oldcarfan

Looks good, nice work! Jada made a diecast a few years ago and I always wanted to get one and make it stock, but never found one in the local stores.

I knew a guy a few years ago who would buy memorabilia (Star Wars and Star Trek stuff) and figures that other people had made. He would make a mold of it to sell on Ebay and at shows. He was pretty bold about it, sometimes he wouldn't even take the copyright off of the legit stuff before making a mold. He said that the big guys were too busy to pick on a little guy like him.

Casting is kind of like taping a show off of TV. You can do it for your own use and no one cares, but if you copy someone else's work to sell, then people are going to start noticing. The Hobby Lobbys around here have the Aluminite casting products for $29, and you can use the 40% online coupon and get them for around $18. There isn't enough to do a body in just one kit, but you can do a lot of engine blocks and other small parts.

That last drawing is from the mentioned website. Hope that is ok.

Most of the original belly tanks were a bit over 10 feet long, though some of the racers stretched them, so there is a lot of leeway for us modelers unless you are building a specific car. I don't have any drawing programs, so I found an old line drawing on a website, ]www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/technical-requests/p-38-drop-tank-blueprints-18116.html . I copied the drawing into Word and then enlarged it up to the size I wanted which for 1/25 scale is just a bit over 5 inches and printed it out. One note here, if you are doing a male plug rather than a female, make your plug just a little undersize to compensate for the thickness of the fiberglass part. I then glued the outline to a thin piece of basswood to make sure that both sides would be the same and then used another half of the same glued at a 90 degree angle down the center of the first one to get the profile. Then I filled the open areas with balsa and sanded it to the correct shape. I have since coated the whole thing with fiberglass resin just to make it waterproof. Here are three pictures I took this morning. I put a removable L-brace on it so I could clamp it into a vise to make it easier to handle. Then I stretched a single layer of T-shirt over the tin foil and stapled it to the bottom. I used T shirt material because I happened to have some old ones that were going to be thrown out. Then I coated the whole thing with a few coats of fiberglass resin, the cheap Bondo kind. While it was still a little soft, I trimmed the bottom close and then left it to harden. I wet sanded it next so the plug would support the part. Then I removed the handle and sanded the bottom flush. Repeat the process and you have two halves. These were then glued together and bondoed to smooth it out. I used some thin plastruct to make the seam where the real tanks are joined together. After that, you can cut open the hatches or what ever else you may want. This method may not be as good as one of the resin or vac kits, but the advantage is that the materials are cheap and you can make as many as you want using only readily available materials. The whole mold making process was only about 2 hours since balsa is so easy to sand. I made several parts before I was happy with them. Once I had them bonded together, I added the fairing behind the driver out of a vacuformed toothbrush package. Due to the flexibility of the parts, I would definitely recommend some bulkheads inside to keep the proper round shape! Hope all this helps.This is the drawing from the website that I used to start with.

I would love to see a picture if you have one.

I built it as a 1/25 car. I've heard them listed as 1/32 scale, the body is 6 1/2" by 2 1/2" but it's only about 5/8" tall not counting where it flares over the wheels so it does take some careful packaging. In doing internet research, I came across some pretty small streamliners so I decided to go ahead and give it a try. It works pretty well. One could probably be stretched and widened to add more room inside the body. Think of it as a reverse sectioning!

Glad everyone likes it. Since the balsa was so soft and porous and I was in too much of a hurry to seal it properly, I just wrapped the plug in aluminum foil. I did wax that a little. I then stretched the T shirt material over it. Once I had 2 or 3 layers of resin on it, I sanded it until it was pretty smooth then trimmed the edges. Once that was done, I popped the body half off and did another. The inside was a little rough and had to be sanded because it takes on any wrinkles in the tin foil. Then I glued the two halves together and bondoed the seam and primed it like any model. Incidentally, I did the same thing to make one 18 inches long using a foam plug, but should have made it a little thicker as its pretty flexible.

The engine is just a parts box flathead. I think it may be from the 53 Ford F100. I made an air cleaner, but I don't think I'll keep oit, its too big.

I just set up a Photobucket account and am trying to figure out how to post with it. I'll try posting more when I get it worked out.

The body came from a Muscle Machines diecast from 2004 or 5. They pop pretty often on auction sites. I have a second one that I wish someone could turn into a resin kit. It was originally painted up and sold as a Jesse James West Coast Choppers car. It was lowered and had a bunch of hydraulics stuff in the back. It also has a really nice straight six in it!I stripped it and redid it with a few parts from the Revell kit. I really like wagons and mainstream cars!

Lately I have been building two of the same kit, but in different ways. I have a lot of duplicates and have a lot of time on my hands, so I decided to do something. These are both the from the Lindberg 34 Ford kit.

This is my attempt at a belly tanker in 1/25th scale. It is strictly curbside for now, but I might open it up at some time in the future. The body is fiberglass built over a carved balsa wood plug. I used it to make two halves, then glued them together. The actual material I used is from an old T-shirt that I stretched over the plug, then coated with fiberglass to get a thin, strong shell. It came out about the thickness a vacuformed shell might be. The axles and wheels are parts box. It is painted to represent a car that might have been built by a couple of kids on a budget in the 50's. Nothing fancy.

This is something I have been working on for a while. Not too fancy, but I like it. It has an interior and a flathead so far, but I haven't decided if I'm going to detail it much past that. Still need a canopy and exhaust and a few other things. I used the Hawk/Testor's body over a scratchbuilt 1/25 chassis.

Not sure exactly where this goes. The body is plastic and diecast with parts from the new Revell 57 Chevy mixed in.

I thought I would post some pictures of some trailers I have built before packing up to move. The Mullins is modified from a Monogram 37 Ford kit, the orange one is based on the picture from an old AMT Chevy II station wagon kit I found online and the rest are scratchbuilt.

Sorry folks. I downloaded them into the computer and they were all upside down. I think it's better now!

I have been around here for a long time, but have never had the courage to post any pictures of my stuff. I've been laid off for a little while now and we are getting ready to move, so I thought i would take a few picture before putting everything in storage. I've been pulling stuff off the shelf and trying to build pairs of trucks. Here are some recent ones. And now they are upside down!

I think i've got one of the '92 F150's if you want it.

I did something like this for a while a few years ago. We got contracts for museum display models and a couple of oceanographic institutes. Even built for a couple of celebrities. Unfortunately the deadlines the low pay and the all-nighters to do those unwanted last minutes changes just wore me down after a while. On the plus side, I got to travel a bit and got behind the scenes tours of the Smithsonian and National Geographic museums among others, so that was cool. I also got to build a 1/12th scale proctoscope machine with Mattel style packaging for a Doctor Barbie that went to a Doctor in NYC as a joke gift from another doc! That was interesting....

If someone decides to cast these again, I could would love to have a couple sets.

It's hard to narrow it down, but for new tooling here goes. 1) 1957 Ford pickup 2) 1971 Ford Pinto 3) 1976 Ford Gran Torino (Starsky and Hutch)

I'm looking for some thing that may not exist. A few years ago I seem to remember a transkit to turn the AMT 55-57 chevy pickup into a GMC. At the time I didn't care. Now that I want one I can't find it. Am I imagining this? I've checked websites and come up empty. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I don't use an airbrush, so I always use an enamel spray for the base interior color, then use acrylics or cheap craft paints for details. They don't attack the enamel, so there is no running. Also if I make a mistake, then it is easy to wipe off and do over. After I finish, a coat of Dullcote evens out everything and hides streaking. I have some gel pens from Hobby Lobby that work pretty well for details. They also make a white one that works well for whitewall tires. Speaking of coupons, I go to the Hobby Lobby website and get their 40% coupon and save it on my phone to get the discount. Also Michael's stores at least around here honor and match Hobby Lobby coupons.

I just discarded the can a little while back or I would be able to let everybody know what brand it was. The only reason I think it was Krylon is because I use that brand most of the time.I used an airbrush years ago, but in an effort to simplify and after having kids to take up spare time, I quit building highly detailed models and now just build for enjoyment whenever I get a little time to myself. Of course being laid off a couple of weeks ago has added to my free time quite a bit as I now have 3 finished out of the box models built, just clean the seams up and do a good paint job and put it together......