Scale-Master

Thanks Chas. More plastic has been added and shaped… Now it has the final overall shape and dimensions. The inner structure has also been beefed up for rigidity and to make it less prone to damage when I cut the insides out.

That thing really jumps out at you. Great color combo.

Send me a PM.

Very nice.

Thanks Tony! Time to make the nose… I started by building the areas that will mount the nose to the frame and hood out of sheet styrene and brass. Much of this part will be cut away and discarded later. It is reinforced in part of the area that will be removed to make cutting it out easier. Final shaping of where the nose meets the hood will be done after the nose is built. The main/front section is growing towards the mounting points; right now it is just sheet styrene and CA.

I see you are making quite a bit of progress Chas, and adding a lot of neat details to make it true to the real counterpart. Since the main body is still in primer it might be a good time to shorten the nose from the kit's RS type longer length to Brute Force's shorter Standard type (before it gets painted of course). Just out of curiosity, why did you paint the outside of the hood before the body?

Thanks guys, yeah, builders of real ones don't have to make 100% of the parts... After I had the wheels on the chassis I learned I needed more travel in the shocks to attain the proper ride height, which meant I needed to make longer springs. I used piano wire instead of soft beading wire this time. The beading wire is easy to work with, but has no memory and is too weak for this application. I went through about 12 feet of piano wire before I figured out how to get the windings even and the right diameter to fit over the shock. It snaps on both ends of the shock now and ties them together. Then I went on to making the front shocks. This time I dealt with the spring before making the shock, it’s much easier to size the shock body to fit the spring than the other way around.

Something like these perhaps? http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80815

Yeah, we all have the option of buying one or both of the magazines, or neither. Why bash SA? It won't make MCM better.

Wow, just wow... Glass houses anyone?

Thanks Guys! The (working) steering rack assembly is done, the last pieces being the tie rod parts. The tie rod ends are adjustable so it can be aligned once it is finally assembled. The tie rod ends are just pinned into the spindles; the final assembly will have proper fittings there. (Those are red bread ties holding the A-arms together…)

Beautiful workmanship!

That issue worked in my favor 30+ years ago when I bought my (first) Camaro. Misspelled and listed as having a brown interior as well as some other items that made no sense. I must have asked the seller 3 or 4 times what color the interior and exterior were before he finally said, "Oh it's black, the car is brown." (There was no photo in the ad.) I think that him telling everyone the interior was brown allowed me to be the first bidder on it, and it was in the paper for a good three weeks by then.

Several years ago I ran into one of those blowhards at a Frank & Son toy collector’s show. He had a bunch of built up cars he was trying to sell, and since it is more of a toy & diecast show I stopped at his booth to check it out. He was friendly and talkative and started telling me how famous he was in the modeling community and how he wins the best of show at all the contests he enters. I thought that was interesting since at the time I was very actively participating in most of the So Cal contests too, yet I did not recognize him. So I asked him what contests he had won the best of show(s) at. He told me a specific annual “southern area” show held earlier that same year. I told him that wasn’t true, as I had earned the best of award at that show. He back pedaled and said he made a mistake, “it was the year before”. I countered with the truth that I had won best of show there last year too. Undaunted, he switched venues and said he just got mixed up; it was at another show held that year “in one of the desert areas”. Nope, sorry, I won that one too. He employed the same “year mix up” excuse again, and again I had to point out as the actual person to have earned the award, I knew he was fibbing. He tried to save face and came up with yet another venue, which I had also attended and garnered the award he was trying to claim he had. All of this in front of his buddies who at first thought I was making up stuff, but soon realized it was their “fearless leader” who had been caught on a major embellishment run. I purposely left the show particulars and the person's name out, for all I know he is on this forum... Ironically the friend I was with was the same guy I met when that idiot was arguing to me about what year my car was… We both were wondering as we left the show "What is it with people who have to make this stuff up?".

Thanks Ray. For the first time it is up on all four wheels & tires. After only one year and 9 days of work… (but there are scores of other parts not shown here).

It's called caster... Think of the forks on a bike and the way the handle bars are in relation to the front axle. It makes the vehicle want to track straight and come out of turns. Ever spun the handlebars 180 degrees as kid and then rode the bike? Zero caster (vertically aligned) could be diabolical at anything over parking lot speed.

I had a guy argue at me ( I tried to ignore him, but there was an entertainment factor in his stupidity) for almost an hour at a show that my '73 RS Camaro was a '72 because that was the only year they had the split bumper. (The RS option was available on all '70-'73 Camaro's.) I finally opened the drivers door and showed him the OEM tag with the build date of June 1973. He retorted that even GM screwed up when they mistakenly put the build date on it. Best part is some stranger watched the whole thing, came over and introduced himself since he was getting such a chuckle out of it, and we have been great friends for over a dozen years now.

The spindles are fleshed out and close to being done, the left is on the left, the right is on the right… I machined the “bearings” for the rotors, ironically exactly one year to the day of when I made the rotors. And I’m prepping the calipers which are the same basic units as the main rear calipers. Inboard side of the left spindle assembly… The screws are just to tack it together as I build measure and adjust; hex head hardware will be fabricated and used on the final assemblies. And mounted to the control arms…

Early Hybrid?

All of the above.

Upper control arms are roughed out and I’m working on the spindles now. I also finished the front bushing assemblies for the lower arms.

Maybe the front engine is not running, but the linkages for both engines throttles would still work on both engines. Just speculating.

I think you have me confused with another one of my friends...

Only the V8 version, and all we had to do was bore a hole in the inner fenderwell to gain access.

Having driven all three back when they were relatively new, I'd say the Chevette has to be the lamest*, followed by the Pacer, but at least it had a unique personality. *Most embarrassing to be seen in.