Dr. Cranky

Yeah, all of these things are photoreductions I get from Google Image, and there's also a place where you can find a lot of neat 1/2" stuff . . . here: www.printminis.com Thanks for the kind words . . . Man, that rat rod is fabulous . . . yeah, lots of neat details . . . thanks for sharing.

All right, it feels like I've been working on this dashboard for two days straight, but I did take a break last night and this morning, and now I back trying to get some better details on here . . . I still have to weather the interior, paint the pedal pads, etc . . . add a few beer cans, some tools, a box of cigars (of course!) Slow work for sure, but definitely worth it . . . I also added the windshield from a piece of HO window I had laying around, so the windshield, shall we say, came pre-weathered! I considered opening the pizza box and adding a half-eaten pizza, but Frankie, is NOT that much a dirty Marvin!!! The piece of papger between the seat and the pizza box is a pirate's treasure map . . . don't ask me what it is doing there . . . Here's the dash with some better details added on . . . and Jairus, you got your wish, the broken instrument glass!!!

Happy TGIF for everyone . . . well, I got up early this morning and it appears the weather is holding nicely, so there should be some more progress made on Frankie . . . I wanted to thank everyone whose comments have been the driving force behind this build . . . stay tuned in there should be some nice developments today. Cheers and a great TGIF to everyone!!!

Fred, I think you are right . . . I'm trying not to mess to much with the body to let the paint dry completely, but when it does, I will add some fresh metal color with a brush . . . carefully to see if I can catch some of that shimmer . . . In the meantime, here are a few more pics before I go off to work. Cheers, V. Before I go though, just a couple of more goodies . . . enjoy . . . I'll check in later. You guys have a great day . . . I like the idea of putting a broken glass over the speedometer . . . Here's a shot of the interior which I still have to add details to and weather a bit . . . if you know what I mean . . . Records, magazines, what else can a monster need out on a kruize . . . ? Yes, I AM HAVING TOO MUCH FUN WITH THIS!!! All right, I owe, I owe, off to the graveyard shift I go!!!

Okay, here are some of the elements that are going into Frankie's "softer" bed cargo . . . a few more things are still in the paintbooth . . . I went ahead and added, as you can see, a few extra details . . . I think there will be room for a Moon style gas tank to fit back here too . . . These are some of the props a monster might need to woo his lady . . . That big green thing over to the side is an old style radio (I hope it looks like one) I built from scratch and threw into the "one-day-if" parts box . . . What kind of man would have a hankering to drive this vehicle? Hum . . . Yeah, except I think the dude who will ride this definitely has a bad, "cranky" like attidude . . . and obviously has to go back to charm school, though his lady friend is some piece of work too!!! Geez, role models are not what they used to be . . .

Hi, Jarius, great to hear from you and your input . . . please allow me a second to clarify . . . there isn't going to be just one bed . . . I'm making it so that I have two interchangeable beds (I often build like this just to keep myself from getting bored) and so there will be two different loads of cargo . . . Perhaps I can illustrate it better in a few moments withe the "softer" Frankie load . . . this will exemplify a more sensitive monsters . . . stay tuned in and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, I've been pretty excited about this build, almost as excited as when I first opened Car Model Mag and fell on the floor when I saw your trio of beauties!!!

Thanks, Mike . . . yeah, I feel excited about this one . . . and I have to say this kind of blue always photographs so darn well . . . This morning, my friends, I've got a few other goodies in the booth for priming and then painting . . . including the frame and some smaller elements of the engine . . . also, I got the distributor built and now once the engine is painted and put together I can wire it . . . It is slowly starting to come together, which is good because this will allow the paint to dry thoroughly and it will also give me a little chance to play with some of these cargo elements I have in mind . . . I hope I haven't been putting too many people off with my Holloween spirit and nonsense! You know I don't mean any harm, though my namesake says otherwise!!!

Let me explain something about the next couple of photos . . . since Jairus left the bed pretty empty, I thought this was a real gift in terms of being able to do something interesting to showcase some of the elements of this build, so I have made two different bed liners for it (and later, there will be a few surprises in terms of what each will carry as cargo). This one is going to be the more industrial, fresh out of the lab slab sort of thing . . . just a piece of diamond plat that will have some treats on it soon enough . . . The other one is softer, more earthy and it will show a more gentle side to the monster . . . where perhaps he's even learned to read . . . So so far we have metal! And we have wood:

Ygor, my faithful handy man, has informed me his name is spelled with an "I," as in EYE-GOR!!! Fetch me some more parts, you swine!!! (Wow, what I nice mad doktor I am!!!) But he obliges . . . he gets a mouse for a treat!!! He almost got a hernia (to match his back hump) carrying this puppy: The bed: Ooo, I like the little lights . . .

Look what Ygor, my faithful graveyard hound, brough in this morning, a cart of parts, a plethora of limbs fresh out of the ground!!! Headlights: They look like bird eggs, don't they? The front grill: freshly glued . . . Here's the back of it where the radiator will go . . . Our pretty beat up dashboard (hey, since Jairus didn't show it on his illustration, I thought I have fun with it . . .):

I felt that there was not enough of the raw metal showing through, so I spotted some on . . . down the weld stitches . . . I think once I put on a few light, and I mean LIGHT, washes, it will look better:

Sheesh, that was nerve-wrecking!!! Now that I can pause and reflect on where this is at, I would say, no, it did not come out as perfect as I had hoped, but I think it captures at least some of what Jairus's illustration does, which is that the cab has the basic ingredients: the nasty weld stitches and the graphics . . . I'm still mad at the little "s!" My only worry now, now that all the body parts are painted and drying (stay tuned in for pictures of those a bit later), is that all this blue doesn't become a bit too bright, too shocking! J's illustration is more low-key, more subdued . . . then again, I can claim by the time I got the original it had faded because of all that X-raying that took place on its way from Portland to Tallahassee!!! Stay tuned in, you fans of this corny horror build . . . hum, and just in time for Holloween . . . no treats, no candy!!!

And now, for the moment I could not sleep for, or you could not wait for, or nobody could give a &%*@ for . . . A piece of Scotch tape begins to remove the rub on letters, which reveals . . . Ah, the lights are flashing, the storm's coming in . . . quick, Ygor, throw the switch . . . the SWITCH!!!! Lordy, as if by magic the monster's eye lids are opening, his hands twitch, his mouth opens slightly, and he utters: "Look, ma! I'm alive, ALIVE!!!" Geez, and wouldn't you know it . . . I just can't stick to the plan . . . I just had to go on and puts a few more rust spots on this body!!! Okay, so other than the little, twerpy "s" of Salvage--who knows why it got mangled into obscurity, the sign came through . . . IT CAME THROUGH!!!! And a few paint chips too!!! Okay, I guess it doesn't live up to my expectations, so I will have to throw it out, start again!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!! And I think I have an idea for getting a bit more metal to peek through . . . a silver Sharpie!!! Yeah, that's the ticket . . .

This ain't no striptease, it's the handy work of a bad, BAD heir Doktor!!! After the blue dried completely, I took a rubber cement pick up block and revealed the nasty welds . . . Can't you hear Janet Jackson singing in the background "Nasty . . . welds!!!" You can begin to see the rust and the metal coming through . . . actually there's not too much of the silver coming through . . . but we hope to be able to remedy that!!!

Well, friends, this is the Thursday of reckoning . . . I am up bright an early because who can sleep with such anticipation, right? . . . Okay, so here we go . . . the make or break or take to the grave moment! So I mixed my blues to the right hue and I shoot it with my airbrush . . . and you get this: With the several steps and coats of paint and still the weld seams are prominent and scary, just like the real monster!!! AH, FRANKESHTEIN!!! Though the shifts in coloration is to subtle to see in the pictures, it is there . . . there are some whitish fade spots, some gray . . . the blue is pretty darn close to that of the illustration . . . any closer and I would have needed a computer to mix the paint! It shows up slightly and best on the back of the cab . . .

All right, maties, I think this one last picture is it for the night . . . I want to have enough energy to be able to fiddle with all the blue I am shooting tomorrow . . . plus we are all going to be in suspense about how this sucker is going to turn out . . . this paintjob can work or really bust up this build . . . So I applied a coat of flat white to get a nice foundation coat for the blue . . . but that's tomorrow's story. Good night!

Okay, so there's no set rule on how much or how little, but since I have the weld-seams, it's easier to apply . . . I think . . . You get it on there as best as you can by using a pin, a toothpick or one of those bamboo skewers . . . You let the stuff dry, and then back to the airbrush to put on a thin line of silver . . . To be quite honest, I have no idea who all of this is going to turn out, but you go on just because once you jump off the cliff, well . . . you hope not to hit the rocks . . . The silver for some reason (i guess because of the particles) sprays a bit rougher . . . Then you go back and put another coat of rubber cement or masking element . . .

Mike, yeah, you are doing the right thing . . . once you get the hang of getting great paintjobs, you should do as many as you can just to really sink it into your system . . . I've always have had a hard time with the shiny ones . . .

Okay, more progress . . . continuing on . . . after the letters were applied, I returned to the airbrush and sprayed a coat of rust . . . Which covers everything again . . . This coat also lets you know that you have infact sealed the dry lettering against the surface of the plastic . . . Once the coat of rust is dry, then you are ready to apply some rubber cement resist and or this, which is a product I've been using lately out of convenience, but you get the same results from rubber cement . . . I spotted it here and there down the weld lines and in a few other places . . . using sparingly . . . less, as they say, is better . . .

Thanks, Mike . . . yeah, man . . . rat rods make a nice break from the stress of doing polished, shiny, no-room-for-mistakes vehicles . . . it's a blast and you'll end up with a vehicle that will really stand out in your collection . . . then, again, you can go overboard as I did here . . . This one is one I did last year which I call LUCKY 7s:

The first side I did came out a bit shaky as I lined up the letters down the curve . . . and the lines you see that look like scratches, that's actually the graphite of the pencil . . . This other side is my favorite because it came out pretty darn good . . . The moment of truth awaits now that I have the letters on there . . . next up is some paint . . . keep your fingers crossed!

I decided to go with Woodland Scenics dry transfers because this particular sheet brought the two sizes I needed . . . But you can find all the different sizes and styles (if you are lucky) at your local Office Depot . . . also, I ended up using the pencil lead to rub the letters on . . .

I decided after I shot the medium gray that the letters would come out a bit too light, so I went ahead and shot a darker gray on the door panels and went ahead and darkened the weld seams in hopes they will stand out a bit under the final color. I tried my best to give the letter foundation a mottled look so that it would also show through as a bit rough and weathered . . . here I am holding my breath and keeping my fingers crossed. With my handy divider, I cut out a template from .20 styrene so that I can draw a guiding line on the body, lightly over the gray . . . It was a lucky break that I though of using a pencil so that the graphite, under the light, would shine through the material of the rub on letters and guide me . . .

The moment of truth is finally upon this build . . . and the question remains, will it be possible to do all of the steps necessary to get the right paint and graphics to get this body as close to the original as possible . . . only time will tell . . . I have made a little progress today, but decided to bite the bullet and see if this thing is truly going to work . . . the way I look at it is why continue if the main attraction to this build, which for me is the cab can't be pulled of . . . So if you have the time, take a ride down nerve-wrecking lane with me!!! Or nail-down-to-nubs as is my case here . . . I had primered the body a few days ago, sanded it down, primered it again until I got some of that weld/seam to blend in a little bit better . . . So today, I took my Iwata Micron B, put a few drops of medium grey acrylic and shot the middle of the panel where the lettering will go . . . . I did both sides to make a nice darkened rectangle . . .

Oh, man, this is going to be an exciting thread . . . yeah, next to the real thing, art is as good eye candy as you can have. Great!