Aaronw

Art has one of the Pace booths. http://pacepaintbooths.com/pace/

The outlet is designed to go out the window. Open the window a crack, stick the end of the vent hose in there, close the window down on the narrow bit at the end to hold it in place. On my booth I did something similar to Art, I have side sliding windows in my hobby room so I got a 12" board the same height as the window opening and mounted an exhaust vent in it. Painted the board and vent a dark color similar to the house siding and closed the window tight against it. I ran some weather strip and duct tape along the edges to keep drafts out. Works great and no damage to the house (not that we ever plan to move, but I really didn't want to put a hole through the wall).

Here is a website that breaks down the 1948-52 Ford trucks. Short answer F-1 has different fender openings from the F-2 through F-6, but the same fenders. F-7 and F-8 have wider fenders. Lots of little differences. http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/partsinterchange.html

Trying to get something done while I have some vacation, so I'm starting a relatively simple project. Using Revell's 1950 Ford F-1 to build a brush truck (and no it's not green). I'll be modifying it into a heavy 3/4 ton F-3 with a long bed, and adding a Marmon-Harrington 4x4 conversion. Using this version of the kit, and one of the current issues to donate parts as needed. First step was cutting the bed floor free. Revell cast this as part of the fenders / running board. After taking the photo I cut away the second kits floor for use as a donor. Using parts from both kits I extended the bed from the F-1's 6 1/2 foot to an F-3's 8 foot (8" at the front, 10" at the rear). The wheel base will have to be extended 8" as well, from 114" to 122". The putty shows where the cuts were made. Technically this is incorrect, as Ford also widened their longbed by a few inches. If one wanted to make a 100% accurate 8 foot express bed, the bed needs to be widened 6", the sides raised 1", the fenders narrowed, wheel wells added inside the bed, the floor rebuilt (Ford used the same number of boards, just a little wider) and of course a new tailgate made. As the idea is to finish something for a change I'm just going to call this a custom longbed...

Not a lot of info to go on in the ad, but 4m3 translates to 141cfm. It looks like the work area opening is around 12x12", maybe 15x15" (based on the turn table being 7.5") so just based on air movement it is probably decent about venting. The filters could be a problem, depending on the availability of replacements. The ducting will throttle the blowers capability, but that is a price of portability. If you were to set this up semi-permanently I'd replace it with the shortest piece possible, and try to use straight metal ducting if possible to get the most out of the blower. Flex hose and curves in the ducting add a huge amount of restriction to the air flow, as does using more duct that you need. Based on the source and the price I imagine the materials quality is poor. For about 3x ($265) the price you can get a Pace Mini-Plus booth which is twice that size, made from sheet metal and uses standard (easy to find, cheap) furnace filters. Art has a Pace booth and seems quite pleased with them. So as far as the booth you posted? It looks adequate, but you get what you pay for, and $80 is pretty cheap.

Yes, exactly. Most commercially available spray booths use the same Dayton blowers you can buy through Grainger. I think that is what I said. Shaded pole blower does not equal intrinsically safe aka "explosion proof", that is a specific certification, that adds a lot of money to the price. Pace does not use intrinsically safe blowers. To be clear, I did not use an intrinsically safe blower either although it is a shaded pole blower.

That actually looks pretty good. The fluff you are using looks synthetic and has shiny strands, I bet real cotton balls or cotton batting would look even better being more wispy and the dull color of the cotton would make the strands stand out less. I've always been impressed by the fire near the end of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Amazing how realistic the effects are just using colored clear cellophane, crumpled aluminum foil and colored lights. Do those tealights flicker? Being photos there is no way to tell. Not having a solid light would really add to the flame effect.

It says in the ad that it is rated at 500cfm, but keep in mind that is with no ducting or restrictions. How a blower reacts to those things is important. At $59 I am positive that it is not "explosion proof". That looks like one of those blowers for drying wet carpets, not for venting gasses. If you really want to spring for an intrinsically safe aka "explosion proof fan" you are looking at a lot more than $50. Here is one of a similar size for a mere $719 http://www.industrialfansdirect.com/NFC-NHADB4-B-1E.html Personally I'd suggest one of the shaded pole blowers from Grainger. Less than $200 will get you enough fan for a big spray booth, less if you only need a small booth. Intrinsically safe fans are really intended for venting highly flammable vapors, gasoline, natural gas and such, not spray paint. None of the commercially available booths use an intrinsically safe fan, most use a shaded pole blower. This is the one I used on my booth, it is 485cfm. 2ft x 2ft x 16" tall booth, cross flow out the back with a heater filter and 6" ducting. It works great, no overspray or odor using full size spray cans. It is a very well made, heavy duty blower that will probably outlast me. http://www.grainger.com/product/DAYTON-Blower-12G801

Thanks, that makes more sense. I've only seen the later '60 kits. Nice to know about the Revell '64-65. I've got several of the GMC/Chevrolet kits and a few '60s, but the Revell kits are much easier to get being a current kit. I would much rather use one of those for a donor than one of the '60s, even better that they are a better place to start anyway.

Cool thanks, love these T kits but wasn't sure if I wanted to get this one or not. Good to know about WB on the fruit truck, I've got one of those but haven't done anything with it yet.

Awesome work Russell, I've been needing to make an "engine compartment thing". Sam nice shifters. Actually I have done a little bit of this after seeing someone mention it. Nothing so elaborate mostly just rounding off the end of a rod with sand paper. I hadn't thought about using an exacto blade to carve into it a bit, that gives me some ideas.

I'm confused by this. Surely you are talking about a much older 60-66 tooling? The current AMT '60 Chevy kit shares nothing with 67-72, and I understand it makes a decent donor for a more detailed 67-72. Gaute, maybe you've already seen this, but if not enjoy.

Interesting, in the US we have some CAT trucks built on the IH chassis, but they have a completely different hood. I haven't seen one that is basically just a rebadged Prostar. Nice work so far, the grill looks great.

Does this kit strictly build the box art or is it like the other T kits offering a multitude of options?

It depends on the truck. On the '41-47 Chevy trucks you can just open up the wheel wells. They just cut the fenders out to fit the larger wheels. If you look at a 1/2 ton and a larger 1 1/2 ton + side by side you can see this difference fairly easily. On the later 47-53 Chevy's they are longer, wider and taller although not by much so it isn't that noticeable. The fenders are 2" wider (individually each fender is 1" wider) and sit 2" higher, the headlights 2" further apart and 1 1/2" higher, the grill 1 3/4" higher. Overall length firewall to grill 3" longer. Broken down to scale you are looking at 2-3mm, so a lot of people just fake it and few notice. I've got a 50 Chevy I've been making the correct modifications to and it is a lot of work for little noticeable difference. The hardest part is the hood due to the angles. Everything else is a cut and splice in some styrene, but the hood requires a lot of reshaping because you get a step where you splice in the added length.

Yeah, they are becoming amazingly scarce. When I had to replace my truck I made a point of looking for early Capris and Celicas thinking they would be fairly cheap, but also more fun than most of the used cars in my price range. There are very few to be found these days.

Hot wheels tie ins seem like a no brainer. Get the little kids with the 1/64 diecasts, get the bigger kids with plastic models of their favorites. Since a lot of the unique Hot wheels are wild customs, there is probably an adult market there as well beyond nostalgia (but the nostalgia is what would get me with kits of some of those early 70s redline series cars).

I ran into an unusual 80s extra cab F-800 this summer which showed just how much that is true. The guy bought two salvaged trucks and combined them to make something the factory never offered. The cab firewall forward was F-800, firewall back F-250, well done conversion, it looked stock.

If I am not interested in it as a custom, does this offer anything over the Fruitwagon?

It sounds like you got a bad kit, it happens sometimes. I bought the same kit recently and had a good look at it after seeing your post. Mine has a normal flash (I hesitate to even call it flash, really just a little heavier than average mold lines). They crank out a bazillian kits at a time and sometimes one gets through that is not up to the standard of the others (often called a Friday 4pm kit ). Bummer but it sounds like maybe you got that kit this time. All of the AMT Model T kits that I've seen ('26 Tall T, 26' T roadster and '27 T police car) are quite nice, a bit on the simple side but still having decent detail, tons of options, and pretty easy to build. I haven't got to my Fruit Truck yet, but I expect it to be the same.

Stick a big gluey painty thumb on that windshield and you will not ask that question. I find Future does a great job making glass clearer, but you are correct buffing it out works well too. I usually do both, buff it out, then dip in Future. I like the extra safety margin, haven't had any issues with super glue fogging or clumsy fingers since I started doing that.

Future thins Future, so sometimes recoating will fix minor problems. I occasionally get fogging from decal solutions, and putting another coat of Future on always takes care of that problem. Worst case windex will remove the Future, then just reapply. I've removed paint and superglue on a windshield this way (a big thumbprint dead center), and is why I always start off by dipping my clear parts.

There is an old logging camp cafeteria that is now more of a tourist thing in Eureka, CA, They have a "working" (parts move but not actually steam powered) model steam donkey on display with all the parts carved from wood. I'm guessing 1/4 - 1/2 scale since it is about 5 feet tall. It was made by a logger around the turn of the century (1900s) in his spare time. This is a steam donkey for those who don't know.

I think a lot of the car games would be easy tie ins. Just a matter of lining up the existing tooling with the games that feature them. It's not like most video games feature a lot of family wagons and minivans. They go for a lot of the same cars, fast, exotic, expensive. The US companies would probably do better with the Need for Speed and Test Drive games (Corvettes, Ferraris, Muscle cars), the Japanese companies with the Dirt, WRC and Gran Turismo games. Cheap to do, just some new decal options in the kits and an in game tie in (special skin code only available with the model kit). Even if it didn't lead to more kids getting building models, lots of people like special skins (I don't get it, but it seems to be the case) so the kits would sell, even if they collected dust. Probably end up on ebay for the stash builders.

Actually I think it is a fair point but misdirected.