Dave Mikrut

It took me forever to decide on a wheel. I needed something small yet cool. The chain wheel from the Revell 64 Chevy Lowrider did the trick. Looks real nice next to Mr. Skully Bonehead. I had to come up with a way to stop the back end of the body from sliding down over the chassis. The firewall has notches in it for the depth I wanted. I installed this subfloor, sticky back felt on the top and flat black on the bottom. The chassis sit's on this and goes in no further, no need to glue the body on either. I shortened the headers and made a collector plate. I still need to clean these up a bit, but now no conflict with the doors. Here's a nice look at how the body sit's on the chassis. It's time to sit back and make a list of things left to do. I need to take a little break on this one and get back to the Twin engined 40 Ford Railjob.

Well my Modelmaster Clear Parts and Window Cement is old and I believe maybe thickened a little, so I scratched that last dash and hoped to come up with a little something more interesting. The old Revell Parts Pack that has tubular grilles had these bezels that I modified for my dash gauge bezels. I filled in the old dash area for a nice flat surface to mount these too. Even tho I used my Dremel to round off that opening, I should have done it a little more for a tighter fit. Actually these tight zoom ins show more that the naked eye can see sometimes and it really looks alot better just when you hold it in your hand. I also added a club plaque to the back and a Kulture type decal. @#$%&* it's hard to photograph chrome! There'll be some Woodys or Mooneyes on here somewhere too! I added a Mooneyes gas pedal. I was looking for a kool shifter and remembered I had bought this resin Skull. I brought out some of the detail with a black wash. The dash is installed now, I need to find a steering wheel and the body will go on.

This may sound crazy but these three fotos represent an entire afternoon of work. I had to chop the windshield frame and get it to fit in the opening of the body. Not an easy task. Measuring, gluing, sanding, recutting, sanding... Then I bare metal foiled it, installed the clear glass and decided I hated how it looked. Removed the foil, sanded painted flat black, installed the clear glass and now I am very happy with the results. I'm not sure if I'll use this dash, but I am trying a little experiment. Shown is a sheet of dash gauges decals I made and I selected the one to fit this dash. I'm using Modelmaster clear parts and window maker to see if it will look nice. I'll post another foto when and if it clears up! hehe

I love it ! I am stuck in the sixties and I build lotsa AWB drag cars. Jungle Jim would have had a Nova just like that, you did him proud.

Here's a tip for you. For preliminary fitting and locating, I use a product called Poster Putty, or Fun-Tack. It held these wheel wells in place so I could test fit the body on to my chassis. It will also hold them in place while I flow my liquid cement into the seam. It has many uses, I've even used it to hold old interior buckets in place instead of gluing them.

I'm using the classic hinge that very much resembles the old Auto World hinges. It's made from aluminum wire and the square stock has a brass tube inside to keep the hinge tight inside. Two fo the corners were rounded off and after the Krazy Glue Gel dried I shot it all flat black. The door upholstery is black crushed velvet paper, a chrome paper resembling the paper found in cigarette crush proof boxes and some of the red crushed velvet. And now we have some swingin doors! Here's a test fit of the body for seat loaction. Ok and here's where we are gonna sit...this time used sticky back red felt.

I took a trip to the craft store and picked up a big assortment of textured papers, foams and felts, some sticky back, some not. I glued some of this red crushed velvet paper to a thin sheet of aluminum roof sashing by spraying it with clear enamel and sandwiching it between two paper plates and two heavy coffee table books. This will be the floor and will look real nice from the bottom with the metal showing through. Here's a test fit, it's not glued yet, but you can see how it's gonna look. And here's how it looks from below. I cut some of the peel and stick black felt to fit in as my headliner. I used a paper plate trimmed for a pattern. The tuffist part is to get it lined up correctly, dang stuff is good'n sticky.

The engine is from the AMT Buick Riviera. The carbs and manifold were from, if I remember correctly, the old AMT Vicky? I did use some black wash to bring out some of the detail on those kool karbs! I grafted on a Powerglide transmission from my parts box. I'm going to hafta dirty up those headers! They were made from extra AMT Double Dragster header cut apart to fit the nailhead arrangement At this point I realized the fanbelt assembly from the kit was inadequate.... So I fabbed up some pullies and made a belt out of a mylar hair tie. Look any better? I had to make all new motor/trans mounts... Here it is with the engine setting in the frame. Notice, I've changed my mind on the headers, I wanted this thing to be streetable remember? These will be capped headers with streetable exhaust added to them later.

Remember I said the Li'l Coffin body was narrowed to mate up with the 32 Deuce? Well at this point I had to decide on a direction, and I really wanted to use the cool Coffin kit parts, so I narrowed the Coffin chassis, and here with the miracle of trick photography, are the before and after fotos. Well actually from this viewpoint, the after and before photos, hehe... A car modeling pal I met on the internet and a really talented Master Machinist by the name of Bob Dudek supplied me with some brake drums and slotted wheels that are gonna just knock you outta yer socks. I narrowed the rear end and installed the suspension just as I would have from the stock kit. The leaf spring had to have a portion removed from the center and it's held together hole and dowel style. Just look how cool those aluminum drums look on there! The front suspension is really tricky on the Coffin kit and I hoped to add a bit more detail by replacing the kit springs with coils made from aluminum wire. Painted inside is a black piece of rod, so the don't actually sproing, but the illusion is good. And finally how it's gonna look with all 4 tires. Aren't those wheels amazing?

One of my all time favorite show cars was the L'il Coffin car. I never built the kit as is...come to think of it, I've never done that with any kit HAHA! So I got to thinking if I mated it with a 32 Ford, it may just be a drivable custom. The Coffin body was too wide, so a section from the center needed to be cut out for it to line up with the AMT Deuce body. I used sheet styrene to close the opening in the roof, I also used the back fenders from a R/M Deuce applied backwards and puttied in for the rear. If you notice on the inside, sides and rear, plates of stryrene are used to stiffen the construction and take the stress off of the seams. I use Ambroid Pro Weld and Crazy glue gels and zip kickers for most of my "modifications". I opened the doors and they will be hinged using aluminum wire. As you can see some small strips of styrene were glued into places that needed filling. I prefer to do that, the less putty used the less cracking or shrikage that may happen 10 years from now. So here's how the body work has been so far...I WILL get this car finished for the 2007 Toledo NNL !

Thanks Billy for the info! I hope to see all my online friends there and maybe make some new friends.

My apologies if this has been discussed somewhere already, but can someone tell me the theme for 2007 Toledo NNL?

My daily driver in 1969/70 that I used to race at U.S 30 Drag Strip on the weekends. And the handyman I owed later...

I thought I would take the challange. I've been in a building slump and this was a fun afternoon of building for me.

I actually owned a 2dr post wagon like this, and it was red too. Are you making this as a Gasser or will it set level? What ever you do, it's a great start.

Looks almost too pretty to race. When it comes to slotcars, I'm diggin the mechanics to, can we see the undersides of this beyooty! Dave Mikrut

This one is still in the works, this is the silver underbase for an undecided color. Needs more detailing, decals and windows. Another modified chassis to fit the existing monting posts, this was a neat body found on Ebay.

Local drugstore had a 2 pak of a 69 Camaro and a 69 Mustang. 1/32 scale, seemed like I might be able to team it up with an old chassis and some really cool old Cox mag wheels A little modifications, a fabricated frame extension piece and some holes drilled and it's made a really cool car for my Revell/Riggen track.

Thanks Jairus, Mark Gustavson wrote to me and asked if I would send him this model. It does reside in the museum. I hope Don got to see it...Thanks, Dave Mikrut

He was my single most inspirational model car builder featured in many magazines and to this day my fondest memories of this hobby were waiting to see what Don was going to be showing us this month. If you are out there Don are you still building? I built this one for you! http://public.fotki.com/soooperdave/1/fiat_rail_mooneyes/

I recently finished a project that started out as a gift of a resin dirt track Falcon that I never would have built, so I teamed it up with parts from the Falcon Ranchero kit. Lots of parts from the Miss Deal kit too. Here's a foto of it and a link to my Fotki picture site for you to see the build from start to finish. http://public.fotki.com/soooperdave/falcon_gasser/