.

I figured he was keeping the sidewalk trimmed, but that link is equally feasible