Dave Mikrut

I used the tonneau cover from the AMT 59 El Camino to make parts for my Mint T interior. The little t body is so small that I've basically upholstered the frame and will also make a seat back. I've seen alot of 1:1 rods done like this, especially if they ar Z'd or channeled. I made a cool shifter knob made from the radiator cap on the Rommel Rod. The door panels too are made from the same material and I added some inside handles from the Revell Willys Pickup. These will be glued to the inside of the body.

A model I have been wanting for a very long time, finally got one on Ebay real cheap!. Now I can build the 68 Hemi Under Glass!

Thanks to all you guys for your positive feedback and encouraging words. I love to share the progress fotos. It's kinda like we're building these things together, like the good ol days when me and some buds would sit around crafting on some plastic. I lowered the body a smidge and I really like the look of it waymorebetter now. I lopped off the top part of the chassis and and deepened the slots in the front of the body to drop it down. The body was really close to the tires so I added some simple brake drums for clearence.

What started out to be a real fun build almost got stomped tonight. This is a difficult chassis to assemble. I had another idea in mind for springs, but wanted to go the out of the box route for a change, bad idea. Well anyway, I'm diggin the look and used a slightly larger in diameter set of wire wheels than from the kit. I test fitted the body, it looks awesome, but yer gonna hafta wait a little longer hehe, till I paint it. Here's todays progress photos

I picked up a L'il Stogie kit the other day. It's a really cool kit. I don't usually build anything right out of the box, nor do I build the really whacky show rods, but this chassis has inspired me to start a creation that will be known as Mint "T". So far the only modifications to the original kit are different tires, I used some big Mickey Thompsens instead of slicks, different valve covers and I rounded off the front coil spring mounts. This is gonna be a fast and whacky build, just havin some fun and gettin my mind off of woes.

Thanks very much for your encouraging words. I made the decals on my inkjet printer. They are on white decal paper and outside border of the white letters bordered in black, I tried to match the color of the yellow. This is one way of getting around having to buy an Alps printer hehe. The Windows font from the vinyl letter guy was the same font I used to make my decals.

Things have been crazy for a while. I'm getting work done to get an upper denture, this coming thursday the last 5 teeth come out and the new ones go in, same day. ugh! Got a promotion at work and have been really busy moving and getting orientated to a new group and job duties. Mind has been on model building but after seeing that awesome 56 gasser...I'm gettin jazzed to build again real soon! The real Stormy got some new rubber yesterday, had it out cruising a little last night. Can't wait for the nostalgia drags this summer. I've got some wider whites ordered for the front, these are only temporary. The whitewall slicks are Hurst Racing rubber. 30x10x15. I hope evryone has a Hoppy Easter today...hehe...get it??? http://www.hurstracingtires.com/1093440.html I'm going to have to update the model now, here's some fotos.

This is the stuff I really like to see, and it's not just a gluebomb resto. You are making a unique one of a kind Willys that doesn't look like what everyone else is building. Before they were making gassers out of these cars they were customized just like the 40 Fords back in the 40's and 50's. You are doing a great job and really interesting fotos and commentary!

A lazy afternoon, waiting out the tornado warnings, thought I'd fabricate the air shocks today. Ultra simple construction, two dia's of plastic tubing, one plastic rod. A small dia wire for the air tubing and drilling the holes in my crossmember and trunk floor for the t-fitting. These photos are beginning to show I have a lot of touching up to do down here, but waiting till near the end. Also added vent window, door handle and door lock trims today and shot the whole car with a few more coats of clear.

I'd rather gargle with razor blades than apply bare metal foil. But it looks so freakin good I hadta do it! I wish I had a buck for as many times as I've stabbed myself during this tedious monotonous task! And of course a brand new sharp blade is need. I actaully chaned 3 blades during this job. I used matte aluminum type because I believe the chrome is way too shiny, especially on a fifties car that has stainless steel trims anyway.

The paint is the new Modelmaster laquer Daytona Yellow I made these decals for the side of my car, just like the ones that are on there. After printing, I pin the decal paper to a piece of cardboard and leave it near a heat vent to dry for a cupla hours. I then apply about 6 coats of Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic and allow drying in between coats using the same drying method. This seals the decals and prevents the ink from washing off. The yellow paint also got a cupla coats of clear and allowed to dry to provide a smooth slick surface for the decals to adhere to. After 2 hrs of the decals drying I have shot the car again with about 3 coats of clear. These weekend...the dreaded BMF !

DOH! hahaha, yer right? I been lookin at this thing upside down for so long...it looked right to me!

I did some tweaking and now it's sitting just the way I want it to.

I had to grind out the holes in the tear drop hood and I backed them up with some tiny screen that's photo etched stock car vent material. As you can see the ladders and driveshaft loop are installed and now I need to make some air shocks.

Masking with Ziploc? Well sort of. In my ongoing chassis work I am doing on my Stormy Monday 55 Chevy project, I have parts already assembled that need to be blocked from oversparay. I could use big hunks of masking tape, but would risk pulling some of my parts loose, so I came up with this idea. It's simple but effective. Just don't spray along the edges of the baggies because you can get a faint line. As you can see I added some parts that I wanted to spray on the chassis and this works out real nice.

I noticed there's a problem with the front pan on the AMT model body. I had to trim this off and now it looks more like how my car looks minus bumper. (refer to opening foto's) I'm almost ready for paint, maybe tomorrow. I fabicated a crossmember like my car has which also retains the driveshaft in case it lets go when I'm dumpin the clutch at 6 grand. It's also what my ladder bars are connected to, more progress on that, when I find the shocks I'm going to use.

I don't know how you do it Brian, but that's some of your best work yet! Incredible!

I fabricated some shacles from strips of plastic and hexagon shaped rod to resemble bolts. I also shortened the SWC ladder bars which now look very close to mine. Also notice the steel added to between the frqme rails to mount the shocks. My car has this rather than have them mounted to the body the stock way. I built and sold 2 hot rod computers and listed stuff on Ebay too, to help supeliment my income. So next step will be to mount the shocks and ladder bars which also incorporates a mount for the front of the leaf spings

Cranky, I love this thing!!! It's yer little dream car and imagination and vision is what makes this an artform. Youve definately got the knack for the outrageous, I'm diggin it the most!!!

I'm using the straight axle that goes with the front part of the frame I clipped from the SWC Willys kit. I cut off the snap on pieces and replased them with some brass tubing drilled into the axle. Same size as the AMT metal axle that would go with these wheels. I added some cool vented disk brakes and assembled them onto the frame for a test fit. I will add the tie rod and paint the shackles and add shocks. I borrowed a rear end from the AMT Baldwin Motion Camaro, because my 55 Chevy has a Camaro rear end. I painted this with a little glossier of a black, which I plan to do to mine when I have it off, when I put my new springs on. A quik sneak peak of that too.

The wheels and tires I am using are the pie crust style slicks which I will eventually purchase for the car and the 12 spoke gasser wheels they now have that have a 5 bolt pattern down in the spokes. So these old AMT favorite were use and I'll back them up with some disk breaks and the mags are constructed from some mags and rings from ,y parts box. All painted flat black and then silver. I like that look for aluminum wheels.

Here's the chassis with the single exhaust system removed. It sure ain't easy, not perfect, but neither is the underside of my real car hehe. I think once I have the new exhaust, ladder bars and suspensions on it will hide most of the imperfections. I smoothed out the transition of the two chassis pieces and I think ot looks somewhat believable.

I'm doing a model of my 1:1 55 Chevy that's named Stormy Monday. Named for the fact a tree fell on it during a tornado and to keep my spirits up whilst I save for the repairs, building this model is therapudic. I started removing the front rails off the chassis of the AMT 55 Chevy Sedan kit. I also cut the front of the chassis from the Revell SWC Willys chassis. The 55 chassis has a molded in single exhaust and you can se in the photo I am using nibblers and sanding sticks to remove it. Also I will blend the transition of the 2 frames together a little better when I get out the Dremel for the finising touches. There's also a photo of how nice that straight axle looks on there. By the way, my 1:1 doesn't have the straight axle yet...but it will hehe!

My Daily driver is a 2005 Hyundai Tiburon. Fast, good handling and fun, easily hit 125 and I think that wasn't the top. My hobby car, is a 55 Chevy 210 2dr Sedan. I am currently making it more and more like a sixties gasser. I'll be nostalgia drag racing with it this summer at Morrocco Dragstrip in Indiana.

Many of you know that I have a passion for not letting old junkyard models die. A few years ago I started to restore a 1959 Buick, from an Ebay Junkyard, that was missing it's roof. It also had hogged out rear wheelwells. I sacrificed a new Rev/Mon 59 Impala for the wheel wells and the roof. I'm usually pretty good at doing the altered wheel bases and replacing body panels but this time I got carried away and sanded off too much of the contours of the sides. So the body went back in the box, even tho frustration sometimes makes me wanna put my failures under my size 13 boot. Yesterday I picked up the rereleased AMT/SMP 59 Imperial. As soon as I scoped thosed fender skirts whilst grokking my new kit, I knew I had found a home for them! Take a look what I got so far. I need to do a little puttying here and there and now I am going to proceed with this old beauty after all. Just a little side note, this body almost became the donor for the custom I made called Elka Meano, but had I used this one, then it wouldn't have been called that now would it HAHA!!!