Alyn

I may have just found my new wallpaper. Great work Bill. If there was asphalt in the first picture, you'd swear it was real.

Jerry, with your knowledge of the subject matter, I think you should get a pass on the nube thing

I was about to suggest painting the headers ruddy brown primer to match the color on so many of the pictures. This, I thought would make the build more accurate to the original, but would also cover up Bills beautiful metal work. It's so good to hear there was a version with bright plating on the headers.

and guess who used to work in an auto paint shop, mixing and matching paint In any case, that's a great paint job!

I am color blind (literally), but that first one with the Mirage flip flop looks red to me (and black).

love that red, Dick Nice job laying it down too!

BIG, BAD, HAIRY, HARRY ANGEL

That's the ticket ! Like the frosting on the cake

So far, all mine are rattle can as well. I have 4 air brushes and am just now preparing to shoot my first complete paint job. Up till now, I've only used them to paint parts. This one was shot with rattle can Tamiya purple and racing white, followed with Tamiya clear. Didn't have to rub it out afterwards. Tamiya red/black with Tamiya clear, wet sanded and rubbed out. Model Masters maroon with Tamiya clear. no rubbing

Kinda like this; http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50744&hl=&fromsearch=1 BTW, that wouldn't be a magneto, it has a center hole for a coil wire. Doesn't really look like one either.

Definately based on concern for you and whomever might be looking for ideas to build their own paint booth. You are correct, I picked up on the term "shop vac". When it comes to paint booths, I think its always a good idea to explain the steps taken to mitigate the potential dangers. Good to hear your setup is flowing through a squirrel cage blower. I have to plead ignorance on the impact of the containment section of your system. Back to the booth itself; are you building anything into the bottom of the booth to diffuse the air flow. I have a plenum area at the base of mine with numerous 2" holes drilled in the base plate to spread out the air flow. It should help to keep the air from disrupting the spray pattern out of an airbrush or rattle can nozzle. sorry to trip up your thread, but the "shop vac" reference caught my eye.

You've got one of the best built homemade booths that I've seen. Your workmanship really shows. If you add a squirrel cage blower with a shaded pole motor, you'll have a safer setup. Your shop vac SYSTEM still uses a vacuum. Having been a vacuum repairman years ago, I don't remember ever seeing a vacuum motor without brushes; of any brand or style. When the commutator or brushes wear or get dirty, they spark. Sometime the sparks are difficult to see, sometimes they're more obvious. Vacuum motors pull a lot of air, so they are quite powerful. Making the necessary power also makes heat. To carry away the heat, vacuums are designed to route the airflow through the motor for cooling. Whatever fumes you pull out of the booth will flow through the motor and by the brushes. Shaded pole motors have no brushes, no breaks in the electrical circuit. They aren't as powerful as the motor in your vacuum system, but they don't create sparks either. Shaded pole motors are common in bathroom fans, range top fans and other small CFM blowers. Furthermore, if you can find a squirrel cage blower powered by shaded pole motor, the evacuated air doesn't even flow through the motor.This would be a big step forward in the safety of your booth.

Amen Tossing out all the arguments about one fan verses the other, the shop vac is the worst possible choice. Number 1, the paint and fumes will be pulled right through the motor, and Number 2, the typical shop vac motor has brushes and therefore the possibility of sparks. I usually stay out of these "what fan to use" discussions, but hearing that you're using a shop vac, it was too much to ignore.

Here's the final deal on the shifter.I chucked up (better than upchucked) a small section of round Plastruct styrene rod in my Dremel and carved the end into a ball with a jewelers file. Then 400 was used to clean up the shape to as round a profile as I could get. 1500 grit was used for final sanding, followed by some white Testors enamel. I let the enamel cure for a couple of days before moving on to the next step. The shift pattern was made using Woodland Scenics dry transfer letters with the excess trimmed off with a hand held Xacto blade. The last step was to seal the ball with a couple of dips in some Future clear. The boot consists of several layers of flat styrene in progressively smaller sized. The metal bezel is .005" aluminum. The lengthe of the shifter from the top of the boot to the center of the ball is 5/8" or a little over a foot in scale.

Looks like you're on your way to another winner. Very clever take on the Ranchero. I'm looking forward to seeing this one in the mock-up stage.

Thanks, Chuck, but the real one holds more people

The airbrush master Holy cow, that's about as "Seventies" as you can get. Great skills, Virgil.

What's the hold up here? I checked in expecting you to be preping for paint! You're slowing down, John Now I need more cookies

Thanks, Rob. Glad you took a peek

I can just picture you as a toddler, Virgil. standing in your crib with a rattle shaped like an airbrush. ... and goggles Nice work on both. You set a high standard and meet it every time.

Oh boy, I need to find me a comfy chair and snack. Let 'er rip, John.

I'm with Mike. This car has never been on my short-list, until now. Beautiful work on all of them. I may have to buy a couple to build and another just to get a set of the wheels.

Wow, Bill; there is absolutely nothing better when you're building a replica than to have one of the principles drop in for a look-see. The job you are doing deserves it, though. I saw some of these parts at our local KC Slammers club meeting earlier this week and it was like looking at fine jewelry. I cannot compliment you enough on the workmanship.

Here's a few shots of what I did to make my car as grungy as the 38 Special. I first shot some Tamiya gold on the body sides and grille shell for the lettering and curved stripe. The headlight buckets didn't need the gold, but since they are part of the grille shell, it was easier to paint them rather than mask. After the gold had plenty of time to dry, the stripe was masked off. Dry transfers were used for the lettering. This car is two tone, so dark green was applied over the masked details on the sides and grille shell.You can see by the reflection on the door that this paint job isn't the shiniest one on the block. As with the 38 Special, the goal was the look of an amateur finish that had been applied in someones driveway. It's a little difficult to see in this shot, but the green and gold has been masked off along the sides )and grille shell). Ruddy brown primer was applied as a base for weathering. This was followed up with some other shades of brown dabbed on randomly with a piece of foam(not in the picture). After sprinkling some kosher salt on the roof and trunk, I added a coat or two of black primer. This picture shows the body after most of the salt had been removed. After knocking of some rough paint edges with 400 grit paper, I added more salt and laid on the final color. By the way, this as well as all the preceding layers of paint are all rattle can. Look at some of Cranky's work and you'll learn that there are much better paints to use for this process, but I happened to have these on hand. After once again removing the salt and then smoothing out some of the rougher edges of paint, this is what I ended up with. The striping effect on the roof was purposeful. Sometimes older car paint will weather in an uneven pattern as a result of an uneven application of the original paint.

Thank you all for hanging in there through the dry spells. I don't know about you guys, but when my next step involves something I don't do well, haven't done before, or just don't have a method, I tend to put it off, or over think it. With the textured surface of the dash, I wasn't sure how to apply the decals. The final method was to super glue the aluminum bezel to the foil. Then the center of the bezel was flooded with epoxy to provide a flat surface to apply the decal. Once the decal was laid down and dry, another layer of epoxy was added to serve as the outer glass bezel. The epoxy was a tad thick to flow out level, but it came close, so the end result work out ok. I can see in the pictures that the gauge on the right side ended up a bit low. Justin, using a bead is on the short list for the shift knob. It shouldn't be a big deal to fill in the hole. I don't have any small beads in white, so I"d have to paint it as well. I turned the end of a small styrene rod into a ball, but it looks a hair too small. Bill, your input is always valued, especially when I"m trying to make something out of aluminum. You're the master when it comes to metal work. John, excluding the valve covers, everything on the top end of the engine is scratch built. The linkage is a combination of aluminum, copper and brass. The throttle shaft that runs through all the injector bodies is just copper wire. The throttle arm on that shaft (one on each side) is made from aluminum sheet, folded over on the bottom for added thickness. The cross links are brass wire and the center link is a "T" made by soldering a brass pin to the center of the throttle arm. Both ends of the arm are drilled to accept the brass links and the pin in the middle slides into the throttle block to provide a pivot point. The ends of the fuel lines going to each injector are small slices of aluminum tube. The ends of the braided line are crimp tubes from s craft store. Thanks for the votes on the color. This will be my first shot at using nail polish. It sure looks cool in the bottle.