Longbox55

96%. Got the MoPars just fine, it was the Mercs that got me.

That could depend on what era and whose car is being replicate, and what specific race it was intended to run at. Before the wraps became popular, it was not uncommon for teams to clearcoat over the sponsor and contingancy decals at the superspeedays (mainly Daytona and Talledega). This was to seal down the edges of the decals to allow for smoother airflow, and to prevent them from getting pulled up during the race. One team I know did this was RCR. I will agree, though, that a mile deep clearcoat would definitly be unrealistic on a racecar. On another note, if you're building any of the recent Round 2 releases, the decals have a flat finish, so if you want shiny, you just about have to clear over them.

The opaque body doesn't bother me any. I'm pretty sure I still have a couple of cans of Clearveiw 2000 in my paint stash

That's pretty slick, you certainly fooled me with it! Especially when you consider that I'm one of the "Go To" guys when it comes to '55-'59 GM trucks on 2 other forums (Stovebolt.com and Gearz), and that my daily driver is a '55 3200 1/2 ton.

Pretty cool. Modelhaus offers a short Fleetside bed, it will have a Chevrolet tailgate, though. I have the long version I'm using on custom '57 3200 project, their stuff is top notch. Question about the 1:1 you have pictured on the bottom; Do you know if it was built using 2 cabs, or did they use one of the aftermarket conversion cabs? The conversion cabs (there wasn't a factory crew cab at the time) from back then are somewhat rare, used mainly by logging companies and railroads.

The best polish I've found for raw plastic is Mequire's Hot Rims Mag and Aluminum polish, beleive it or not.

The blocks are the same, only the parts from the head up were different.

Most hardware stores will have small sample size packets of stain in the same area that they sell the bigger cans. They're meant for people to be able to test a stain before comitting to buying a larger amount. They're not very expensive at all, only about $.25 for so.

The base engine in the Chevy II/Nova was a 194, which is externally identical to the 230 and 250 engines, exept for the late 250s with the integral manifold head. The 250 saw use into the early '80s in Trucks. There was also a 292 based on the same block structure, but with a taller deck hight, feul pump location, and motor mount arrangement. That one was Truck only.

All that would really need to be tooled up is the manifold, carbs, and the batwing filter housing, as well as a set of correct exhaust manifolds. Everything else on the engine would be the same. Even then, they could leave the feulie parts in it for an option. Or even better, put the Black Widow racing parts in it. Nascar did have a convertible class back then, so it wouldn't be incorrect.

Alright, the clear has dried, so now for the 2nd test pix! First, I'll start with the Metallic Clear over Duplicolor and hobby laquers. Here's the Metallic clear in the can. Almost looks more like a pearl silvery-white once it's mixed up. Over GM Metallic Black. Testors Laquer System Gloss Black Tamiya TS11 Maroon I'm pleased with how it looks on these colors, especially over black. This clear seems to have a bluish tint to the metallic in it, which tends to make it not work well with certain colors. As before, no problems using it over hobby laquers. Now for the next test. For this part, I used hobby enamels (Testors), 1 spray can and the other airbrushed, airbrushed Auto Air Creatix, airbrushed Tamiya acrylic, Kustom Kolor spray can enamel, and just for giggles (and because it was handy) Valspar John Deere Green tractor paint. One difference I did this time was to split each spoon into 3 sections. The top has the Metallic clear, the bottom is the Prism clear, the middle was left alone for a test of just the regular clear on its own. Model Master Magnese Brown spay can. Testors Boyd Grape Pearl. I was very impressed with how this one looks. This one was also my first attempt at using Donn Yosts method of using cheap laquer thinner for enamels. I have to say, it works! Auto Air black. Tamiya X-13 Metallic Blue. Again, first time spraying Tamiya acrylic. I had a bad experience spraying water base paints in the past, so was reluctant to try it. After this test, I will be using more of the Tamiya acrylics for spraying in the future. Valspar JD Green. I saw no lifting or wrinkling, so I would feel safe using the Duplicolor Clears over hobby enamels and acrylics. As with the earlier test, all the airbrushed paints were shot with my trusty Paashe Model V dual action. One more note I'd like to add, the Prism and Metallic clears are intended as a mid coat, and should be cleared over. While they do have a decent shine to them, they do have a slight texture that needs to buried in regular clear. I will no one more test, shooting a Kandy over the Metallic clear to what effect is makes. Then It'll be on to an actual Guinea Pig, namely the Dirty Donny Chevy van.

Just a quick update, I've expanded the test to include the Metallic Clear from the Paint Shop line, as well as testing the Paint Shop clears over hobby enamels and acrylics. No pix at this time, I'm letting the paint dry first, but so far there's no adverse reaction to using it over any of the hobby enamels or acrylics I've tried it on.

That is a good solution to that problem. If you are going for an accurate to the 1:1 build, though, the door sill steps should only go the width of the door opening itself, with the area behind it being having a tapered peice the comes from the floor to the lower part of the cab corner. The top of that area is open inside the cab.

Yeah, the flakes are a bit on the large side, especially for 1/24-1/25 scale. Might be ok on a larger scale build, though. I did pick up a can of their reguler metallic clear, which has a much smaller flake in it. I'll test it, too, and post soon. Oh, and I have some up with a plan on the larger flake, as I do have soe 1/8 and 1/12 scale builds in the works that need a cool paint job.

How 'bout the Truck-Boat-Truck from Squidbillies? Perhaps with an option to build the Truck-Boat-Truck-Boat-Truck-Waverunner variant?

We had a local sheriffs deputy that found out the hard way about not having the divider cage in the patrol car. He mainly did prisoner transport, as he was more or less semi-retired from active duty. He had a prisoner get his arms worked free from the cuffs, after which he was able to not only force the car off the road, but got possesion of the deputy's service pistol. Unfortunatly, this did end in the deputy being fatally wounded. The suspect was caught not too long after. The bad part is that it could have been avoided, as the deputy was the one that made the choice to use a car without a cage. All Vermilion County police cars, including the Danville and surrounding cities, have cages in them, whether the officer using them wants them or not.

That's more or less what I expect as well, but figure that it can't hurt to try it out. The Paint Shop stuff doesn't seem as hot as regular Duplicolor. Just after I posted this, I shot some of the regular clear over the test spoons, didn't see any adverse reaction over the Kustom Kolor, which is a modified enamel. I plan to test over hobby enamels, and will post my results, good or bad.

Are they going to keep Kyle away from this one?

The clear runs about $25 for a quart at any auto parts store, I usually get mine from Advance Auto or O'Reillys. When I picked this up, Advance was having a "buy 2 get one free" sale. This paint is prethinned, ready to spray with out of the can.

I recently did some testing with the Prism effect clear from the Duplicolor Paint Shop line. Here's the results. Here's the product in question. This is what it looks like in the can. I did 6 tests, all using Duplicolor FP101 primer as the base. 4 of the tests were done using Perfect Match for the next coat, the final 2 were done using Testors and Tamiya hobby laquers. All the base coats were done with spray cans. Chrysler GunMetal Gray Toyota Black Metallic GM Light Driftwood Metallic GM Ultra Silver Metallic Testors One Shot Aztec Gold Tamiya Red Metallic In addition, I did a second test using a candy red (Transparent Kandy Red Kustom Kolor) over the prism clear. Got a heavy metal flake effect, especially with the black and Gunmetal bases. As mentioned, all the bases were rattle can. The clear and the candy red were both shot using a Paasche Model V with the #5 tip/needle, using 12-15 psi. There was no adverse effect using this clear, or the regular Duplicolor clear, over the hobby laquers. I have not tested them with enamels yet, but I will be trying it soon.

I've seen articulated tractors around here with triples on both axles, the outer wheels essentially just bolt on to an adapter like the JC Whitney one. One thing I will mention, the patent I saw for the 1924 version of the dually adapter had it listed as a "traction improving device for passenger cars" rather than one for increasing load capacity. I have also seen the Jeeps similar to what Bill mentions. The ones I saw were a factory installed dual wheel option on CJ3 and CJ5 Jeeps, they also had a Spicer 70 axle in the rear in place of the Spicer 44 that was standard.

Actually, it could. You may not remember these, but JC Whitney used to have a single to dual wheel adapter that would allow for just such a dually conversion. It had a spacer that bolted to the outside or the original wheel using special longer lug nuts, making it the inner wheel, then you bolted up another wheel to the outside of the spacer. They even sold fender extensions to go with them. I don't think they are available anymore, but I have found patents for them at least back to 1924. Now that I've said that, i agree with you 100% as far as doing an accurate stock dual wheel tow truck from the '34 Ford kit.

True. In fact, I'm going to build one from the Revell kit. But I'm thinking this, to quote Mel Brooks, MERCHANDISING! Where the real money from the film is made! Besides, wouldn't it be cool for Revell to do a Brock Samson Charger, complete with the seat cover and the 4th season electric conversion, and perhaps throw in a figure of everyones favorite Swedish Murder Machine?

Dethklok's Murdercycle, Brock Samson's '69 Charger Adrienne, Grandad Freeman's Lincoln Dorothy (post Xibit Pimp My Ride upgrade), and Black Dynamite's Caddy. Oh, and Bateu's Lancia from Ghost In the Shell (the Tachikoma and Fuchikoma tanks are already available in 1/24, one with the Major and one with Bateu). Here's something that may suprise you, both Spike Speigels Swordfish 2 and Faye Valentines Red Tail have been done as non-scale model kits, with both kits including larger scale (looked to be roughly 1/24) figures of the characters from the show. I have seen them, very pricey when you find them, as they are long oop.

That's what's happening here. While I'm not totally in an "out in the sticks" area, it is a mostly rural farming community. We have 4 Chevrolet/GMC dealers, 2 Ram dealers, 3 Ford dealers, and 1 Toyota dealer withing a 30 minuit drive of my house, none of them stock base model trucks regularly. Last time I saw a base model longbed standard cab was back in '08 at Bryants Chevrolet in Attica Indiana. It was a K2500 HD with the Duramax/Allison combo, towing and snowplow package, AC, stereo, and not much else. I considered it, but at $47000, it was a bit more than what I could afford at the time. Hindsight, I should have seen what kind of deal they could have made me, since it was a leftover '07, and I've known the owner of the dealership since I was about 5 years old. Oh well, I still have my '55 longbed 1/2 ton, and if I really needed another truck, I have a line on an '88 K2500, as well as a '69 C20 Camper Special.