Alyn

Art, this is a real treat to watch your progress on this project. Your modeling skills are obvious, but the addition of you knowledge of the subject matter, and automobiles in general raises it to higher level. Very unique; please keep the updates coming.

Well, at least we (modelers) don't dress up in costume ... unless you consider "Rat Fink", "Monster Truck" or tie-died T-shirts, long hair and beer bellys as constumes.

So, you're a woman and a Trekkie? My favorite thing about shows is meeting and talking with fellow modelers. I'm on line a fair amount, but I only see some of these guys face to face at model shows. It's almost like a class reunion. Seeing the models is a close second. Scheduling a show to coincide with a 1:1 car show is always a plus. We have a show in Salina, Ks that I would probably not go to were it not for the excellent hot rod and custom show at the same venue. A pet peeve of mine is a common practice during award ceremonies. Winners are announced as "2nd place, entry number 137". I'm not going to remember which numbers belong to which cars. If car number 137 was judged better than mine, I'd like to know which car it was; ie "The blue 57 Chevy gasser", or "Green Jeep low rider". Many times you'll see a truely awesome car and hope that it gets some good recognition. But, during the awards ceremony, you never find out because all they call out is the entry number. gggrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Judging does seem to vary drastically from one contest to another. Builders choice and audience choice judging can vary wildly. You can't take it seriously. I prefer the IPMS style of judging which is far more structured, logical and repeatable. I agree with previous sentiments on the beginner classes, they are ripe for cheating by "stage mom" dads that need to see junior win something. By the same token, we need to pay more attention to these junior builders. There's a finite crop of us baby-boomer old farts that are doing most of the building. We need to find ways to nurture a new crop of young builders to take our place when we croke.

Always interesting subjects. You're just getting started and the patented TxRat killer details are already showing up. Nice work; keep bringing it.

Once I saw your green/white color scheme in the WIP, I was really looking forward to the completed model. Very nicely done.

Looking forward to following your progress on this one, Jeff. Your detail work is second to none as shown by the nice, crisp details on the motor. Good luck in dealing with your health issues.

I let this weekend slip by without getting much modeling done. While many of you were at the NNL East, we had a smaller show here in Liberty, Mo put on by the Central Missouri IPMS club. 400 models including ships, planes and military were entered and around 30 vendor tables. That took up my Saturday, and my wife took care of Sunday. Tonight I wanted to get something done, so I worked on the interior. I need to do the dash, steering, shifter and pedals. At bat: shifter. These ball top straight pins are commonly used for shifters. The ones I usually see are a bit large, and would be the size of a grapefruit on a 1:1 car. I looked around a bit and found these. They're about .090" in diameter, or about 2 1/4" converted to 1:1. I've been doing mine a bit different than what you normally see. First off, I wanted the ball to be silver. I've seen some silver ones at the fabric store, but they're the larger diameter. I scuffed up a green one with a Scotch brite pad and dipped it in some Floquil bright silver. Then I drilled a 1/8" hole in the transmission cover on the floor. A short piece of 1/8" aluminum tube was cut to slip into the hole, but first the rough ends of the tube were filed straight and one end was rounded over and slightly polished. Then the tube was epoxied in place. Finally, the aluminum tube and the edges around the hole where touched up with some flat black. Then the pin was inserted into the tube. This creates the look of the old style top loader tranny's which had a ball and socket pivot for the shift lever. Later on I'll decide what to use for a shift knob and glue it on the pointed end of the pin. Of course, the point will be cut off first. the leading contenders are an aluminum piston, or a plain black knob shaped similar to a mushroom (stock type). By the way, the wear on the floor on the drivers side is on purpose. I covered the floor in BMF prior to painting it. Then knocked the paint off in this area to create the look of the drivers shoes wearing though the paint down to the metal. It doesn't look metallic in these pictures, but the actual part seen in person, looks pretty good.

Raul, that chassis is really nice. The red and silver are striking together, and the clean detail really hits the mark. If that were mine, I'd be tempted to put tops on the mufflers and then put it on the shelf. It's a shame to cover it up.

6

Thanks, Scott. Playing around with the weathering has added another dimension to an already interesting hobby. I've seen a fair number of rusty models, but seeing some of Cranky's work and his how-to examples turned on a switch in my brain. And Jon, speaking of Cranky, search for some of his posts for some great examples of the salt method. I generally take a lot of pictures while I'm building, but this time I figured that Cranky has already provided some solid examples of his technique, so I don't have any progress pictures of the painting phase. In a nutshell you start by laying down a base coat in a ruddy brown of your choice. I use Dupli-Color red primer followed by some random specs and patches in additional shades of brown. Sometimes a few speckles of orange helps. Once the base colors have thoroughly dried, you can spray on some water and then randomly apply salt as a mask over the brown where you want the rust to appear. I don't like the way the water beads up, so on this car one drop of dish washing soap was added to about an ounce of water in a cup. For a little more control, I applied the water with a Q-tip rather than spraying it on. While the surface was wet in the areas to be rusted, salt is randomly sprinkled and allowed to dry. I have used regular table salt, coarse ground Kosher salt and a combination of both for different effects. Once the water has completely dried, the salt will stay in place if you carefully handle the body. No bumping and rubbing. You can now shoot your color coat. When it's dry enough to handle. knock the salt off with a combination of fingernail scraping, picking with a toothpick and what ever else you can come up with. I have read that some guys wash the body to dissolve the salt, but I haven't tried this. After the salt is removed, the shades of brown show through and things start looking a bit rusty. At this point, I brush on a few applications of chalk dust. Reddish browns again, but also some variations of darker grays can help. The chalks add more randomness to the colors and also helps tone down any gloss that may remain. On this car the chalk was followed by some more ruddy brown mixed with baking soda for texture. My mixture got a little too thick, so I added a few drops of Testors dull coat to the mix. This helps adhesion as well. After this mix dried, I followed up with more chalk dust. The best advice I can give is to do this on a scrap body or piece of plastic until you are satisfied with the results. I opened a brand new Revell Ferrari and used the body for practice. this is a good way to learn what colors and what types of paint will work best for you before attempting to rust up your pride and joy. There's a certain barrier you have to break through in order to have the guts to mess up a nice shiny paint job. Once your fellow modelers start telling you that your paint jobs look like #$#@^%, you can thank them and know you're doing something right.

Check your local Hobby Lobby, Michaels or other craft stores in the necklace and bead isle. You find spools of wire in a number of various guages that should work. Some guys use the finer diameter solder. You should be able to find this at Radio Shack.

Glad to hear you guys are diggin the rust. When I was a teen, we had old 56 Chevy's and what not with a bit of rust here and there. The Chevy's in particular would rust directly above the headlights, and along the lower body, especially right in front of the rear wheel openings. The rest of the paint might still be in good shape, so we'ed still wash and wax our cars. You'd end up with a fairly shiny car with a little evidence of the tin worm here and there. When weathering models, it very easy to go overboard. It's so easy to like the results of weathering, that it's hard to stop. I wanted this car to have the look of our old high school cars, not something that was pulled out of the bottom of Lake Erie, complete with barnicles. I am going to polish the paint. Not to get a better shine, but just the opposite; to tone it down a bit. The plan is to stop short of the finest polishing grits to give the paint a nice, but slightly used look. May work, may not. Here's a couple more pics of the rusty areas. and here's another showing the interior shot with matte black followed up with some powders to age the panels. thanks for following along. I appreciate the encouraging comments.

That is one slick paint job. Should look awesome all decked out with some racing decals. The engine really turned out nice. The little splashes of color here and there really bring it to life. Nice work.

Jairus really penned a nice one with this Vette. It hasn't taken you much time at all to capture the essence of it. Looking forward to seeing it in 3D

What a georgous build. paint, interior, chassis, engine... You've swept every category with perfect 10's. I could stare at the interior and engine for hours, and the exterior is beautiful. Don't know how much better to put it; your's should be the box art.

Gary... Use the body. Be not afraid. Fear is the path to the Darkside. Paint day. I wanted the darkest blue I could come up with. This car was repainted when the owner first stripped it down to build a hot rod. After several years of hard use, his amateur repair work came back to to haunt him. Occasional wax jobs won't cover up a lack of basic body working skills and maintenance.

Great looking custom. I love how nice that nose with the canted quads worked out. You've inspired me to dig out my fleetline and move it closer to the top of the "to do" list(including a top chop).

Thanks, gentlemen. Raul, I don't stop working on it, I'm just slow; not a lot to show for my efforts so far this year. Some of my time has gone towards building an Invisible Man model for my wife. Crunchy bones and gooey bits. Here's a couple more photo's just before the color goes on. The body is setting higher on the rails than it's final resting place, but I thought she looked so good in red oxide primer that I wanted to show these. You can really picture this car in somebody's garage as a 1:1 work in progress during the strip down phase.

Thanks, Daniel. Working with brass is the pits because it end up getting covered up with paint. The temptation is to leave it raw metal. This looks cool as all get out if the whole care is done in brass, but when you're just doing a few pieces here and there, the bare brass just wouldn't look right.

Here's the final choice for wheels. These are also from the AMT 34 Ford 5 window coupe. The fronts will use the stock tires from the same kit while the rears will be much bigger and wider tires from the Revell Dodge VTS pickup. To accommodate the added width, a strip of flat styrene was curved and glued between the inner and outer wheel halves. The pieces in the foreground of the picture are the stock wheels for the front. The same pieces, but with the widening strip are shown in the rear. These wheels come with chrome center caps, but just for fun, I decided to build my own. I cut some disks out of some .005" sheet aluminum. the disks were then hammered over a ball bearing to give them the dished shape. The final hubcap is about the size and shape of a contact lens. The finished parts for the rear: and for the front: The original car has black walls front and rear. The small front tires are designed with white wall inserts that were going to be painted matte black. I started thinking about how cool some worn, yellowed white walls would look. Once I weathered the white walls, I just had to use them. The yellowed rubber with the red wheel is a cool match.

Latest progress on my 29 roadster; Because of the Z section at the rear of the frame, the axle sits up even with the side rails. This kept the stock wishbone from fitting. I scratch built some radius arms out of styrene rod. Brackets on the axle drop the arms down low enough to clear the frame rails. The front of the arms attach to scratch built brackets at the frame end. These are simply pieces of styrene angle with a small tab attached. A couple of holes are drilled in the bracket for bolts. The front suspension is resolved as well. The axle is a stock unit from the AMT 34 Ford. To drop the front end down, a suicide bracket was built for the front cross member. I really liked how the curve of the frame horns flowed out from the brass rails, but they had to be cut off to make room for the axle & leaf spring.

Another good show, Todd. Given the move to Salina, I fully expected this one to be a struggle. What a pleasant surprise; plenty of cars, lots of which were very nice. I had a hard time picking my favorites in almost every category. None the less, I think I'd go just to hear Dave's quips on stage.

There's Four States Modelers in Joplin, and the KC Slammers in Kansas City.

Thanks to both you. I have to make sure and keep this one away from Raul. I don't want him to grab it and shoot it with one of his super slick paint jobs! There's some great ideas for you in this thread. Cranky's stuff is always a treat to see. This one is about as rat roddy as they get and as expected, has details everywhere you look. Then we've got those lawn chairs. There's gotta be a how-to there. The air cleaners and beer keg tank on Joe's pickup are great ideas. It's nice to see some of the four-bangers, side pipes and bomber seats. I'm trying to come up with some side pipes on my 29 roadster, but they just aren't work'n out so far. Kim's pickup bed cover is a clever idea. I like the idea of the hi-boy tub too. I've seen a picture of a stripped down, beat up 29 running across the salt at Bonneville and always thought that would be a good idea for a build. There's gotta be plenty more rats running around MCM's dark corners. Let's keep the ideas coming!

Rockies Rat