Alyn

Raul, I didn't chop the windshield quite like your example. I guess I took the easy way out and just wacked off the top half of the frame. I'm calling this one done. At a little over a month, this is by far the fastest build I've done.

Thanks a bunch for the encouraging words (and the enthusiasm, Raul). By the way, I've seen the fiberglass underside trick done before on the web somewhere although it was with tissue to simulate fiberglass. Mine is actual fiberglass cloth which I have not seen done before. Anyway, here's a mock up shot that will finally give you an idea of what this rods starting to look like. The other is a close up to show the plug boots and plugs. I was going to plumb the carbs and add some linkage detail, but decided all the chrome would just overwhelm the details. This is how the motor will end up with the exception that the headers still need to be added. Hope yer diggin' it. By the way, I'm leaning towards cutting down the windshield to half height. Some opinions on this would be welcome. I'll probably do it unless I hear some good arguments against it. Thanks

I'm not sure how your brain came up with this combo, but it looks interesting. Can't wait to see more.

Good eye Hans. I was going from memory, which at 58 is not what it use to be. The steering wheel from the research I've done is from a '58 Impala, and yes it's supplied in the kit. I should know it's not a '56 as I've owned several 1:1 '55 and '56 Chevy's. It's been years, but I believe they have somewhat of a bullet shape in the center, and don't have the holes in the chrome trim. The reason I pointed out the steering wheel heritage is that I find it interesting that such a high level show rod would have an ordinary wheel. Today, custom steering wheels are a dime a dozen. Most show rods wouldn't be caught dead without a high buck, high zoot billet steering wheel. Probably a custom made one-off design at that. Yet, here's one of the most famous show rods in history with a steering wheel that could be found on the common family sedan. But it works. It really does fit this cars character well. Nice catch. Keep me honest!

Thanks, guys. The gold paint is one of the few noticeable changes, here's the other one. I'm sure the skinnier rear tires were cool in their day, but I wanted to update things a bit so I dug through some other kits and came up with this tire/wheel combo for the rear. I believe they're from the 32 Ford switchers kit. They were a mess too. The wheels were attached to the spru with way too much plastic, so when they were cut off, there was a couple of nasty scabs on the wheel edges. I really liked them, though, since they had the faux spokes that matched up nicely with the front wheels. The rough spots had to be trimmed off, sanded and then covered with BMF. The repair is pretty obvious up close, but at a glance they look ok. Way better than before the repair work. The front end is setting on a metal axle for mock up purposes. This will be replaced with the most delicate part of this model; a drop axle with split trailing arms, lateral link(track bar) and coils. The molded and chromed plastic coil springs will be replaced with wound wire.

Here's the aforementioned interior tub. Nothing fancy here; pretty much as it comes out of the box. The steering wheel is a 56 Chevy mounted on an aluminum tube column. I painted the gold, but left the white plastic rather than painting white.Then both gold and white were covered in several coats of clear. I figured why paint the white when the 1:1 steering wheel is white plastic. What looks more like plastic than plastic? The seat was shot with Tamiya fine white primer for the white naugahyde and the same gold as the body for the rolled inserts. The gold was then topped with dull coat to tone it down. For a little car show pizzaz, the floor is covered in gold paint followed by gold embossing powder. The molded in drivers side seat belt was covered with fabric belts and buckles for the final touch. The real version of this car was completed in '59 back when not too many cars had seat belts at all, let alone drivers side.

Thanks for taking a peek, Raul. I've seen the mock up, and I can tell ya, it only gets better. Here's my final work on the body. When you turn this thing upside down, you can see the inverted shape of the seat insert. Not very realistic, so I wanted to cover the bottom with a false panel. I used someones business card to make a pattern, and then using that, cut out a floor panel from .030" plastic card stock. Since this tub in the 1:1 world is fiberglass, I glassed over the new floor panel and also the rear section of the tub. Finally, the new glass work was covered in a few coats of Model Masters flat fabric gray and then trimmed around the edges.

Hans, sorry I didn't answer your question. I'm not using the decals, just keeping it clean and simple. I think the gold does all the work. Although a little dark, these pictures are a little closer to the true color. I mainly wanted to show the dash gauges. The bezels are made from small sections of 1/8" and 5/32" aluminum tubing. I have a heck of a time finding decals to fit them. Most are too big. I bought several NASCAR kits a while back (in crushed boxes) for the parts. Plenty of instrument panel decals, but again, the gauges are way too big. Starting to get some of the detail parts glued together as well. This kit literally has more chrome parts than non-chrome. There's not a whole lot of parts that need paint. The tail lights were all chrome so some Taymiya clear red was used for the lenses. I love this stuff. The picture doesn't do justice to the tail lights, but they look perfect up close and under the light. Hopefully, I'll be able to puts some gas in the tank and see if she'll fire up by the end of the week.

Good call on the color change; nice gloss too. What a slick looking car with tons of possibilities. These things kind of remind me of the CanAm days.

I didn't see that, but you're right. I should have made a mold of it. Can you imagine someone looking at the seat of some far out custom, and then realizing it's this nose. That would be cool. From what I've read, Ed Roth's original intent was to market this body to hot rodders as a commercial venture. He wasn't a master at fiberglass, but built a female mold and used it to build two bodies. One ended up as the original show rod, the other, I'm not sure. The mold still exists, and I believe the current owners are wanting to market bodies again. On the other hand, the nose was a one-off piece. It was sculpted individually, rather than being the product of a mold. Only one was ever made. The wiring isn't done, yet, but is moving along. I drilled out the distributor and shot it with some gray primer and Tamiya Italian red. I also built some wires with plug boots. The lowest wire in the picture is the coil wire, hence the straight boot. After some anguish, red was chosen to provide some contrast to all the gold and chrome. The original Outlaw had clear insulation on the plug wires which I thought about duplicating, but couldn't think of something suitable in scale that would give the same look. The red should look ok.

Thanks, guys. Nice to see you around Kevin. Hans, I saw a simple T-bucket hod rod at a contest not too long ago that was painted gold. I thought it really looked sharp and decided I should build me a gold T some time soon. Then I ran across this Outlaw kit at another contest and remembering the one I had built as a kid, so I bought it. Later on, the two thoughts just came together; build the Outlaw in gold. I had recently sprayed a gold undercoat on a 32 Ford roadster(topped with red) and noticed how the gold really brought out the curves. The gold should really bring out the organic shapes on Big Daddy's T. And it does; I've done a mock up and it looks very nice. Better than expected. I'm looking forward to posting up the pictures, but have some other items on the car to complete first. For a mini update, I managed to scrounge up one of the giant coins like Scott Colmer uses. The giant dimes were a bit expensive, so I settled for a penny. Anyway, I tried it out last night and came up with these wire looms for my Caddy V8. These are made out of .005" aluminum sheet, about 1mm by 4mm with .022" holes drilled to accommodate the wire-wrap wire I'll be using for plug wires. More to come soon.

Aloha, Pete Nice to see ya posting up. That gold roadster looks mighty familiar Of course, I've always thought that goat looked great too. Your's is one of the few traditional muscle cars I've liked with the large diameter wheels. It's starting to look like a reunion around here, right Mustang!

Very nice work. That acrylic looks like its definitely worth a try. Did you brush paint by choice or for lack of an air brush? I suppose shooting that may coats; cleaning an air brush would get pretty old after a while. How good is it at not showing brush strokes? Does it flow out nicely. You certainly don't see any brush strokes in the pictures. Great choice of colors. They work well with the toned down look of this rod.

Thanks, Ken. After a session of wet sanding, I shot the gold on the body parts. Normally, I squirt the color coat over Tamiya fine white primer, but this time I shot right over the gray in the hope that it would slightly darken the gold. The picture of the nose is pretty close to the true color; 4 coats of Tamiya TS-21 gold with 2 more coats of TS-13 clear. This was wet sanded and followed with 4 more coats of TS-13. The picture of the body and nose together was shot on a light blue back ground which totally threw off the color balance. I tried to adjust for it, but there's a definite orange hue to the picture. In real life, the body matches the nose and looks quite nice. Revell was kind enough to put their mold parting lines right next to those ribs on the rear of the body tub. They were a bear to sand off. The dash had the gauges molded into the plastic, so I sand them off and drilled some holes to add my own later on. I'll need to scrounge up some decals to fit the aluminum bezels, but I think decals look way better that trying to hand paint the molded in style of panel gauges. A silver Sharpie helps, but I'll take the decals any day. The original car had a large speedo & tach, plus 5 smaller gauges. This car will only have 3 which will be that much easier to scratch build and should look just fine. Nice and simple.

For anyone not familiar with Big Daddy's Outlaw, here's a picture of what I'm building. I'm staying true to form, but mine's going to be painted gold. This thing looks as cool today as it did 40 years ago. The nose comes as two parts, so it has this nasty seam on each side. Normally, this would be a problem to fix, as the chrome grill is suppose to be sandwiched between the two halves of the nose when they're glued together. This means you'd have to work around the chrome part during the putty/prime/sand/repeat and final color coat phases. I went ahead and glued the halves together without the grill and then filed open some slots underneath to snap it in place afterwards. The result is a much cleaner looking nose. Here's the two main body parts in primer, ready for final wet sanding.

Doh! I should have kept those parts for a diorama. This motor has some nice detail. I may cast up another one just to throw in the back of a truck bed or something. Here's the basic frame completed too. The Micky Mouse ears are the upper frame mounts for a coil spring suspended tubular beam axle. Ed was pushing the envelope. A lotta gold going on here. I hope I can afford it!

You know I"m kidding, man. I wish my tiny hands could do this kind of work. Your detail parts stand up nicely under the magnifying glass. Keep it coming

Round 2 on the resin casting was a major improvement. Same mold, but I took more time pouring the resin to achieve better mold saturation. Although the parts look pretty decent, the two sides of the block(top of the picture) are suppose to include the upper half of the bell housing. The resin would not flow down into this part of the mold, so I had to add this detail to the resin casting using some scrap styrene. There are a few air bubble voids, but nothing a little glazing putty can't cure.

I have a respect for history. Ed, "Big Daddy" Roth put everything he had into an idea. His vision of a 23 T changed the concept of what a show rod should be. When I was about 12 or 13, I built Revell's Outlaw kit. No paint, glue joints without scraping off the chrome. What did I know. More than any model out there, this one can actually be built without paint and end up as a pretty decent shelf model. The original car was white, the plastic is white; throw on the decals and there ya go, your own version of one of the most recognizable hot rods in history. Talk about delicate, this kit has the smallest, most breakable parts of any I've seen. So, I've already built it as it's suppose to be. This time, a few changes are allowed. Nothing serious mind you. Stare at this car for a few minutes and and you realize it is one of the most perfect renditions of the T bucket ever created. No changes necessary. But for this version, the color is going to be gold to show off the curves. The engine will get wiring and that's about it. Starting off, the frame sucks. I hate frames that have to be assembled. It's too difficult to keep everything square. I'll take a 1-piece frame anyday. The upside is the added detail, but once assembled, it won't be seen anyway. Note how low the radiator sets in the frame. I'm also going to use this build to experiment with resin casting. You can see that my first effort didn't come out to well. That's suppose to be a '49 Caddy engine.

So, I guess there is an upside to having tiny hands ...

I got mine at Doc's Caboose. Railroad modelers need tools too! Here's a link to their tools: http://h1072819.hobbyshopnow.com/services/...L&tag=qsrch The site shows "out of stock" on the chisel, but do what I did and just buy the replacement tips. They can be chucked up in a pinvise. As already mentioned, this is a good addition to your toolbox. The kind of tool that gets the job done when nothing else will.

Sorry to hear you can't make it Bob. I was looking forward to saying hello. I dropped off a couple of cars this afternoon but couldn't stay long as I'm in the midst of getting a 1:1 car ready to sell. I was reminded, though of the awesome quality of the entries typical of this show. I consider it the biggest and best in this area. I was there early, so the tables weren't filled up yet, but there were already some really nice builds. I can't wait to get over there tomorrow when there should be more time to take some closer looks. True eye candy

Sorry Scott. I'm starting to believe in the "Giant Dime" theory to. Humans cannot build tiny stuff like this. Space aliens can, hmmm The pedal assembly is some of the finest detail work I've seen. What's cool is that it looks so good under the close-up lens. Fantastic work. You could of done a workbench thread on this assembly alone.

Jose, I'm not a browser expert, so I can't tell you what settings to check. I've viewed this thread (and the pictures) from three or four different computers using Firefox and Explorer and don't have any problems. Chuck, I'm not surprised you didn't notice the Hemi swap. If it was one of the most recognizable engines in recent history, or something more obvious than 10 cylinders vs 8, or maybe that Viper engines are typically port injected, not blown. Then maybe ... But this was pretty subtle ... I tried to sneak it by ...

Thanks for the good thoughts, guys. The chassis is done as well. The exhaust is from the Dodge Ram kit with the ends heated and bent this way and that to match up with the head pipes. They are painted with Model Masters stainless metalizer and ended up looking surprisingly similar to the real metal on the drive shaft. The flared tips are some wiring ferrules. A little clean up on the tires and she'll be ready to go under the glass. Thanks for your interest and comments.