Art Laski

I replaced all the original panels with Styrene, Not only were the original panels too thick, but they were different than what's on the car in a lot of ways. I also made new nerf bars and bumpers out of brass. This required that making spuds on the chassis for them to mount to as well, as the Die Cast did not do that. This one has the decal proof on it.

Thanks for looking, Chris!

Thanks, Brother!

This is going to be crazy, Brother. Looking forward to following along!

Hey Jim, it's 1/18. Thanks for watching!

I started out stripping down all the paint. The chasses cage tubes are halves, so they needed some smoothing and putty. Same with the tail.

Here's the die cast(s):

There's a bit of a story behind it, but a couple of years ago, my dad essentially inherited a current midget race car from a friend with whom he built the car. Racing is expensive, so he doesn't run it much, but last year an opportunity presented itself to collaborate with long-time open wheel driver Travis Berryhill to run a couple of races. They started off with an indoor race in Du Quoin, IL last year, coming close to winning until some bad luck struck. Then last January, they went to the Chili Bowl, one of the biggest races of the year anywhere, with over 350 entries vying for about 24 starting positions on A Main Saturday. They race all week long, and each competitor gets one night to attempt to transfer to the big show. If they don't make it, they get to go through what they call the "alphabet soup", where they race up though mains from O through to the A main, with two each or more transferring up from each race. No one has ever gotten from the O to the A main, but sometimes they do make a good climb. Because of that, it's important to do well on your opening night, and the first step is transferring into that night's main event. Last year, Travis transferred into the Wednesday night main, setting himself up for a decent shot at making the main. Unfortunately, a flip in the main, and a flip in the Saturday E main meant they didn't make the big show. But it was a good effort. Not long after the race, Travis contacted me about doing a couple of models- one he wanted to give to his sponsor, Vanilla Cycles, and the other he wanted to give to my dad for letting them run his car. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about it, because I already have a midget WIP in progress going on about 7 years now! I couldn't do that with a project like this one. But I found out that a Kyle Larson die cast midget was issued recently, and it was the same chassis make as my dad's car, which is a Spike chassis. So I thought I would get some decals made up (I was given the original artwork) and paint it up a little and be on my way, right? Yeah, it never works that way for me... The die cast is a good start, but it has a Toyota engine in it, versus the Ford in dad's car, and all the body panels are slightly different, and, actually, way too thick. So I went to work, one thing has led to another, and here we are... While it's still going to have some obvious die cast traits, I have gone about adding a little more accuracy, and I think when it's done, it will be a pretty cool replica. Here are a few shots of the actual car:

Great to meet you there, Chris! Your builds looked outstanding. Congratulations on the Best Detail Award sponsored by Scale Pro Shop!

Thanks, Jim!

Thanks, Mike!

Yes, I did. I used a compound called Malm's (malms.com) that a friend gave me. It's been a while, so I'm not positive, but I think I had to wet sand the scratches out with sanding pads first, up to 12,000 grit.

A Salvino's chassis will work as well. I have a similar project in the queue using the Hurtubise kit body and I'm going to use the Salvino's Olds chassis. Looks like it lines up well, but not sure of all the challenges just yet.

Looks great, Paul!

Very nice, Steve! I just acquired some of these not too long ago. I hope I can get to them someday... ?

Great job, Rich! It looks great.

Thanks, Seth!

This is great, Steve! Good to see you last weekend.

Thanks, JC!

Your SMS chrome looks good! I'm anxious to try it.

Hi Len, Molotow definitely has a shelf life, but I'm not a huge fan of it for big chrome areas. It looks a little aluminum to me, and handles terrible. I love the pen for little touch ups on dash buttons and things like that, though. But I haven't found anything yet that beats Alclad. I know people say it doesn't handle well, and always want to clear it, but I just don't touch it. Sometimes it's inevitable while you're building, but I have been able to touch up those areas with my airbrush and you would never know it happened, because you can touch it up with such a fine paint flow that you can't even see it coming out. I haven't tried Revell, but while it's shiny, every sample I've seen looks like it picks up every bit of dust in the room, and looks too thick. Also, I can't justify the cost. Looks like a lot of waste out of the can, but maybe it can be decanted. I do have both some SPS and DSPIAE chrome I'm going to try someday. Maybe that will be better... Hope whatever you try works out for you! Art

Thanks for the comment, Rattlecan Dan! Love the handle!

Thank you, Carl!

Love it. Thanks for sharing!