OldNYJim

A little more progress today… Started some work proper on the rear axle. I went parts-box digging for a leaf spring that looked like the reference pics I found and that was nicely molded…ended up with a part from the Revell Model A kits. Now, I know they’re 1/25, and this kit is (about) 1/20, but Midgets are small and this spring looks and fits right just right: The axle tube is aluminum, not for any particular reason other than that’s the material I had that was the right size - the center is machined ABS rod with a couple of printed cones to make it somewhat represent the part in the kit (which I think is supposed to be a Ford Banjo axle). Still some detailing to do, and I want to see if I have room on the frame for a pair of friction shocks, but I’m further along than I was this morning. That crossmember is brass square tube, horizontal milled to make it into a channel to receive the spring and hold it really tight and securely, then soldered in place. For this part I’m not matching how the 1/1 cars look - you won’t be able to see this bracket when I’m done so I went for the strongest option I could . With the axle’s location locked in place where it should be, time to tackle the rear suspension linkages, which double as some little triangular nerf bars to protect the rear tires. I was actually going to remake these out of brass, assuming they were round tube, but closer inspection shows they’re more like an early Ford split wishbone - rectangular and tapered from front to back: So, that actually makes my job a little easier - I definitely don’t have the tools to make a better version of these, aside from fixing the clunky nerf-bar portion of the assembly, so I bend up some more in-scale brass, cleaned up the kit parts and just improved upon them a little: Still need to mate them to frame and axle…that’ll probably be tomorrow’s task. And finally for today, now I know the axle location and the trans location I can start figuring out the little torque tube (I think) to connect the two - not super interesting yet, but everything still JUST fits as it should: Still a lot of parts to pack into this 5lb bag though… Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Yep! I picked one up specifically to build an Imperial derby car. I didn’t really start properly researching how much work it will take to convert it into a feasible replica of ‘the derby car so good it was banned almost everywhere’ but I’m grabbed one anyway while HL had them in stock

Thank you Pierre! I actually have some Tamiya 2-part putty here that I was thinking of trying for the leather - but similar process, yes! Thank you! Today’s project was the radiator, for not reason other than the parts were going to take a while to print and I was going to be home to watch the printer… Laid out a design in CAD - I DID consider scratchbuilding or kit-bashing this piece, but the printer can make finer details nicer than I can… I actually made TWO versions - one with a hollow mesh that you could maybe see through…but I was almost certain my printer would struggle to print the part given the tiny pattern: And…it ALMOST worked, but the part is REALLY fragile, didn’t print perfectly and I couldn’t get all the leftover resin out of the holes (or it was already dried in there as the print was happening…) I think I COULD make a few more attempts at making this work and probably get something acceptable in the end, but I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze - you almost certainly won’t be able to see enough when it’s in the car to tell the difference…and if I end up needed to shoot this with gloss enamel to get a nice brass finish on it then I bet those holes would clog right up anyway. Acceptable print of a solid version: And the finished part, with a less-perfect print of the same in the tracknose to check that it fits. A fun day experimenting - and I spent a few hours digging through my parts stash and dozens of kits to find some parts for the rear end, so that’ll probably be tomorrow’s project. Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

That’s really cool, thanks for sharing! I believe at some point production moved to NW Indiana, somewhere near where I am currently, but I forget where I read that. Meanwhile…I don’t have this kit, but the plans make it seem EASY to build one of these! Just need a block of wood and I’m all set! “Force axles into body holes” I’m kinda tempted to model the wheels in 3d, print a set, learn about using airplane dope and actually trying my hand at building one of these…

Thanks fellas! Had a coupla three slow days at the bench but got a little project completed anyway…knock-offs for the rear wheels! I wanted the same design as the molded-in knock-offs on the kit wheels, but with some depth…when I designed the wheels and printed them I tweaked the design a LITTLE so I’d have some depth to allow for these parts to have a little depth and dimension, but otherwise I just copied what Monogram did originally: Other thing I’ve been pondering, almost since I opened this kit, is what to do about the leather that wraps up from the interior over the side of the body. I can just mask and paint it to match the seat (which I also have to make) but I’m wondering if I can actually slice around the edge of that molded-in material, separate it from the body and almost make an interior ‘tub’ that drops back in for some increased depth and realism, and slightly easier painting: My other idea is to take a casting of it somehow, make a resin master of that detail (albeit in separate pieces) and vac-form it, or replicate it in epoxy putty so I can add some little creases and wrinkles to add a little realism. Or, yeah, just mask it and paint it after I guess 😂 Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Your entire site is great - nice work, and thanks for sharing! I’m excited to dig into it more!

I agree on the bigs and littles also (for what it’s worth) but that chop looks GREAT! Nice work!

I feel like it’s unpopular with a lot of people, but I really like the look of a car sitting as low as possible, with as much wheel as possible. I’m not crazy on rubber band tires, but a nice wheel is more interesting to look at than a tire and if you get a little more wheel and get about any car sitting in the weeds, I’ll probably think that’s a good look. i definitely like period-correct wheels though - I’m not really a pro-touring kinda guy where you put modern racecar looking wheels on an old Ford or whatever. That said, I predict the next trend for all those 60s pro-touring builds will be the same look and stance, but with classic looking wheels that somewhat mirror the look and feel of the originals, but modernized. I’m excited to see THAT

That would be cool! Yes, please do!

This is awesome - any place I ever go with karts, I’ll try and make sure to take advantage - I’d love to drive one of these really early ones You did a a great job with the files - do you sell them anywhere?

A little resin casting and some vac-forming…

An old post - but this is one of my favorite builds of this kit. Love the photos with the period-correct supplies. Way cool!

I would KINDA like to build one of these; but making some tweaks to improve the looks. There’s a decent looking car buried in that mess…it’s just buried a little too deep right now 🤪

Nice work on this build - I like the taillight idea especially

That is AWESOME! What a great looking kit - definitely want to build one of those! Thanks so much for posting that! Another I found - I THINK this is based on the Revell Hot Shot slotcar maybe? https://www.thepartsbox.com/shop/the-parts-box/slot-cars-parts/slot-car-body-kits/speed-car-body-pack-with-driver-included/

Had some success with my Vacuform today - first successful pull of a part! This is a little canopy for a resin copy of an AMT Bonneville kart - super pleased that I got something usable out of this little guy. @Dave Van recommended somewhere on here applying a little Vaseline to the inside of the vacuum and it helped a LOT - thanks for the tip Dave!

I have very nearly collected all the parts mentioned in that article to build a replica of this one - and I feel less bad about building it now the Midget kits are easily available again! A little more progress today…test fit printed wheels to resin cast tires to make sure everything fits together how it should… I ran out of time to do this last night so today I gave the freshly-printed parts an ultrasonic bath in some Dawn, UV cured them and got to see wheels and tires together properly. I think they’ll work! Next up, working from the wheels in, I needed to figure out brakes. Spun up a disk from some ABS rod on my lathe, reshaped some preciously-printed calipers left over from another project to match my reference material and then made a little mold so I can cast four of the things: Incidentally, the little silver thing is another of those mini magnets - I’m going to test to see if the wheels will hold in place with a couple of these, but if not I’ll replace with some 1/8” roundbar pins. Would be cool to have the wheel be removable, but I’m not going to sacrifice the look of the finished build to make it work…more experimenting to be done on that… Something of a side project, I’ve been working on a little Mattel Vac-u-form trying to get it to perform well enough that I could use it to form a curved windshield for this build, maybe. Did some work on the vacuum portion today and I’ve very nearly got this thing working well enough to make some usable parts I think: That part isn’t for this build, but I was so pleased to get something usable from this little machine anyway… Next project, starting work on an in-out box to sit behind the motor. Made the basic round parts from some ABS bar, added various styrene shapes to match some reference pics that I’m working with and I have a decent start on a ‘trans’: Now, I struggled finding good blueprints to work with for this part OR good dimensions…seems there were a bunch of manufacturers, a bunch of somewhat-similar styles and researching the history of which parts where available when is proving tough. It’s a starting point tho…and looks like this, in the car: I need to tweak the placement so that a driveshaft would clear that crossmember - that crossmember is actually L-channel on a real Kurtis and not quite as large, but I used some beefier square tube because I was scared of the frame being too delicate - and from any normal viewing angle on the finished car you wouldn’t be able to tell that I cheated anyhow, but I’ll need to make sure my in-out box sits low enough now to work feasibly. And that’s about my progress today besides making a couple of little brackets and ordering supplies for the next steps…thanks for looking, more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Well, that’s because everyone else was smarter than me 🤪😂 I WOULD like to build this variation too though…

Dug out this old resin Bonneville kart today…picked this up at a show and really didn’t want to build it without having at least one copy of it: It’s a modified version of the AMT streamliner kart; unknown caster but I’ve never seen another and my research came up dry…so I’m making myself a mold to make a second: Nothing sadder than a racecar without a buddy to race…

Another few days at the bench, another few little bits of progress… I decided that the next piece that I needed to tackle that I hadn’t already was mocking up a radiator. I’ll probably actually end up modeling this in 3D and painting it, mostly because my skillset currently with brass isn’t good enough to make it as well as I can draw or print it… Irony is, a lot of these rads WERE brass so that would actually be a good material to use for this one. Fun challenge to make one of the few not-brass pieces look like brass with paint though, good chance to text my faux-metal painting skills… Here’s a real one - they have that distinctive extremely-protruding upper portion that I want to replicate: I used some prototyping foam to approximate the curve of the upper tank, plus some styrene sheet and bar: I’m really using the piece as a physical prototype to make sure everything fits ok before I design a MUCH more detailed version in CAD: More on that as I get to it, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to run out of room. A real Offie is longer than the simplified kit piece so I lost probably 1/8” or more with my to-scale version so I needed a physical piece to play with to make sure I can make this work still. Modified the tracknose a little so the leaf spring will fit: And while I was messing with the front end, I cleaned up the front nerf bar and made some mounts for it: Now, mounting it to the front axle didn’t really sit super well with me…that is how it is on the kit, but I figured that was for simplicity of molding’s sake. Did some research and found a bunch of earlier cars where they did exactly this. I guess the contact (and cars) would be light enough and the old Ford/steel tube/ whatever axle is strong enough that the uprights or nerf bar itself would bend before hurting the axle too much. That said, seems like this practise went away as you got into the 60s and they’d mount with a more complicated arrangement, but for the sake of mirroring the kit design and keeping things simple I think I can live with it. I’d hate to take any more slices out of that tracknose than I have to… Finally, wheels and tires. Had a little time to work on those today. I have a bunch of these kits to build, and I want a solution to replace the one-piece wheels and tires on all of them so I cheated again and modeled them in CAD so I could print some test pieces and easily make more in future: Left is front, right is rear (still need to make knock-offs for it though) and the center is a front with no lugs, for an experiment. Probably need to lose the domed center from the middle one, come to think of it…need to research 50s Midget wheels and hubs Thanks for looking all - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Awesome! Glad to see this one coming back around!!

That fact I was familiar with, yes - I figured the kit would have to be much larger in scale accordingly…thanks for confirming about what I suspected! Definitely want to add one of these to my collection! Ah yeah; it says right in the listing, duh - thanks for clarifying that Cool build, @magicmustang! Of course, Midget racing is still a thing today - Kyle Larson just won the renowned Chillibowl event last month…and 3D file designers have one covered if one wanted to build a more modern iteration: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/dirt-midget-1-18-scale-model

I, too, never heard of solder balls before - every day’s a school day!

If it’s 1/20 scale, which is what I most commonly see it listed as, the wheelbase scales up to 78”, which is a little long compared to standard. At 1/18 the wheelbase would be 69.5”, so a little short. A standard Kurtis chassis was 71.5” wheelbase although they would apparently adjust the wheelbase to your preference if you asked them to. BUT, Monogram never claim this was a replica of a Kurtis car specifically, plus it was their first ever plastic car kit, so…I’m not holding them to perfection. The wheels either scale up too large or too small compared to the wheelbase depending on which scale you go with (12” was apparently the standard size for most of these), and the Offie’s block is too short and 50 other things…plus the driver has no legs 😂 I’m doing a more detailed build of one of these right now (in the NASCAR WIP section) and I found Kurtis plans online that I partially used as a reference for a frame, scaled down to 1/20th. At that size everything will fit about where it’s meant to and the body hugs the taper that these frames had at the rear really nicely, so I’m happy with that for what I’m trying to achieve. Definitely NOT a kit to pick apart too hard (unsurprisingly, given the age) but I REALLY like how they look when you see one built up, even as basic of a kit as it is…

This is exactly the kind of thing I was interested in finding - thanks fellas! It’s this one, I’m guessing… I found some pics of those online last night too! I’ve GOTTA find one of those! Any idea on scale? More rabbitholes to look into! Thanks Mark! LOVE that build you posted! Thanks for sharing!!