OldNYJim

Thanks fellas! It’s Monday, so I didn’t get a straight 8 hours at the bench today…but got a little done on three different mini-projects that I’m mentally figuring out as I go. First project was easy - I went to the mailbox, opened the mail and checked out the Detail Master hood pin set that I’ll be using to, well, pin the hood. They’re some serious small clevis pins! They’ll work out perfect for the hood, and I’m considering opening up the trunk too so you can see the fuel cell and the rear axle. Looks like, from my research, a lot builders would weld the trunk closed on this era of car so I’m still debating if I’ll end up going that route… As I posted elsewhere on the site I was struggling to understand how the front suspension would actually function on this this if it were real, and it turns out, it kinda wouldn’t. Here’s the kit parts in place: I’ll be working through and replacing as much of that as I can with something a little more detailed and less ‘blobular’. Broke out the soldering iron tonight and some brass and made a start on a swaybar but didn’t get super far on that. That part was mostly a little practice to see if I could make something convincing with brass bar, tube and eventually some 3D printed hardware, but I’m also experimenting with printing rod ends that can simply slip onto the end of regular old brass roundbar. They’re cool in principle, but it’s tough to print them properly in-scale because you need a big enough hole to slide the bar into them, whilst keeping a thin wall thickness on the print. Plus, UV cure resin is like glass if you try and drill it so you really need to nail the size of them AND account for resin shrinkage. More experimenting to do on those… Speaking of printing, I did some more research and couldn’t immediately find examples of these cars running disks on the rear but DID find a few shots showing rear drums. Body-off shots of this era of oval car seem to be tough to find so I’m relying on a lot of blurry old analogue photos…but I think drums are a safe and logical bet for the rear end. A while back I printed a bunch of brake drums in varying (scale) quarter inch increments and I sorted through some this evening that will work well and not require a bunch of modifications to the axle and wheels: I’ll print some that are tweaked to easier fit the square mounts on this round axle tomorrow, but now I have (mostly) decided on a direction anyway… A long post with not much actual action, but I also had to diagnose a broken 1:1 car (my Mustang is having some new electrical problems this past couple of weeks and I’m trying to decide which thing to fix first on it) AND assemble a new cat tree for my wife (well, my wife’s cats), so more deep-dives into the kinda boring detail that Bill and I enjoy tomorrow! Thanks for looking!

Good tips, thank you!! I really need to find an airbrush that will shoot something with a larger flake like this, I’ve got a few projects where that would be useful

Haha; I didn’t spot how old this post was when I read it - I was searching something else on the site and I guess it came up! Those articles are great though - thanks for posting the link Tom!

Thanks fellas!! Day two is still step one of the instructions…tires. Talk about dragging out a simple thing… First up, airbrushed some Vallejo colors to add some shading and realism (hopefully) to the rubber. I used a little white to mix a lighter tone of their black, gray and brown for some extra variation): Then, a coat of gloss clear to help the decals stick, followed by the decals themselves: Then, a coat of satin matte clear to get rid of that gloss: They’re starting to get the subtle color variations and finish I wanted now…final step for right now was toning down the white lettering somewhat with Tamiya pastels: Before and after shot: Now I’ve almost run out of work to do on the tires, back to the wheels…except I want to add brakes to this thing, and I need to figure those out before I can finish the wheels. Printed up some disk brakes and calipers: My printer nailed the detail on these I think: And my next job was modifying the kit steering arms to accommodate the disks. Whilst I was at it, I switched out the inner part of the wheel rims for some from the parts box with a more in-scale wall thickness: I’m still contemplating what to do with the rear brakes - I suspect drums would be a more common option for this era of Modified? Haven’t totally figured that out yet…but more soon, soon as I do! Thanks for looking!

You guys are so awesome - I knew someone would know the answer to this one. That’s a MASSIVE help - thanks to all (and especially @NOBLNG and @Bainford for giving me some great images to work off of in improving this blobular kit part) Appreciate it fellas - this is the project that you all helped me with, in case you’re curious…

Great tip, thanks Bill! I’ll add that to my wife’s requests of “must have a heated steering wheel” and “must have a backup camera” and “must not be an old cop car” to aid in my search for something new for her. ?.

I’m no mechanical genius, but I can figure out SOME stuff, but this one has me stumped… MPC oval car front suspension. From this view, the upper portion makes sense…upper wishbone, coilover shock - simple: From this angle though, I can’t figure it out… Is this meant to be a kind of beam axle running the width of the frame, that pivots on those two kinked linkages that run from the beam to the front of the frame? (Presumably the two outer linkages would form a single sway bar on a real example?) That’s the best I can figure out - or is this just prototypically inaccurate and I’m trying to justify something that makes no sense here? I can’t see a way that the two sides would work independently of each other (and maybe they shouldn’t anyway)...I did a bunch of research on these 70s oval cars and didn’t come up with much good reference material to match up with what I’m trying to figure out here…

A couple of years back I built the evergreen MPC Rat Trap Vega, then last year entered it in a local show and it won best oval car: The prize was…another of the same kit ? And the condition was, build it and bring it back next year and enter again. Deal! I doubt I’ll get away with another box-stock build with some light detailing though, so for this year’s entry I decided to see how far I could detail up one of these fairly-simple kits and really bring it to life - kinda like those amazing full-detail NASCAR builds done by people I admire like Clay Kemp and the late Dave Thibodeau. First step in the manual is tires (why do NASCAR guys often start with the tires?!) and I wanted to switch out the treaded kit ones for a set of slicks. I COULD print some, but the aftermarket has plenty of options so I ordered a set that I suspect are designed specifically for this line of MPC kits. They slide right on the wheels like a glove! These are actually injection molded rather than resin, and they come with waterslide tire lettering which is a big bonus in adding some detail. So, how much detail can we add to a tire, whilst I pondered that, I spent an hour or so cleaning up the mold lines, rounding off the edges and sanding some flats on the bottom to make them appear as though some weight is squishing them a little. Kit tire on the left, new replacement tire center, sanded and prepped tire right: I then shot the tires with a coat of Createx base (which is a translucent clear, almost like a primer) that allows better paint adhesion to tough-to-paint surfaces and tomorrow I can hit them with some airbrushing to add some realism. Next step: the wheels - what can we do to THOSE to add some detail and realism? Well, first thing that struck me was the lugnut detail is kinda soft and uninspiring, so I drilled them out… …and 3D printed a whole bunch of replacements… …and now I have separate pieces that I can paint more easily and that look a little better I think: Tomorrow’s job on the wheels will be making some balancing weights and valve stems and playing with those tires some more. This is gonna be a fairly deep dive into a bunch of probably boring little details (like sanding tires and making lugnuts) so if you’re not into that - apologies for being boring ?. More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

I’ve got some of that extreme glitter paint but didn’t try it yet - that flake looks killer!! Nice work so far!

Of course, my wife has been driving $30k’s worth of loaner vehicle for a couple of weeks now which makes finding something acceptable as a replacement for THAT much tougher… Would’ve been easier if she had to take the bus everywhere for the last two weeks like we did in NY for years ??

And, finally, in a happy ending to this story…they actually gave us MORE than the blue book suggested, no arguments. Paid $2k, did $2k of maintenance the first year we had it (it had been semi-poorly maintained and had some of the bigger service items due, but the body was in great shape which is rare in this part of the country apparently), drove it for 3 years and 40,000 miles…and walked away with $6k, just under. Now to find something as good as that little Civic was…ideally without having to commit to a car payment every month…

Preview of the T-bucket kit from Cultman TV

Oh, nevermind, Bill covered (much better) the same stuff I said in my followup anyway

Of course, that post of mine wasn't very helpful because it didn't tell you what you COULD do. If you had a bunch of time and effort sunk into a project and didn't want to make a brand new master (but still wanted to vac form copies), I would resin cast it, with some extra material underneath to make a 'block' that you can pull from - regular resin, if cast thick enough, is generally plenty sturdy enough to at least a FEW pulls on a vacuum former. Alternatively, a fine grain hard wood (not balsa) can be used successfully as a material for a master. A kind of 'poor man's' vacuum forming I've seen done before is using a hobby heat gun and a clear coke bottle to 'shrinkwrap' a part...I never did it myself, but I've seen people use a similar trick to make a down and dirty copy of something in clear plastic without the trouble of making a 'real' master

Having some professional experience of vacuum forming, I would say no. If the heat is high enough to soften the plastic sheet that you're using to form, I would be surprised if it didn't damage whatever the master is too.

Good info - thanks Justin! Related question for anyone reading - if anyone has any good leads on body-off shots of an asphalt mod from this era that I could use for reference, I'd be really interested in seeing them. Did a couple of hours of research this morning but didn't find a BUNCH of useful stuff...

Good insight Justin! I’m no expert on these (but I like ‘em…) - any recommendations on what to do to improve the wheels and tires? Is there something specific that’s wrong with them compared to what they’re meant to represent? I figure a set of slicks would be a good starting point at least, given they’re meant to be pavement cars…

That whole engine is awesome…but the weathered finish on the trans is particularly well done. Is that Alclad Steve? Love the realistic finish you got there

Unlike the one piece of advise above, I would NOT recommend getting superglue anywhere near your model car’s clear parts. While there ARE variants that can be used - most regular stuff will leave a white fog or haze on the clear plastic.

Duh! Haha - thank you! I kept rereading the list they posted and couldn’t figure out what I was missing ??

I agree that if the body of a car should be black, regular old black is fine…BUT… There’s a lot to be gained I think by taking a longer look at things your brain might THINK should be black and seeing if they really are. I’m talking interior pieces, frames, rubber hoses, tires…that’s some areas where there’s a whole multitude of different shades and finishes that probably aren’t just a case of painting them black and calling it good. Plus, as noted above, if you paint everything the darkest color to start with it’s hard to add shade and depth with washes or different tones. For example, a fan belt could well be painted a dark black on the inside of the belt and the back, a dark rubber gray on the outside, and an in-between shade in the areas where it wraps around and disappears under a pulley. If the pulleys are black too, pick a gloss paint to add the effect of a different material and finish, pick out any nuts or fasteners in a metal tone and use a black wash there to add another tone. I watched a YouTube video by an artist lately and he said something along the lines of “you’re probably not looking at reference material as much as you should be” and that really stuck with me…less assumptions, more careful study to try and match what’s really THERE and not what you might assume should be there

Because, horses for courses - Future has some properties that other clears don't have (and vice versa)

Yes sir - Future is still my go-to carrier of choice for mixing Createx acrylic candies (which are highly concentrated and need to be mixed to be usable), and it works well for mixing up a tinted dip for clear parts too...provided you're the kind of person who can successfully dip clear parts in Future and manage to not get any dust on the part before it dries. I'm not that kind of person (at least, not one who can do it successfully as consistently as I'd like), but I messed with that technique and it works well. Food coloring works well with Future too. Main thing if you're adding a TINT to the future is to wick off any excess from the edges with a Kleenex or napkin when the part's drying otherwise you'll end up with visible splodges in the tint with darker areas were. As reported by others who have used it, it also helps hide micro-scratches in kit glass, and makes it appear somewhat thinner

Great insight, thank you Tim! I figured there might be mention of it in your Drag Kits book...will pick that one up when I've finished the other two that I'm reading right now! Appreciate you getting back and sharing your thoughts! Sounds like I'll need a couplathreeorfour of these too!

Your technique on that wood worked out GREAT! Nice work!