Skip

Air compressor. My grandfather had one like that, used it in his well drilling business. It wasn't quite as clean though.

So, everyone seems to have their favorite method of Chrome Removal that works great for your needs. The question is, "Do you leave the Clear Coat on spray over it or do you Strip It Clean?" Why do you leave it on or why do you strip it bare naked? Those who leave the Clear Coat on, how about sharing your reasoning. Look at the Chrome Stripping thread some do and some don't. Most didn't say one way or the other why they do what they do, they were explaining how they removed the chrome itself. For me I prefer the naked parts as a foundation to refinish either with the appropriate metal or paint finish.

Agree with Bill and Art. The other thing would be the wheels, mid forties the wheels would be wires, mild Model T motor would run T or A wires. Hot T and later Bangers would be running Model A and later wire wheels, Kelsey Hayes. My Dad ran around in just the kind of T you are describing, from what I've heard about it, it was strongly influenced by what the dry lakes racers were running at the time. He ended up trading the T for a '34 3 Window which turned out pretty nice. There are several guys over at the H.A.M.B. Who are running and recreating just the kind of Model T based car you describe. Take a look over there, most are very period correct and cool! As for steel wheels, think about it, by the time steelies were cheap enough for low buck builders to afford the car would pretty much be worn out. Sort of like the young guys running around in Hondas today. by the time they get around to putting a nice set of wheels to replace the flat black steelies the engine is toast from all the Banzai runs!

Are the upside down pictures upside down or right side up in the Southern Hemisphere or just upside down for us in the Northern Hemisphere? Looks like a nice model, how did you incorporate the antigravity technology?

Look in the craft section for a product called "Crackle It" you might have to experiment with it a little to get it to do what you want. It's made to crackle in the first place so that's where I think d be starting.

Plain and simple. Personal choice, if you don't like the price don't buy it! I don't like all the sellers I deal with on eBay, some are gems while others are turds. I am the one in control of the sale in the first place, I decide whether the asking price is excessive or reasonable. I am the one who agrees to pay whatever price the seller asks for the convenience of a "Buy It Now" transaction. Simply because I either can't wait or am too lazy to scrounge it up. BTW, I've never dealt with this seller, I'm not that desperate!

I actually ordered one of those from Auto World after seeing some of the stuff that Model Car Science and Car Model magazines were doing with them. I am sure there must have been some sort of mixup with the order, the precision panel cutting tool I ordered was somehow substituted for a flameless cutting torch! I do remember seeing an article where they controlled the excessive heat with a rheostat, which "Good Old Uncle Oscar" neglected to include in my order. (Must have been because they knew I wasn't one of those famous magazine guys!)

The Hot Rod guys call the '31 a poor man's Deuce. Completely different car but looks different but similar, especially when you take the visor off the windshield and round out the leading edge of the roof. Toss on a Deuce radiator shell and grill. Viola, enter "The Poor Man's Deuce". One is a Model "A" and the other is a Model "B".

Plain and simple, if you don't like the prices don't buy from the seller. The other way to look at it is, if you need the part, he's got the part, is it worth your time and effort to chase one up elsewhere? I probably wouldn't bother with his stuff, looks like the type of seller you see at toy shows selling Hot Wheels for a bazillion bucks. The ones that feel they are offering a service by buying the stores out of the hard to find cars and selling at a premium. Every hobby has this sort of leech who preys on those who can't wait, ignore them and they'll go away sooner or later.

Buy the best you can afford. I'd also buy them one at a time, the ones you will use. Buy natural hair brushes, sable if you can afford it. Then treat each of them like the cost $100 each. Keep them clean, a dash of mineral oil every now and then won't hurt either, clean it out before you use them. (Helps keep the natural hair supple.) The other trick to keeping brushes clean is cleaning with lacquer thinner for enamels. Buy the cheap stuff for cleaning. If you have one put them in an ultrasonic cleaner with the thinner. You'll be surprised at what comes out of the ferrule. Most of all Never Ever pull on the hair while cleaning it breaks the hair off and ruins the brush.

Nice paint work Jason, looks like you are well on your way to a really nice Gasser. Were the molds cleaned up at all on the Round II reissue of the Ohio George kit? The last one that I bought was one of the mid eighties reissue. Mold lines were bad, though not as bad as someone recently posted where there is a good 1/8 inch of flash hanging off the front clip. That's just a bit excessive, whomever is putting out that kind of junk should be forced to sit down and put like a couple hundred of them together with flawless paint! I built the original issue of the Ohio George Gasser, the mold lines were pretty much what was on the rest of the models being sold at the time. They didn't hide mold lines as much back then, that one piece front end must have been a toolmaker's nightmare figuring out where to place the mold lines in the first place.

Correct the engine points the other way in stock form, the only modification required to make this work would be to pull the axels and differential and swap the ring gear and carrier from one side of the transaxle to the other. Could also have a transaxle out of a Spyder or other factory mid-engine car, most likely ring gear swap. With the factory doing the work the price soon zooms to unobtainium!

Curt, those wheels are wide five VW Centerlines, like the chrome Speedster/Spyder wheels as well they give it a period look. Great subject, you are making good headway with it too!

Spray hood and body at same time, prime both with same primer and you should have the same base to apply the color coat to. Spraying at the same time helps to have the same paint mix sprayed onto both.

Get some newsprint paper, practice on it until you master a good spray pattern. Learn to make the adjustments with the mix jet and with the paint itself. Sounds like you may need to take a step back to go forward. I'm going to go against the advice of getting a double action airbrush until you learn to work with the brush that you've got now. Not trying to sound insulting but did you read the instructions that came with the airbrush? A single action airbrush is a pretty basic piece of equipment, get the air pressure right which your airbrush specific compressor is already doing. Adjust the mixing valve/jet and you should be spraying a pattern that you should be able to work with until you do get a good pattern. Try tightening the mix jet, then bring it back out a half turn until you get paint to spray. Then make adjustments of a quarter turn until you get a good pattern. How thick / thin is the paint you are trying to spray through the brush, should be the consistency of milk, watery but with color from the pigment. Adjust one thing at a time so that you can zero in on the issue. Finally, if you really cannot get the airbrush to work contact Badger and tell them what your issue(s) are so that they can advise you on brand and model specific fixes to correct the issues you are experiencing. Once you get it right you should be spraying noticeably better paint jobs than through aerosol spray cans. Hope this helps even a little, what you learn with a basic airbrush is going to help you with the next one. http://badgerairbrush.com/PDF/Model%20350%20Instruction%20Book.pdf

Some people I've worked with over the years in sign shops and such like to slip the rubberized pencil grips over the xacto handle. I've got triangular shaped ones on some of mine they don't roll off the table as easy. I like the xacto no.11 for the stuff that I do.

quote I see varied colors on the valve covers, can someone tell me what color they used and what color a factory Z/11 should be? I also hear that the kit interior is incorrect for a Z/11 car, is this true? I think MCW has the proper interior. would it be worth it to buy it? From what I've observed during my research for my own '62 Bel Air the valve covers shown on the "Old Reliable" in this thread are pretty close. The color is silver but it is tinted to a silvery "steel gray". Try doing a yahoo or google images search on the '62 Bel Air, you will note that there are a few differences in the silver color. There are enough that are just about the same color to suggest that the tinted gray color is close enough to the original to call it a close match. At least that's what I am going with that is if I don't use those sweet Offenhauser Aluminum Valve covers.

The hardener makes the new formula dry a little quicker as well as polish out better, new stuff seems to gum up with polish even after long curing times. Sign Writers and Pin Stripers have used lacquer thinner with One Shot and other sign painter's enamels almost as long as they've been painting signs. So the answer is yes, One Shot can be mixed with lacquer thinner and shot through your airbrush. From what I've read lacquer thinner was used almost exclusively with the old "Japan" enamels that a lot of gilders used to set off the leaf on all those old glass doors and windows. They used lacquer thinner for the same reasons we uses it with enamels today, it dried quickly and was glossy. There is a guy over at the Kustom Kulture Lounge who shoots One Shot on commercial trucks, tow trucks, delivery rigs and stuff, can't remember the name right off. I think the thread is something like "what I do with One Shot" or something similar. How long ago did you close your "Striper's Kit"? If your brushes are still in good shape guys are ailmost fighting over the "old Dominicans" Grumbachers and stuff earlier than the eighties. I've been Striping and Sign Writing on and off since the early seventies, I wear old fart glasses and can't get into some of the weird contortions needed to stripe some areas on cars like I used to but I still got it! Once you learn the art it never really departs from your fingers.

Looks great, like the color combo,the stance really makes this one stand out.

For thirty five years old those are both well preserved and well done. Like them a lot.

Yes, the coverage is about as good as the leaded variety. I liked the leaded One Shot better than the new formulation, don't think there was enough lead in it for all the hysteria! It will cover as well as any of the current model paints. You probably already know to use their reducer rather than turpentine or generic reducer like you could with the old formula, use their hardener as well.

http://www.micromark.com/printed_catalog.dlp PDF version of Micromark's catalog. For those who aren't already signed up for their newsletter. Lots of cool tools and stuff to drool over!

Ooh, now we can all get the fully accesorized posing Dr. Cranky collectible figure!! How mucho denero for the Dr.?

I'm interested in this one too, since its the current model that I have on the bench. The "other magazine" whose name shall not be uttered had a couple of good articles On the '62 Belair, October '94 and Pat Covert did a three part series in April thru June '95 Building a custom Bubble Top called Bubbles. Oops I was wrong on the Pat Covert article issues, issues 95 thru 97, February, April, June '95. (Come to think of it I might have issues myself!)

Good tutorial. One thing that a lot of people forget when woodgraining is that almost all woodgrain has a bit of orange and yellow. You really have to experiment to get the look right, once you are there it all sort of clicks. The other thing is to save those scraggly mangey looking old brushes, they are great for laying down grain patterns.