foghorn62

Sci-fi script, I love it! All kidding as side though Francis, your work is gorgeous! I was warned by some of our mutual friends to be careful because your work is very addicting, and I understand that statement. In this parade, you are the leader of the band, while I am just the clown on the tricycle weaving in and out of the crowd, and passing candy out to children. I am fine with that though. At least I can still ride along. Maybe you would be interested in this

The Origen of this build goes all the way back to the 1973 Detroit Autorama where Jerry Pennington debuted his Ridler award winning creation he called Devilfish. I was working the MPC Model Car Customizing Contest booth at the show, and Devilfish was on display across the isle from us. I was immediately taken by the race car bred, mid engine configuration of the car, and I had an idea to use the fins of a 59 Chevy Impala to do something similar. I did a crude sketch of what I had in mind, and set it aside. Fast forward to mid 2018. I had recently gotten back into the hobby after about thirty years, and had done three builds so far since returning. One day I was thumbing through some old Car Model Magazines, when the sketch that I had done back in 1973 fell out. I immediately thought of the Devilfish car.. I had found an old unpainted 59 ElCamino glue bomb in a second had store some months before that I bought for $.50. Jerry Pennington’s Ridler Award winning Devilfish. It took me thirteen months to complete my build, using the body of the ElCamino, chopped, channeled, shortened, pie cut, and just about anything else that you could do to a body. It features an all scratch built frame made out of brass tubing, with chrome plated brass working front and rear suspensions, 3D printed LS3 from Ron Olsen, with custom turned aluminum Phillies, starter, A/C compressor, and other parts. Interior is all scratch built with beaded stainless steel floor, custom dash, and fun foam sculpted seats. Below are a few pics of the build in progress, as well as some of the completed car toward the end. I initially set the first cut of the body on a GT40 tub for proportions. The tub was discarded shortly later. The chassis featuring inboard rear coil over independent suspension was based roughly on one that I found on the web site for The Roadster Shop, that they were doing for a Pantera. Independent A-arm front suspension features working coil over shocks.First fit of body on chassis. Rough fit of engine with transaxle, and headers Exhaust tips Rear valance with punched louvers. I was still hoping to use the stock A pillars at the time First attempt at vacuum formed windshield with clay buck Approaching final form, with redesigned A-pillars, and silver wire windshield frame. Early interior mock up. Body cut up. 3D printed LS3 Scratch built fuel filter Silver wire roof edge trim Chrome plated brass rear suspension, with inboard coil over shocks. Paddle shift linkage is visible on transaxle. A/C evaporator visible, front suspension, serpentine belt system on engine with turned pulleys. Steering linkage with working universal joints, Windows tinted using Poly Dye A/C vents in dash Interior mock up Final assembly underside. Note beaded stainless steel floor Painted with custome mix of Createx Acrylic Wicked blue, and Wicked Silver, with Candy 2.0 Marina Blue fades, followed by two coats of PPG Clear Urethane. Thanks for looking. IMG_1054.MOV

Less spectacular? Not by a long shot! Everything you do is spectacular Francis! Today’s entry is no exception. Now Ron above opens the door for yet another level. You have made all of the parts, not let’s see you put them together. Working throttle connected to working linkage, and working butterflies in the carb. Then you can connect your working break peddle to the working master cylinder, put juice in the lines, and connect them to your working calipers. Really, it appears to me that the only thing missing is the fluid. Congrats and thanks for bringing us along on your one year anniversary of this build thread Francis. Sorry I jumped in so late, but at least I can still catch up. I’m going to hold you to those ball joints though. Mainly because they are holding up a build that I am working on and I want to copy what you come up with. Even if I have to spend a few grand on new Sherline tools to do it.

Nope, I don’t feel guilty at all! If I somehow inspired, or at least nudged you into using brass to make such a beautiful part, then I am honored. It truly does make the scale look more correct, don’t you agree?

Ok Francis, now you’ve got my attention. I’m guessing ball joints, and no I don’t feel guilty at all.

Really nice build you’ve got going here Ron! I love the hood hinges, and the bed strips! Also, great job on the window trim. I finished a build last year on which I did exactly that, except I used 20ga silver wire instead of aluminum because I thought it would polish up nicer, and it can also be soldered if necessary. After the first coat of clear, I lightly sanded the trim to expose it, and polished it before the final two coats of clear.

Too late.

So let me get this straight, why make the reservoir cover removable, when no one ever will remove it? Because you can.

And it comes with a very nice little trailer too.

Good choice Tim!

Oh my, that is just so pretty with all of the suspensions assembled and wearing shoes! I have to ask though Francis, why after all of this gorgeous machine work are you still using a plastic frame? Isn’t it fairly fragile with the weight of the suspensions, wheels and tires on it? Why haven’t you gone to a brass frame? I know you have the technology to do it and it would be a thing of beauty, not to mention much stronger and more suitable for the rest of your parts.

Congratulations on this well deserved award Claude! I didn’t realize until just now that this is your build, but I knew from the first time I saw it on the ACME site that it was the cream of the crop!

Francis, your A arms are super clean, your spindles are gorgeous, and your coil overs are pure sweetness. How are you managing to have any suspension travel without ball joints? With your close machine tolerances, I would think it would be too tight unless you just leave the king pins a little loose. I’ve run into this myself on IFS and I’m curious to see how you solve it. Tim S.

You’re not a professional machinist either, but that doesn’t seem to slow you down.?

I see a real problem developing with this build Francis. You keep making these parts smaller and smaller, and more and more detailed. You’re going to need a better camera.

So, I started to resurrect this stalled 30+ year old Billet Vicky build about a week ago. I’ve already had some bumps in the road, but also made some progress. I was reluctant to do a chemical strip on the body because I didn’t want to loose the body work that had been done. I figured the plastic frame would be ok, so I dumped it and some other parts into the Purple Power soup. Unfortunately, the frame did not survive, but came out in pieces, so I decided to scratch build a new frame out of brass. It looks like the IRS will work fine with the new frame, but I wasn’t happy with what I had done with the front, so I built a TCI style cross member for a coil over IFS. One other piece of good news is that I remembered that I had used the Tamiya X22 acrylic clear when I originally painted the build, so with a little rubbing alcohol and some elbow grease, I was successful in stripping the body down to the primer. Here are a couple of pics of the new frame as a WIP.

These classics have a familiar look to them. It’s been about eleven years since I last saw the Boyd collection in the flesh (or styrene actually). Some of them go back as far as the NNLs at the Roadway. Thanks for the memories Tim!

Hi Steve. I just ran across your thread here, and thought I’d check it out. Great work! I’m excited to see how this one comes out. Like you, I think Gremlins are kind of weird in their stock form, but offer a blank slate for customized. Here is one that I did earlier this year for inspiration.

Well behold! In my eye it looks beautiful!

Done well??? How about done to perfection? There is “well”, and then there is out of site!

@Mr. Metallic @Dennis Lacy Thanks guys! If I can get this paint stripped without loosing the body work that I but into it, I may be able to get this thing done once and for all. Maybe I’ll start with the frame, suspensions, and engine and see where that takes me. The floorboard, and firewall are machined and polished aluminum plate. The gas tank, exhaust, and suspensions are chrome plated brass.

Hey, I’ve got one of those! This is the one that I was working on around the mid 80s that caused me to box up my models and walk away from the hobby for the next thirty years or so. I had put quite a bit of work into it with a lot of chrome plated scratch built brass, and even a healthy dose of real milled And polished billet. I was working on the paint, using Tamiya water base acrylics through my Paasche. It was going quite well I thought. Even the ghost flames were looking good. I laid down three coats of Tamiya X22 clear, and put it aside for a few days. When I came back, I was devastated to find that the entire paint job had cracked all the way through to the primer. After thirty years, tastes in hot rods have changed, and while machined billet and chrome were cool then, you don’t want to be caught on the HAMB With any of that stuff these days. So I decided I’d wait until the right opportunity presented itself to try to finish this build. I think I may have finally stumbled across that opportunity. Who knows? Maybe I can finish it if it doesn’t have to be done for another year,.

Hi Claude, It’s a pleasure to meet you sort of?. I have not been to any IPMS events as of yet, but I am a member of the Mount Mansfield Scale Modelers Facebook group and there was a message posted yesterday that the Spring 2021 Can/Am Con has been canceled due to the virus. I believe that is the event that you are referring to. They did note that they are hoping for better news in 2022, so it looks to me like barring any more disasters, they are planning to resume their regular schedule whenever they get the green light. I’ve only had a presence in this area for about ten years (first seven or so part time, and full time for the last three), but I did always try to make the NSRA event at the fairgrounds until last year when family health issues prevented me from going. Then this year it was canceled due to the virus, so I’ve been missing it. I never had a 1:1 car to take, but I always enjoyed vewing the show as a spectator. I must have seen your cars there many times. Another great show was the AACA show in Stowe, that moved to Waterbury two years ago. Great swap meet, and lots of beautiful early iron. I have a friend in Germany that is an amazing scratch builder, that has told me that I need to look up a fellow in PQ by the name of Francis Laflamme. My friend says the Francis is also a scratch builder using metals. Do you know him? Thanks for reaching out to me Claude. I look forward to chatting more in the near future. Regards, Tim Slesak

LOL, I thought so too, but I think it’s coming from that hemp farm down the road. Seriously though, thanks for your kind words! Tim S.

Thank you all for your amazingly kind words, and especially to my old friend Tim Boyd for your words and encouragement, and also for turning me onto this forum. In the short time that I have had to look around, I can tell that there is no shortage of amazing talent represented hare. If I can occasionally set one of my builds on the table alongside the rest of you, pull up a stool and chew the sprue, then it will be my honor. The car that Tim Chose to show you is my most recent build, a tribute to a 1:1 show rod named “Loaded” built and shown by Pinkees Hot Rod Shop of Windsor Co. The attached picture is of the 1:1 car. I say it’s a tribute, and not a replica, since I mixed a little of my own personality in . Since I enjoy working with brass, I thought it would be a good opportunity to build a little less formal hot rod that I would drive around town if I had the 1:1. Mr. Turbo hit the nail on the head with his description of “brassier, giving it a steampunk vibe”. That is exactly the look I was hoping to achieve. The build features a scratch built frame and working suspensions, built mostly out of brass, with stainless steel quarter elliptical leaf springs in the rear, and a single transverse mounted stainless steel leaf spring in the front. The wheels are laced copper wire, with brass hubs and inner rims, and turned aluminum outer rims. The windshield frame, seat frames, gas tank, and headers are also scratch built brass. The engine is a Chrysler 354 Hemi from the Moebius 56 Chrysler 300B kit, mated to a 3D printed T4 five speed trans.The trunk and floor boards are made out of aircraft plywood, with copper inlaid accents. The body is pieced together with parts from various 29 Model A kits, with a little Evergreen thrown in. Seats and interior side panels are covered with tuck and role sculpted fun foam. Paint is Createx Acrylic Candy 2.0 Dirt Track Brown mixed 50/50 with Wicked Gold, over black Autoborn Sealer followed by three coats of Testors Wet Look Clear. Thanks for taking the time to look at my build. I look forward to chatting with many of you and checking out what all of you are up to. I noticed that there are several folks on here in PQ Canada, which is just up the road from where I am here in northern Vermont. If they ever get the border open again, I sincerely hope the opportunity will present itself for us to get together. I don’t speak French so please be patient with me, but I do speak model car. Regards, Tim Slesak