Scale-Master

Thanks. The blue thing on the wheel, and most of what is that color blue, is padding, standard NASCAR style from the mid 90's.

I drilled out the kit gauges and put some parts box decals in from the back. The interior is coming along... Floor mats are some pre-flocked paper with adhesive left over from a Pocher build.

I agree to much of what you wrote and the spirit it was offered, but if you build something that would not work mechanically in the real world, it could be viewed by some as “wrong†if it is intended as a feasible drivable vehicle. That’s not to say you should not build what you want to. Build for yourself, absolutely, and if you don't like the look of aluminum parts, you can skip them. But in your opinion you state "Maybe it's a finish thing. A turned part looks like a turned part no matter what size it is." Much of what I replicate in scale are machined aluminum scaled down versions of machined (often aluminum) real parts. To me they look fine. But not everything is left raw metal either. There are a variety of finishing techniques to take a raw machined piece to a finished replica part. I use everything from abrasives to paints, even acids. You wouldn't use an unfinished resin or plastic part very often on a model, the same holds true for many turned/machined aluminum parts. An unfinished part will look out of place no matter its composition. Some in progress shots of an old build made with a lot of aluminum:

Just curious, what material is the outside perimeter of the bed “box†made from? Is it wood sandwiched between sheet plastic for example? The pictures don’t tell…

Raising the top of the windshield looks like a good addition/idea, but if you clean up the edges, like where the burrs are on the lower corners, it will go a long way to making this build look clean overall. Rough edges like that will not be hidden by paint (actually BMF will exacerbate it) and will become a focal point that could take away from the other work you are doing on this one. Your painting on the seatbelts looks like you are improving with the brush... Are you going to repair that chunk taken out of the rim? If you paint the rims orange like your drawing, it will really jump out if you don't. I'm looking forward to seeing you apply the tips and direction Mark Taylor provided in his tutorial for you. This should be a nice step up for you.

Thanks Jeff, if that's the worst you can see, I'm doin' good on this project...

The seats are Tamiya parts box parts, probably from a Skyline. The harness's are cut from vinyl. The belt hardware is not PE, I also cut it, but from Mylar. Decals are from the parts box... Rear suspension is in and will ride height adjusted later.

Suspension... Replaced the rear coil springs with ones I wound from wire. The rotors/calipers are Tamiya sourced mounted on brass "adaptors", I added the vent holes... The rest is OOB.

I got a hair cut.

Umm, research, umm yeah.

These are from semi-recent to well over ten years ago. Some have decals off the same sheet Dave Zinn used, but most of these have custom decals… Every so often I’ll do some significant bodywork. But most are reworked “OOB’sâ€. As you can see, the styles are all over the place… Funny Cars GTX Mini Willys FX Hauler Set Superman Sprint Car LeMelt R/C Deora w/Soap Box Racer Super Truck Goodwrench Maelstrom Solaire

Custom can be many things, but don’t Frenched antennas usually just have an opening, not bumps or fairings that disrupt the flow of the body design? The tutorial looks good, but I think if they were flush, only having the “exit†holes in the body, it would look more accurate to most real jobs, at least the ones I have seen. Thanks for sharing.

You are most welcome. It sounds much better than the "Scratchbuilt From Kit Parts Cannonball". Besides it would probably not fit on the (Die-cast) tender...

DING! Fries are done! DING! Fries are done! DING! Fries are done!

What’s with all the cool trains? How about aTurtle Burger? Anyone had a Turtle Burger? We did, YUM!

Yes, that is precisely what I requested in post #25 thank you for reiterating it. “If you don’t want to make it public, send a PM, please respond either way for the sake of the modeling society.â€

You should call it the Kitbash Cannonball. Let me know if you want help making the graphics. And thanks for sharing.

That is good to know. I wasn’t sure how fast it could go. 150 is good. Thanks for sharing.

Follow along Mr. Taylor… (Please read earlier posts for explanation.) Not a Nascar/truck, anymore. Nascar doesn’t allow nitrous either, did you miss that too? And thanks for trying to participate.

I machined a few aluminum parts, a fuel filler and vent tube, and a pair of valve knobs for the nitrous bottles. I guess one could call them “scratch-built†if they had to… The HID lights are installed and the bumper is attached. I made reflectors with bulbs that are tinted blue. In some angles the blue comes through. Also added a screen grille. Even though the only kit source items (other than the truck body) are the light lenses, this still does not really rise to the level of calling these additions scratch-built.

I still think if you know who did it, you should provide that info as a community service. If you don’t want to make it public, send a PM, please respond either way for the sake of the modeling society. It makes security a lot easier when you know who to watch for…

That's pretty much the bulk of what I did too. Practice with different paints, distances, pressures, thinning... Just keep it dry. Thanks for the input!

The paint pen. It has to be a new unused, unprimed pen or else the foam is saturated with paint.

I thought it was part of an IQ test.

Years ago (about the time frame this truck is from) NOX was used to describe Nitrous Oxide injection systems that were made by another large performance company (other than NOS brand) that also made nitrous systems. I was implored by my contact there not to refer to their system as NOS, but NOX when I was building one of my Super 7s with replicas of their parts. While incorrect chemically, it is fitting for this build. Today that company uses the chemically correct N20 term or simply refers to them as Nitrous Systems. The Super 7 is fine thanks, why do you ask?