Mr.Zombie

Smashin! Tutorial on those headlights please!

Steelies are form the '29 Ford Kit from Revell. All four, the one is just painted in a different way. The grille was shot black first, then painted brown with a brush, then, as long as the paint was still wet I just put some brown chalk powder over them, a bit real rust and whatnot. I repeated that procedure as long as I saw what I had in mind on my desk. Then I just took some clear and thinned it 20 to 80. And soaked the chalks with it using a brush. Just bareley touch the grille, and the mixture wanders over and soaks he chalk... Yea, Story might make sense, but I am still not sold on those headlights. I guess I'll rebuild them. Don't like "something" about it, but dunno what it actually is.

Did not like the headlights whatsoever, so I modified T lights to fit my bill. Painted them with Chromespray, the black, after that I used a sharp knive and a toothpick to scrape off some of it on the headlightframe, Then I BMF the insides, what sounds so easy written took me about 3 hours. 3 Minutes for the first one, and 2 hours 57 minutes and half a sheet BMF for the second. Then I glued in the bulbs, and the glass. After that I tried to touch up the frames a bit and some of the paint ended up on the glass, tried to remove it and f'''ed up. The glass went blind, Couldn't find a replacement, so I tossed that thing in a corner and went for a thinking cigarette. After I came back I figured that the biege tire might have a reason, if that car was racing, and blew a tire, the bits and pieces might have damaged the reflector aswell, So i cut tiny pieces of transparent tape and glued it all over the blind reflector, two black "Gafa" stripes hold it in place. Then I added two wires to each lamp and that's basically what I did the last two days, and I am still not sure about the headlights...

As I finish about one model a year (if even), I have around, well... Five or so. And three or four in "progress". I built that one, and 2 '29 Ford Pickups, and modified a 1950 Merc Die Cast, Have the Ghostbusters Cadillac but that's very old, and a Chevy Stepside that was my first model car ever, and Mad Max Interceptor is still around. Then I built a Mercedes 200 Diesel but gave that away. In making are a Mack DM600 for five years now, 49 Mercury (3 years), 1959 Miller Meteor (7 years), and the T/A Gow Job that is in currently in the workshop.

Today not much happened. I figured that I'll build the headlights, and finding suitable ones took an hour, and buildng their supports about three. Each support is made out of 6 scratch build pieces, and the headlights mount just like on the real car. At this point they still can be taken on and off their supports, just like that without damaging a thing. Each light has a hole drilled underneath, and a tiny piece of wire glued in that sticks out just about half a milimeter. The frame got two holes for the supports, then I cut out tiny rectangular pieces of metal foil, and drilled a hole in the middle of each one, two bolts per piece and I could glue them on aglining them over the holes in the frame. Then I took two pieces of wire, bent them to my likning and on one end I glued on a tiny piece of tube (that I drilled before, so the wire has something to hold on to). Now. The supports were glued into the frame, and now I can "pin" the lights in and out as much as I want, and in the end I just agline them, and glue into place. As you can see the right light (the left on the pic) needs trimming the wire pin, but that is a detail. I dunno iw I like them there, or if it's too high. Might add a wire across the supports, No Idea yet. Each light gets it's own cable of course. And here, Now I am kind of happy with the wheels, decided that the beige rim needs a whitewall too. Will stay like this, no more changing mind. So long.

Yeah! Great lookin' Teatruck!

Thank you. Can you please explain "me too" builds? I understand the words, but not sure about the message.

Thanks for sharing Rick! Love those old stories! As for the conversion, I dunno, I think I'd run mechanical brakes for a while. They worked then, should work now, the speeds those things are capapble of aren't giant, and juice brakes don't provide todays standards in breaking anyhow. So whatever you do, you'll have to be carefull. In scale, this gives a fantastic detail, and I haven't seen that done before, so I went for that.

TOM YOU NAILED IT! Gow Job is the word that rings in my head the whole time while I build this thing. And believe it or not, this five minutes: ... Are more inspirational than all the pics I have of all this cars. If I inspire somebody, than that's a great reward. Thanks. But back to the workshop. I don't have much, although what I did, I spent the better part of two evenings on, because I had to do four things at the same time. I cleaned the steering column, but without the firewall I didn't know the angle it had to have, and without a steering wheel also no Idea how much room I had in the cab. Same goes for the dashboard, kind of important to be there when you estimate the angle of the collumn. So I cleaned up all this stuff, and used bluetag or whatever you call this adhesive gum, and some LEGO Bricks and build myself a rig that allowed me to estimate all that. I modified the T firewall by cutting off the fuelpumps, and a slot for the steering collumn. I used the measurments of the A Firewall to estimate how deep I should cut and added a couple of millimeters for play. I cut off the fuse box, that I'll scratch eventually, and put on one of the fuel pumps on the right side kind of eyeballing the position so it cleared the carbs and all that stuff. I modified the pump aswell, I figured that It'll take more time drilling the hole for the fuelline, than redo that stuff. So I drilled a hole in the firewall, fed a bit of wire thru that will become fuelline eventually, and put a tiny bit of tube at the beginning. Kind of like this: The cut off end will be lengtend by some soft tube, and will run to the carbs eventually, Maybe I'll cut it off a bit different aswell, we'll see. The fuelpump will get some color, the firewall some stickers maybe. Maybe a cream color, or whatever. I dunno yet, it is not glued in place yet anyhow. I also cleaned the T dashboard, but after I painted it I figured it looks crappy, so I'll scratch that aswell, and just used it for adjusting the steering collumn. Then I used the adhesive gum and attached the steering collumn to the steering rack and the wheel o the collumn. Now, the collumn was at about 75 degrees at the beginning, I put the body over it that way forcing the collumn in the right position, after I did some adjustments thru the side window making sure the steering wheel has plenty of space to the side walls and the door, took the body off, made myslef a rig out of LEGO Bricks, that I aglined with the second crossmember basically I stacked plates until they touched the collumn from underneath, then removed the gum, put some glue on the steering rack, glued in the collumn simply leaned on the bricks, and waited until it dries. Simple. As I was painting anyhow, I decided that I'll remove the ejector marks that I forgot on the back side of the radiator. I was very carefull but managed to break it off. Well, after I had the radiator back in my hands, I figured that I can also add some mesh on the inside. It is not quite the pattern a radiator should have, but it certainly looks better than plain black plastic. The mesh is actually from a tea pot, you know the one where you put tea in, and after you pour water over, you squeeze the tealeaves down? I broke one of them, but kept this mesh. After glueing that back on, the engine compartment looks like that: The corners of the mesh won't be seen anyhow. I found a Model A grille shell btw. It was not chromed, but yea... Maybe Revell sends me one afterall. We'll see. After that I made some pics as usual, to see where I'm at, and to motivate myself to finish that thing. If I may suggest something, put your models together as far as you can every evening after building. The motivation you get by seeing how it comes together is more worth than what you actually did that evening so it comes together... I kind of begin to think if it was such a brilliant Idea to blackwall this one tire... Maybe I'll leave the tan rim, but scrub the paint of the white? Who knows. See you next time.

That is AWESOME!

I saw it in fotki. I want this chopped A body, who makes it? Where to order?

Just like on the last pics I think. All WW, and the right front wheel will be this beige thing. I can change my mind 2 more times until I have to glue them on ...

I am quite sure it is not bigger than 1:25. The Zippo gives it away. And detail... Yea. The more I look at the pics the more I see all the mistakes, little problems and so on. The Engine is a size of a quarter, and in "real" you don't see all the fitting mistakes, sinkmarks and so on... Especially when you blow it up to 800 x 600 where the engine is 10 times bigger than the real thing.

What a shame to cover all that beautiful scratch work! You should build a Sandrail someday, where the tubes are the bodywork.

You should try it out on some old stuff anyhow. That technique is simple, gives maginficent results (because you kind of carving into the plastc, rather than adding stuff), but it needs some practice. especially how much glue, how fast, how whatnot to achieve a controlled result.

I'm still not very fond of it. May be because I don't like the scream movies, maybe because this makes otherwise very Roth'ish Build too... Well serious, but in a strange way. Like everything else though. Btw. Cast object OT #2: Try this once, take Revell glue (the one they call Contacta, so the real stuff that "welds" plastic together, or for that mater, any glue that does that) and an old quite hard Brush (can eben be one that you already destroyed with paint or whatever) that you cut off the hair at about 5 milimeters off the metalflange. Then coat the "to look like cast" part with the glue. Wait of few minutes until the plastic gets soft and when that's the case just bang' on that bit with the brush holding it in about 90 degree angle to the surface. You can also try the other side (the wooden stick) here and there. After you did that over the whole thing, let it dry, and after a coat of laquer you can sit down and congratulate yourself on the amazing cast metal plastic thing you got there.

I am really digging the stance and overall look of that thing. I think that the carbstacks and repainting the engine was well worth the effort, it comes together exactly the way I'd build one, and to be honest, I will have a look out for a model A chassis to replicate that in real life. I mean, as for the moment, I can't imagine what would be more fun than speeding around countryroads in that bucket... Needs a safari window though. But I have a brilliant Idea for that. I am thinking if I use decals for the doors (just a number), or if I should write something on them. Needs a detail there, but what'll be? And a little size comparsion for all of you who have no idea how small the A chassis actually is... See you next time. Tomorrow I'll spent some time with headlights to give this lil' hot rod some face.

Today I sat at my workbench for few hours, but what I had to do was just tideous stuff. So not much happened. Basically I glued all the bits and pieces together that were mising around the engine except fuellines and wires from the generator. The generator got a tiny scratch built relais, the starter just paint, the two coolant tubes were changed a bit. I have some ruber sticky tape that I cut into pieces and glued around kit parts with clamps out of BMF. The Generator got it's first wire (the second goes into the firewall, so that'll wait) and I added some bolts here and there. Then, or actually before that, I finished painting all that stuff. Some more drybrushing, some more chalks, and a final wash in choosen areas, and the engine is a blast. I also added tiny wiremesh discs inside of the carburettorpipes. As for now glued on 49 scratch bits, (not counting the bodymods), and I'm digging this little thing. Btw, the grille is still borrowed, Revell doesn't answer my mails... Pics!

Super clean. Brilliant pics! Thanks for this one.

Of course it did! It's smashin'.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that you kitbashed, but more like, there is such a tiny bit left of him that there is a slight possibility that "he" (or his leftovers) limits you in your creativity. In cases like this I'd go with a scratch structure, or a pingpong ball (so I have something to putty on), instead of a already set shape and size... I'm loving what I see, I dig Ed Roth and everything around, so basically I can't wait for paint, and knowing how much fun it is to du such stuff, I am jealous that you'll be painting him ... As soon as I moved to my new place I'll be building the "Mothers Worry", just to do something dumb, and oob for once, and just to enjoy playing with paint.

I love the way how the interior ties in with the engine. Very nice, can't wait for more!

Agree! Just file down some plastic from underneath so they flush more with the tire, and it should be so much more spot on!

Ladies and Gents. We have a Winner. Build a model of it!