LDO

I like the Fugazzi F40

Stopping here tonight Edit: one more step

A few more pics

Getting a little work in tonight. I don’t have any kits of dragsters from the late 1960s. I ordered an MPC Ramchargers FED for wheels and tires + front suspension. Maybe some other parts as well. While I’m waiting on that, it’s on to the chassis. Jim Keeler showed how to make a Monocoque chassis. It had a front and back half, made of laminated sheet styrene. It was covered in very thin sheet aluminum printers plate, with rivets punched in from the back. I’ll use a different method; adding styrene rivets one at a time. Here is the front half. I used small drops of super glue to hold the pieces together and scribed them to profile. After filing the laminated pieces as one, they were popped apart by sliding a #11 blade between them. I’ll sand the super glue residue off. I think this way gets them all to a more uniform profile.

So many great quotes from this movie. “Your majesty- the people are revolting.” ”You’re tellin’ me. They stink on ice.”

Mel Brooks is a genius. “Did you BS last week?” ”No” Did you TRY to BS last week?”

That makes sense. Thank you.

Other street vendors are selling horrible things for food, IIRC. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

I will definitely check out their other scribing tools. Thank you.

I got home late tonight. Not much time at the bench. My attempt at bending the roof down by heating the inside with a hot spoon did not work. I cut across it with a razor saw, then made the cut a little wider with a Tamiya scriber. I laid a strip of Evergreen .020” in the groove and secured with Super Glue. This held the downward slant. The filler piece on top of the doors was filed and sanded. I used a Dremel to dig little trenches for putty. Will add that later. The Tamiya scriber arrived in the mail today. My Excel brand hobby knives have been breaking. I realized it’s from putting a lot of pressure on them when scribing thick plastic. This new scriber should do a better job and extend the life of hobby knives and #11 blades.

It was on a model podcast. I have to look it up. It’s pretty cool. It would be coolest thing ever to get one of these as military surplus and add a weatherproof box on the back for an RV that can go anywhere. Maybe add a couple of feet to the back end and a little on the sides. It would be a fun model project. When I was in the Army, I drove an M577; derives from the M113. It belonged to the Battalion level intel shop. Pics of both.

I edited the OP. Second pic is from the manufacturer’s website.

I looked at the old how-to articles and decided to go with a more square windshield. 1: The little circled marks were made with a caliper, measuring from the panel line between the door and the rear quarter panel. This keeps everything square, assuming that the door lines are consistent. 2 & 3: After the cut. The roof is also getting squared at the front.

I couldn’t leave it alone. I’ll do the cutting tomorrow, but I couldn’t go to bed with that issue unresolved.

A little more work tonight; putting on the cowl/top of the doors. I decided to go with a windshield that will be curved at the bottom. The opening is too far back. After gluing it in place, I see that the windshield would be nearly vertical. I’ll have to figure out if I should cut the roof back a bit or open the base part farther forward. 1: The filler piece before opening up for the windshield. If it looks slightly angled at the top, good eye. It needed that because the top of the nose extension was at a slight angle. The vertical line is the center. Horizontal line is just a mark that is parallel to the back end. 2: marking out the shape. That ellipse was too small. I ended up using the next larger size. 3: The final shape for removing plastic. 4 & 5: Where I’m stopping tonight.

I first read about the real thing when I was about ten years old. It was in a magazine from the 1960s at a yard sale. I was fascinated. I’ve always thoight it would be cool to build a model, but no kits were available. I tried to find cross-section drawings, but no luck there, either. While looking through a new Fine Scale Modeler magazine about ships only, I saw a model in a builder’s gallery. It’s a paper model from Poland. I have never built a paper model, but I have seen some impressive models at contests. This thing is so cool, I just have to try it. I ordered their 1/50 scale model. Edit: second pic is from the manufacturer’s website. Mine has not arrived yet.

Hey cool. I think I would use the ramp from the tandem axle Chevy. Thank you.

Wow. Thank you. I didn’t realize until now that the nose of my model is a lot longer than the original.

I have the five how-to articles from 1969. I would love to see October 1968 with the MPC contest results. I think it’s fascinating to read about where the hobby was a long time ago.

The WIP thread is here for two reasons; a way to keep me motivated on one project and see it through, but also to let others have an idea of what to expect if they build something similar. A good example is do not use Dodge Daytona cut measurements on a different car. Even though I caught that, I still cut incorrectly on the roof. I hope you start one of these. You may do some things differently than Jim did in 1969. For the skin of the monocoque chassis, he used aluminum printers plate and punched rivets in from the back side. He then glued that to sheet plastic. I’ll just glue tiny plastic rivets onto sheet plastic.

A little bit of work tonight. 1: I wanted a bit more curve in the transition to the slanted nose. It can be hard to gauge progress on this white plastic, so I scribbled pencil lines on it to make sure the filing was in the right area. 2: Close to what I was looking for. Refined it a bit with a 220 grit sanding board . 3, 4, & 5: Tamiya spray can grey primer to get a better look at it. There are some gaps that need to be filled, but that will wait a few days to make sure the liquid cement doesn’t cause sink marks. The side profile reminds me of the Plymouth Superbird. That was not intentional.

A ramp truck would be cool for hauling a drag car.

A little progress tonight. I don’t get much bench time on weekdays. Anyway- roughing in the nose. Strips of .080” and Tamiya liquid cement. When it sets up, I’ll use a big file to get it close, then sanding sticks to refine it. Not pretty, but I want to show everything, warts and all.

Pic 1: Top side of the roof, after filing down the bubble that happened when I tried using a heated spoon to bend the roof down a bit. Pic 2: The inside of the body has a strip of .020” Evergreen to make it the same thickness as the extensions. There is another strip to help hold the two together. Pic 3: The vertical pencil mark (one on each side of the body) is to to make sure both side are the same length. The horizontal mark is the center of the the new nose side profile. Pic 4: Left side. Starting the shaping of the nose.

I had not planned on doing a WIP thread because of my history of projects that drag on forever. Jim Keeler’s ‘68 Coronet is so cool, I think it could give me the momentum to see it through. This will not be an exact replica, but a tribute with changes for artistic license, practicality (it could be tough to track down all the original parts from late 1960s kits), and a mistake or two from not noticing small details in the old magazine photos. It’s easy to miss things in 56 year old B&W photos of a white car body. I’m starting with the body. Anyway- Pic 1: mock up of extended nose. These parts are held in place with blue painter’s tape. The side extensions are three layers of laminated .030” Evergreen styrene. I did that so I could bend them to match the cross section of the body at the cut. The top piece had to be replaced because I got the angles wrong. Pic 2: Blending the extensions into the door. They transition to slab sides at the front. They are 1/4” longer than Jim Keeler’s measurements from the how-to articles. That was a Charger body, so there is a bit of the artistic license. It has the replacement top piece in .080” Evergreen styrene. Pic 3: The underside of the roof. I made an error in the roof cut. There was a gap of about .060”, so I filled that with a strip of Evergreen styrene. That led to problems in the next step. Jim used a heated small spoon on the bottom of the roof to angle it down a bit. On my attempt, the Evergreen expanded and “bubbled up”. I had to file it down. My guess is this happened because it is softer than kit plastic. Jim used “Sprue Goo” as body filler. I have never tried it, but his looked better than mine.