ian ashton

The hood came from a seller on eBay "lots-stuff-4-sale" I ordered like 5 different mopar hoods from them, they make lots of cool stuff.

From my build thread here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=36863&st=0&p=378836&fromsearch=1&#entry378836 Its been "done" for a while, I just never made the thread. Here are some pics: (the Redline decal got messed up in transport to MCACN, need to fix it.) I know that I'm missing radiator hoses, I still need to order the material to make them!

I've been slacking on the updates here! Anyway, I've started working on the interior a bit more. Here is the steering wheel (still have to ad the turn signal stick) Dullcoat on the interior, and some sloppy paint on the woodgrain console: I don't know why, but the real car has black seat belts. I was going to go with red, but I decided to keep it true to life, the interior has so much red, the black breaks it up, maybe thats why the real car has 'em: (Model Car Garage Photo Etched buckles) Ken's Fuzzy Fur'd up, rear buckles installed: I'm waiting on some Keith Marks decals to arrive so I can use the window crank decals and gauges. The kit dash is an RT, but this car isn't, so I think I'm going to make a filler panel to re-arrange the gauges. The rear valence is shaping up, one more fill & sand and I should be ready to rock: And the front end is coming togather also: First prime of the first "good" cast of my hood:

Wow! That's an awesome build! When I was a kid I had a blast building working lowriders with Hoppin Hydros and Pegasus parts, but I never did anything that cool!

So the Tamiya paint will dry on the tire rubber? Sweeeeet!

Looks great so far, what color are you thinking?

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas guys! I'd say the second style will be best.

I believe the AMT and MPC are the same kit. This is from the AMT Challenger convert, 1:25. I'll add that to my site description

I LIKE THIS A LOT!

I threw together a webpage with pics and prices of things I've been casting, as I've had lots of inquiries about selling stuff. Pretty much exclusively Mopar stuff for now. www.ModelCarDesigns.com I got bored with Photoshop, so I made the logo and stuff too. (if this isn't allowed I'm sorry! Delete it up!)

Slowly but surely getting there... Some body work: The way the front valence fits to the body is horrific, but I think its getting closer, need to shoot some more prime: After the first prime/sanding: Working on fitting the core support / radiator. It always bothers me that many older castings don't have hood latch hardware. I just scored an AMT '71 Charger from a member here, which happened to have a great hood latch piece that I made a mold from. The B-Body hood latch is much different than the E-body, but with some trimming and fitting its better than nothing! This is the resin piece I made, trimmed to fit the E-body: I also got some more engine details finished: Along with the hood latch and 8 3/4 rear end, this AMT '71 Charger has THE BEST wheel backs that actually look like drum brakes - I've always found this to be the biggest deficiency in all of the models I've built, so I'm pumped to have pulled a mold of these, they will definately see a lot of use in my future builds!

I mainly build factory stock cars, and as such I try to keep the paint on track with what the real cars aee like. That being said, I'm probably over-doing it, as the old lacquer paint from the late '60s and early 70's was never even close to as nice as what we have now, especially on the fully restored cars. But it does look much nicer.

PM'd

I'll send ya one with the return parts you sent me, thats kind of why I haven't sent that stuff back yet, working on getting some nice hoods out too

Yea, its not hard at all, much easier than I expected. The issue, like I said, is casting without getting air bubbles. If this was a smaller piece it would probably work a lot easier, or if I was using a slower kick resin and pour through a port and use a vent in the mold. For smaller pieces like the rear axle I'm working on right now, or your brake disks the "squish" method (what I'm doing) should work awesome.

Wow, those pics make the casting look like poo! Please understand that these aren't completely trimmed or anything, I just pulled the excess off!

Here is what I have been working on since the last update... I got the hood to a "good enough for me" state, and have been working on casting them. It turns out making a 2 part mold is easy, but it took me a few tries to get the casting down to an acceptable point. Master, First good pull from the mold, 9 other attempts, haha! Hard to tell, but here is a close up of the hood. I think I tapered the peak off a little too soon, but again, its "close enough for me": And the finished underside: ^^This is what I've been fighting with the most, as I was having trouble not catching a ton of air bubbles on the bottom side. My solution is to overpour, then use weight on the mold after the 2 parts are connected. Works decently well. I may add vents to the mold or a pour tube and vents, I just don't think it will work well because the resin kicks so fast. I'm happy with the current process, although I think I'll be ordering some Alumilite White, which has a longer open time. I'm now casting the 8 3/4 rear end from the AMT '71 Charger, should have some pulls tonight or tomorrow of that

Very nice, thanks!

What is that engine from? I love the early Japaneese "muscle"

Instead I would put the same amount that you were going to spend on kits aside, perhaps into a dedicated bank account, or under your mattress (I know you old timers don't trust the devil of modern banking, LOL!) This will afford you a few liberties: first, and most importantly, it will allow you to buy exactly what you want, as it comes out, no building a kit that you bought because it was the only option. Second, if gives you the opportunity to not be married to just this hobby - what if in 7 or 8 years you decide you hate model cars, then you'll have a ton of stuff to sell off before you can focus your time and money into something else. Lastly, storage space: thats a lot of kits to have sitting around! Edit: the c word that rhymes with "rap" is blocked out, LOL!

The actual car is FE5, but I couldn't find it from Duplicolor, so I went with the closest match, which is PR3, IE Duplicolor Chrysler Flash Red. Same can I'll be using for the body. Gombe use a little dullcoat on the interior though.

Sweet build! Curious why you didn't just start with the amt '68 road runner though, lol

Sweet, got a '71 Charger coming in a trade. No kidding on the Hemi clones!

According to the internet (LOL!) there were 378 6 Cylinder Challenger convertibles made in 1970, out of almost 3,000 total. This is definately the only one I've seen documented, so cool. More updates! First draft of my hood (crappy pics, my camera doesn't seem to like the primer): Yes, I am going to try to cast my flat Challenger hood - this will be my first attempt at a 2 piece mold, so wish me luck. The "master" isn't perfect by any means, but its not bad, actually nicer than I thought I was capable of. I guess the real test will be spraying color on the casting of it - that will determine if I want to distribute the hoods, and use it on my project. And the engine is getting closer: While looking at my reference pics to see if the car had a 4 blade or 7 blade fan (like every Chrysler engine in the late 60's early 70's seems to have had the 7 blade, I have no idea why all these castings give a 4 blade ) Anyway, I noticed this car had power steering, making it even more strange (I recently drove a Hemi Challenger without PS and it was not hard to steer at all, lol) So, I dug through the Revell '69 Charger that I seem to be parting out and snagged the power steering parts to put on this engine - cool enough the Revell casting has 2 complete PS pumps and belts. ^^Pump on, before I added the belt^^ With the PS pump and belt installed. You can also see the alternator bracket that I fabbed up - for some reason the bracket just stood out so much to me in the reference photo, so I figured I should try to make something or it would always bug me: Still need to add some hoses and wires, just gotta find some thicker black "hose" to use. You can't really tell in the pics, but I'm using a M.A.D. 6 Cylinder Distributor, and it looks great (shame its hidden by the slant. Seat looking a little better without the seam:

Also - what kit can I source an 8 3/4 from? Possibly resin? Any suggestions?