Mooneyzs

Clay.... that is one heck of an update my friend. I am still drooling over the awesome detail. You are making some big strides on this for sure. I love how you did the fire bottle lines, they are very clean. Are you using aluminum wire or piano wire? That chrome plating on the X-brace is killer and would love to know how Scrappy did it. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us for the paint on this one. Keep up the great work. I really enjoy following your builds.

John.... Thanks buddy.... You are correct about both of those... Just like you not sure if Inam happy with the weather job on the parachute but I guess it will do...lol

Danno.... Thank you. you are right I am thinking it all needs to be perfect...lol Dave.... Thank you very much my friend Dave... Thank you. Not my best work but good enough...lol HEre are a few more updates to show... Got the parachute and pull handle mounted..... Made a pull ring for the pull handle Little more weathering to chute and the "Remove before flight" flag: Another view, different lighting:

So here is an early afternoon teaser.... I started to prep the rear panels for some paint. I sanded them down a bit and taped the panels off. Although I know they are no were near perfect but I wasn't going to spend forever on them, it would be a different story if this build was at the level of my Army Vega F/C so just because I want this one done, They are good enough. Here is a shot after the inside panels were sanding with 500 grit paper and taped off then taped to my painting box: Here they are after being painted with some Orchard Supply Rattle Can flat black. They are no where perfect and you can see some flaws in it but good enough for this build. I have really just wanted to finish a build since its been over 3 years since I have completed anything. Now I am waiting for them to dry for a while before I can polish the body paint and then I will install and glue them in place so I can start to work on the brakes:

Jason... Thank you. you are more than welcome to steal any of the ideas. Cutting the tips like that makes them look so much better. Larry.... Thank you my friend. I appreciate the kind words. Aaron... Thank you. I will be honest I can't wait to see what they look like once I hit them with some polishing compound...lol THey look dang good as is but they still need a polish. Jim... You are welcome. Although many of the pics of the FED in once of my dragster books shows the parachute line attaching to the bar below the parachute. So I may of screwed up but it looks good enough for me on this build...lol Brad.... Thank you my other BIg Brother....You are right.... this is what 17 years in the making and I just want it finished at this point...haha John... Thank you my Big Bother.... I am trying to build as fast as you but I think my problems in I don't have any Bald Mini Me's helping me out...

Oh Johnny Boy.... I have got "Streamliner" on the Brain.... do we need to have a talk...

Aaron... this is one beautiful model. Are you going to be bringing it to the Desert Scale Classic. I would love to see it in person. Hope you bring your Redci and WIse Funny car too. Again very nice work on this one.

Niko... Thank you so much for the kind words. This one is coming along slowly but surly.... Then I can get back to the Vega F/C...lol Steve... Thank you very much Sir. Yep this FED will be going to the show and will be done in time for it Sat down this evening and made more progress on it. I got the Parachute pretty much done other than It needs another minor weather treatment since I rubbed some of it off when I was getting it installed onto the chassis and I was also able to color sand the two rear panels. Tomorrow (or I should say Today) morning I will get some black painted on the inside of the rear panels, that way I can get the panels glued into place and I can start gluing the rear brakes into place. Here are the pics.... Here is the Parachute after it has been glued in place. All it needs now is a little more weathering added to it along with making the pull chord and a "Remove Before Flight" flag: Here is a shot of the two rear body panels. I color sanded both of these with my LMG polishing kit. I started with 4000 grit and worked my way up to 12000. They still need to be hit with polishing compound. The finish you see here is once the 12000 grit was finished:

Danno... thanks buddy Charlie...thank you. I will be so glad when i get this done and i can go back to the Army Funny car. I have been also trying to figure out if i can remove all of the old braided line and put yours on because the detail master stuff is no where as nice as your braided line. Mike... thank you my friend. Johnny boy.. . Thank you my brother. Stat tunned becaiwe i am gonna be cor sanding the rear body panels so i can get them installed and then get the brakea installed too

Well I got some bench time in tonight and more progress was made.... Here is the new and improved radius rods that have been installed: Here is another view: I got the brake parts all Painted and ready to install. I just need to color sand and polish the rear body pieces before I can install these parts since the body panels have to go on first: Here is the parachute, I ended up covering the parachute with aluminum Bare Metal Foil and then I added a little bit of a dry bush/wash to it. I will have to see if I can get a better pic of it tomorrow: Here is the Chute Line I am going with... I couldn't decide if I wanted white or black...and went with black lol: Here is the brake handle. I redid the actual handle by using a push pin and painted the ball:

Danno... Thank you Carl... Thanks Dave... Thank you. Dave... thank you, I am much happier with how they headers turned out by cutting the tips like that. John... thanks my Big Brother!!

Art.... I have got to say that rolling chassis is just flat out Bad A$$! Wow Very Impressive to say the least. I love and admire your work. Bummed I won't be able to see this in person at the DSC but I am sure I will see it soon... maybe even a show in Cali before the end of the year. Looking forward to your next update and hopefully you are getting some bench time this weekend on this.

Mark.... Very nice work on the distributor, it looks great

Harry... This is coming along nice and looking good. Very clean work

Joe.... It is so great to see you back on a project. I will be following along on this journey with you. Love the set up of your new hobby room along with your lathe and mill.... The start of your rims looks awesome. You are a natural for sure and they look gorgeous so far. I can't wait to see more of this one. You gonna build a tube chassis for it??

Lol Big Bird.... hahaha Oh...Johnny boy I am waiting on that secret addition you mentioned cant wait to see what it is.

Jeff... it ia great to see you back on this project. Man this thing is looking killer and I am loving it. I was jist thinking that you should talk to Greg Wann the master caster. He post here and is from Arizoa. His work is really nice too. Keep up the great work.

Dave... Those headers are sweet and man does it look good with the paint on them and the weld beads. These look like 1:1's for sure. Very Nice work!!

Tyrone.... this is coming along nice and looking good. I like the first pic with the bigger injector hat on it, it makes it look a little meaner looking in my opinion.

Jim... Thank you very much. Yeah I was really thankful that Jesse mentioned that because I know I would of overlooked it. Your are right that those simple fixes really make a big difference. I just realized I totally forgot to take a pic of the front end as well because I also got all of the radius rod mounted into place. I will show pics of that on the next update.

Dave... The lego wheels sounds like it would work. I think I have some I didn't even think about them...lol Well I was able to sit down and somewhat tinker with the body cart stand again. I remembered that I purchased some wheels for my little 1/43rd scale '49 Merc and it had extra tires in the package. So I pulled them out and measured and they would actually work and they would be equivalent to a 10" Dia. So as usual I had to take a look at what it would look like with the cart. Here are pics along with a drawing of the actual caster from McMaster-Carr: Here is a drawing from McMaster-Carr on the 10" inflatable Caster Wheels: Here is an overall shot of the cart with the wheels stuck under it: The Rear: Measurements of the Rear so you know the size: Test fit with the body on to see if the wheel size looks ok:

I sat down this evening and got some more work done on this bad boy. Making some progress. Here is what was done.... I first started out by cutting the tips of the headers to get rid of the funky way Revell made them. Thanks to Jesse for pointing this out to me because I think I may of looked past it If he didn't mention anything. Looks much better now. As well as I got some primer on them: Here is another shot of the headers in primer. There is a little work that needs to be done to them on the inside bends, Not happy with them but will try to make them look as good as I can with out spending too much time on them: Then I started to drill out the brake parts to fit the lines, Tomorrow I will primer the brake pieces and then they will be ready for paint: I decided to throw some of the parts together to mock it up and see how it will start to look:

That is one Beautiful Build and it looks great. I love how clean of a build it is. Nice work!!

Beautiful builds of this car you guys have done. John... I love the smoke effect. Do I dare ask how you did that?? Love it

Very Cool Pics!!! Man that is Just beautiful.