Alyn

Just an FYI: I'm curious as to how well the Sharpie black holds up over time for you guys that have been using int. In past years, we used Sharpies for labeling plasitc terminal blocks as a telephone system installer. I've noticed that after a few years, the Sharpie labels would fade out substantially. In most cases, after a few years, you could barely read the labels. It not quite like the Sharpie ink fades; it seams to evaporate. Havine seen this as the rule rather than the exception, I hesitate to use Sharpies for model work. Sometimes the piece your are painting would be difficult if not impossible to redo years later with the model assembled and on the shelf.

Cool engineering on the front suspension. This is shaping up to be a must-follow thread. What are you going to build after shocks, Aftashox?

This may not seem like much of an update, but there's a bunch of time in these little buggers. I had thought the plugs and wires would be done by tonight, but I can't settle on a way to attach the plug wires to the plugs. The wire could just be slipped into the hole in the end, or stripped bare at the end and then slipped into the hole, or maybe some right angle plug boots... The way to scratch building parts; you decide what you want something to look like, then you figure out a way to get there. Round aluminum tubing, filed into hex tube. I tried to polish out the scratch marks from the file as best I could, then I used the hex tube to make hex nuts for the base of the plugs.

Thanks, guys! Paul, the one and only picture I have of this car is probably from that era. I'm guess it was just before my Dad went to Korea, so the latter part of the 40's. I'm fudging on a few of the details, but trying to keep it fairly close to the original (what I can see of it). I'm mixing up some epoxy right now to glue in the spark plugs. Should have a bit of progress posted tomorrow evening. thanks for checking it out.

Go all the way and insert metal rods. Here's an extended frame; same principle. The metal rods are just some chunks snipped out of paperclips.

Happy Mothers day to you all and your families. Dick, I haven't tried to weather the exhaust wrap yet, so I must just be a dirty builder LOL Scott, for the record, I did come up with the idea for the shifter, but the scuffed floor is something I saw on someone elses Cobra WIP. I thought it was clever too. Raul, so far, I've only had a couple of cars going at a time, but lately, I've had a few ideas that I didn't what to get away so I've cracked open a few more. The motor got a little love today. Due to a lack of planning, I ran into a few problems. This particular motor has the front inlets for the radiator hoses. I like the center inlet style so I modified the heads. That created other problems. The idler pulleys no longer have a place to mount to, and the center mount generator gets in the way of the dual carbs and just plain looks too high. I don't think making some aluminum pulleys would look period correct on this car, so I had to scrounge through some other kits and boxes. The best I could come up with is a piece of junk from a "bag-buy" 36 Ford. Someone apparently didn't realize how the belts and pulleys mounted on the motor, so they cut part of the belt off, trimmed off a bit here and there, and slopped on a ton of glue to force it to work their way. I pieced in a bit of square styrene to patch up the belt, and also added some styrene to the back of the pulleys so they'd mount to the front of the engine. A dip in some SuperClean got rid of the chrome on the generator. Maybe I can make the gloppy glue look like rust... I also got a start on the plug wiring. The distributor had to be trimmed to work with the new belts and pulleys. This one won't get the plug wire guide tubes like my previous builds. I used heat shrink tubing to gather up the wires where they go into the distributor. Hope you all are spending more time with your mothers today than your models.

Great looking project you've got going here. Lotta fun watching you keep piling on the details. You're right about the solutions. IMO, the process of coming up with a method to make a part is more interesting than actually making it. Thanks for the excellent progress pics.

I keep looking at my pile of parts and most of them are painted and done. This thing should be almost done, but the little things keep going on, and on, and on ... I've also started a couple of other projects, so that's taking up some time too. But, here's a bit more progress. I flattened some 24/26 gauge silver wire and used it to band the ends of the exhaust wrap. Seeing how the wire turned out, I have to wonder if some small staples would have done the job. It doesn't show in the pictures, but some of the paint has flaked off the aluminum tube so a little brush work is in order. Hopefully some chalk powder will cover up the brush strokes. The most progress was on the gas tank. I wrapped some 28 gauge silver wire into some springs to strap down the gas tank. I've seen some Moon tanks (1:1 scale) done this way. The gas cap is a slice of 3/32" aluminum rod with the edges rounded over using a small file. Fuel line is in too. I wonder if my Dad's friend Gilbert thought about a firewall behind the seat? Still to come, brake lines and battery cable. That should be about it for the rear of the chassis.

Looking good, Mr Detail...

I realize that there is already a separate trunk category, and also am aware that your new design is less complex. My thought is that it could be even less complex. I was wondering what the goal is. Re-reading the title of this thread, I see that it is for ideas to add new Topics/Categories. So much for less complexity. Your design offers at least four separate forums for someone interested in competition models to keep up with. And that doesn't even include the Model Car Racing section. One would do the job. At least the pickup trucks are separate from the cars. (heavy sigh) Why a 29 Ford roadster pickup is along side a Kenworth wrecker is beyond me. Most of the ones I've seen are hot rods.

Needlessly complex This layout and the previous one seem to be driven by a need to separate the trucks for no apparent gain

When it comes to street rods, you are the Man! Great mix of color. Never would have thought the blue would look so cool with the burnt orange. It really grabs your attention. Nice work on the details too; wheels, engine, headers, it's all nice stuff. Love the white interior. It goes great with the body color and gives it a nice period look. Another knock out

Aarons on the right track, less is more. Competition Rods & Customs Stock & Street Big Rig & Commercial Miscellaneous Underglass In otherwords, K.I.S.S. I'm guessing most post their builds to show others what their up to. We build in our dark basements and like to show others our progress and our ideas. We like to shoot the bull and bench race with other modelers. MCM is a great place to do this. Too many categories, and some of them will suffer for a lack of eyeballs. This will cause guys to cross over to the popular categories and post unrelated builds in the wrong place in order to get the eyeballs and comments. This happens to some extent now. Underglass is the one category that can include all. The threads are generally shorter to balance out the post count. Combining all categories in the Under Glass section will allow just enough exposure to categories that we don't normally build in to entice us to take an occasional look. That is, if a brief glance in the Under Glass section gets your interest, you can follow up for more detail in the build category. I already voted for this format yesterday. Where were you guys??? These are just the builders categories. I have no problem with the general, contest, tips, etc. as-is.

Always exciting to see you put another one on the bench, Mr O. That body does look good. I think I'll take a front row seat for this build; slow, fast or otherwise.

You got a great look going on here. Keep 'er going!

Hopefully, I didn't lead anyone astray. I double checked and found that CarQuest was the store where mine came from as well.

I've never used solder for headers, but 1/8" is 3 inches in scale. That's a bit big for header tubing. Something around 2mm or just under that would be great.

I looked all over, and finally found PlastiKote primer at O'Reilly Auto Parts. They have three stores in Yuma Az. Check their on-line store locator. T235 Gray

Had to wait until I got home to dig into my stash and find out what brand the letters are. I buy these locally in Kansas City at Hobby Town. Hobby Lobby sells Woodland Scenics products, but I don't know if they have the dry transfer letters. I think Doc's Caboose handles them to.

Here's a couple of examples using dry transfer letters, rather than decals. In both examples, the lettering was applied first, then over painted. Paint was then partially sanded off the lettering.

nice detail work. The engine looks great.

I've only got one

Love it, Jeff. I can't get enough of your detail work. The coil and carb look great. Good to see you're at the bench. BTW, thanks for the gallery pics. I had already forgotten how nice the detail work was on Christine. Glad to see the reminder pics up top.

Thank you Mr Weasel sir. Here's the remainder of my progress. The heat wrap is medical tape. The roll is 1 1/2" wide, so I used a ruler and Xacto knife to cut some 1/8" strips. This first go-round was wrapped front to back. I thought it looked weird, so I started over and wrapped back to front. Not sure I can tell the difference, but there isn't a third choice so this will have to do. The finished pipes; The pipes are covered in Model Masters magnesium metalizer, and the tape is painted with Krylon matte brown. I'll be adding some chalk powders to give the pipes a bit of weathering, as well as painting the inside of the tubing ends flat black. The rear of each pipe has a small hole on the side facing the body. This will be used later on for a brace to keep the pipes up off the rear tires.

Thanks, Raul. I did the same thing on my 40 Ford rat rod, but with a roof keeping the light out, you don't notice it. I figured on an open top roadster if would show up more. The "W's" have been using up some of my build time lately (wife & work), but a few things have advanced. The dash was to have the factory center cluster, but I changed my mind and am planning an aluminum replacement. This started with a paper pattern. This was used to cut out the .015 aluminum panel. The plan is to have a large speedo in the center, flanked by a smaller guage on each side and a few switched here and there. Here's the progress so far. Having cut the seat out of the original interior bucket, I cleaned up the sides and added a back using sheet styrene. I few coats of wine red gives it the look of basic leather. Some dark chalk provides the look of wear on the bottom cushions where the driver and passenger sit. The true color is a bit darker than shown in these pictures. More of a maroon/wine color. thanks for looking.