2002p51

The factory air cleaner housing was most definitely NOT plated. I'm not sure of the exact color for a '60. It might have been Ford Blue, it might have been gold. As for your second question; DON'T "underspray". I know there was a slight amount of body color (the key word here is SLIGHT)over spray on some unibody cars like late sixties/early seventies MoPars and such, but I notice that this has become way over done on more and more models. Since the '60 Ford has a separate body on frame construction, I seriously doubt you'd see any body color overspray on the bottom. And if I were building this model I'd paint all of the inner fender wells flat or semi-gloss black and be done with it.

Well, that was for those guys who might be a little too embarrassed to buy "ladies" stuff for themselves. I've been known to buy nail polish and all sorts of stuff like that!

I use a women's make-up brush. I have two different sizes. They are very soft and do a pretty good job. Ask your wife or girlfriend (but not both!) to pick you up a couple the next time they're out. However, if you actually have a life and can't be dusting your models everyday you'll find that these brushes will only knock off the loose dust. Then I follow up with a "car wash". I put a drop or two of dishwashing liquid in a small cup of water, then use a Q-tip and gently scrub the model with this solution. It will usually just air dry and look fine.

I was at the Charlotte Auto Fair yesterday and came upon these folks selling display cases for model cars. They're pretty neat looking but this one was priced at $450.00! Yikes! They can't be that hard to make so here are some more for inspiration:

I don't think the relative strength of a chosen adhesive is much of a factor when you're talking about a tiny piece of photo-etched metal that weighs maybe a couple of micro-grams.

Midnightprowler has the right answer. Just use a drop of clear coat paint. That way if it moves of shifts a little before it dries, nothing shows.

I have to agree with Harry and others who feel that an "NNL" should have no awards at all. I recently attended the first "NNL" I had been to in more than ten years and was very surprised to see that there were several awards. And this was a "major", that gets full coverage in the modeling press. I was further disappointed when, after the awards ceremony was over, I had the distinct impression that all of the decisions had been made before the models were even placed on the tables. NNL = no awards

There are many times when something that is technically out of scale "looks" better than the correct scale size stuff. I've got some old Detail Master stock type ignition wire that is probably the correct scale size but "looks" too small. This is a screwy hobby!

The most common size for high performance plug wires on real cars is 8mm. 8mm = .3149" 28 gauge wire scales out to .315" in 1/25, so 28 gauge is the closest to scale for high performance wires. 24 gauge scales out to 1/2", much too large for plug wires. 30 gauge scales out to .20", which is probably okay for stock type wires. Can you tell I'm bored at work?

Ahh, well you're right there. I'm pretty sure the stripes have a lot to do with that too! I know that paint job intimidated me all these years.

I don't know about obscure, Prudhomme won the Springnationals in 1968 in this car,and can any Prudhomme car not be mainstream?

Okay, all you rivet counters can stop right here. Look away, you won't like this one at all. This car is built from the AMT Tommy Ivo kit and the first thing I discovered when researching this model is that the body is different from the 1:1 car in just about every way. So I had to make a decision; making the body correct would require so many changes that it might be better and easier to just scratch build the entire thing, something I was not really wanting to do. So, I decided to just go ahead and use the Ivo body as is in order to keep the project manageable and reasonable. So here it is: The engine is, of course, a 427 Ford SOHC. The basic engine is from the Ohio George Montgomery '33 Willys with the blower and drive from the Tommy Ivo kit and the injector from an early Revell funny car. By now, I know you're wondering about the paint job. Well, it's all decals. They were produced by my good friend Skip Samples. The car was painted Testors High Gloss White and everything else, every stripe, is decals. I've got roughly 8 hours in the decal job alone. This is a car I have been thinking about doing for years and years, and all those stripes always stopped me. But Skip's wonderful decals finally made it possible. Unfortunately he only makes decals for his own personal use, and for a couple of his closest friends, so these will not be available for sale. As usual, I encourage comments and criticism.

Yes, I gottcha now! I just went and looked at the box art on another site. I was thinking of a totally different kit. You're right, The Hippie Hemi body IS junk.

What's wrong with the body? I also used the same kit for this: And I used the body for this: So any of those bodies you have that you don't like, you can just send them to me!

And it was at Island Dragway in New Jersey, not Lions in Long Beach.

It's a re-pop of AMT's original Don Garlits car from 1964. As others have said, tons of useful parts.

I would do it all out of Evergreen rod. Easy peezy, no special soldering techniques required, no special nothing. Just cut it out, paint it with Metalizer and glue it in place. Bada-bing-bada-boom. Like you said, no need to make things more complicated than necessary.

I've been needing a new chair in the office/model room. This is what my wife picked up for me today. What you can't see in the photo are the "mag" wheels, and the lever that controls the height has a shift knob with a 5-speed pattern on it. Pretty cool. But this is also the most comfortable chair I've ever had!

Funny you should mention this, Mike. Just a few minutes ago I was working on this when I decided to take a break and see what's on the forum. This roll hoop is on a Tommy Ivo frame. It's made from two pieces of .062" (1/16")Evergreen rod bent by hand. It only took a couple of minutes. I just don't see any reason to make things any harder than they need to be. Thanks Dave, I appreciate that a lot.

I see this question come up often and I wonder why so many modelers make it more difficult than it really is. When I need to bend Evergreen rod, I just bend it! There isn't any more to it than that! The stuff is very workable without heat of any kind. You can literally tie Evergreen rod in a knot. Yes, the bends will spring back a little. But you simply bend it farther than you need to so that it springs back to the correct bend. Work with it a little, waste a few pieces practicing and you'll see how simple it is. I was looking through my files for some "in progress" photos but couldn't find any, so I'll show you this: The rear bumper and side nerf bars on this modified are made from .080" Evergreen rod that I simply bent by hand. Try it.

I appreciate that Rick. I haven't fully decided if I'm going yet or not. March is already shaping up to be a pretty busy month as I've got two races to shoot and a trade show in Indianapolis to go to, so I'm already on the road quite a bit.

Is anybody planing on or thinking about going to the MDA Car Show on march 6th, 2010 in Roanoke, VA? Click here for show website Drew

Wow! That's way too pretty to race!

Slixx

This was just a quick weekend project to while away the bad weather. I've been wanting to do this one for a long time but the problem was I couldn't decide which car to do. This car, as all good race cars do, was constantly evolving and changing. It looks different in almost every photo I have of the car. Different wing configurations, chassis, injectors, scoops, and even markings. So this model is really a composite, if you will, of several variations. Rather than focus on matching one specific photo this is more like a general representation of all of them! (Well, that's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it!) Mostly I back-dated the kit version. I converted the front end to a straight axle leaf spring set-up with a scratch built axle, radius rods, and steering. The roll bars and wing supports are a combination of Evergreen rod and padded sections from a Monogram stock car chassis. The entire wing is made from Evergreen .010" sheet. I also scratch built the wheelie bars. The engine is mostly from the kit with the addition of better looking valve covers from the Revell '41 Willys kit and the scoop from a Tony Nancy dragster kit. Wheels and tires are all from the kit. Strangely, there are no rear brakes in the kit so I made up a couple of disks to fit inside the back of the rear wheels and painted them a dark metalizer color to give the appearance, when you look through the holes in the wheels, of brake drums. I didn't want to paint the front wheels straight gold as that would look too bright, so I mixed some gold in with some Metalizer Stainless Steel to tone it down. The two didn't mix all that well so there's some variation in the color which turned out to be a good thing I think. Paint on the body is Testors Guards Red and the decals are Slixx. As usual, comments, questions, and criticism are welcome.