1320wayne

Lyn, what time are you all meeting on that date?

I started by doing an online search of any images of birds in the water and what the ripple marks should look like as well as birds just taking off from the water. I used Testors window maker white glue, which dries clear, to make the ripples behind the floating birds and then added a larger amount of the glue underneath the birds taking off and while the glue was setting up I used a toothpick to chop it up to the point that it looked like the image in front of me. It's not perfect but I was happy for a first try.

Ross Gibson 440 with a few extra race parts added in.

Down in the Diorama section I have a WIP of a "Mopar Hilltop Garage" that I have been working on in recent months. The base is pretty much done and the garage is closing in on being finished as well. Now it's time to concentrate on what's going to go inside for a vehicle. Since the diorama revolves around Mopars and Drag Racing the subject will be a 67 Dodge Coronet bracket racer style drag car. Nothing real fancy. No opening doors or trunk or major scratchbuilding but just a simple drag piece with the extra needed detail. The body is a Revell 67 Coronet kit mated to a Revell STP Rickie Smith Firebird chassis. The engine will most likely be a Ross Gibson piece. The only major changes to the chassis were to cut the tops of the wheeltubs off to get the rear of the chassis to sit down right and to lengthen the front framerails to accomodate the extra wheelbase. The front tires and wheels are Revell kit pieces but the rear slicks I decided to try something a bit different. I am using 1/20th scale rear slicks from a Tamiya formula 1 kit. They are plenty wide but are also a low profile tire which works perfect here to also help get the ride height down. The rear wheels are two extra JPS wheels that I had just waiting to be used somewhere. The paint job will be something a little different but I will leave that until I pull it off.

Like some others mentioned, heat is a factor here in Florida. My shop is here in the garage but in the Summertime you are limited to either working earlier in the morning, before the daily heat rises, or later in the evening, if you're lucky enough to have had a nice rainstorm blow through and lower the temps.. Otherwise, we have a spare bedroom at the front of the house where the computers are located and I have one of those hospital tables to bring smaller projects inside to work on when the heat is unbearable.

The scratchbuilt couch was made from the trunk section of an AMT Chrylser 300 with parts box seats, styrene and filler.

The floor was a larger 11x17 plastic sheet from a dollhouse miniatures store that I picked up many years back that I still had stored away just waiting for a time to be used.

The garage is not done yet. It was just set in place for these pictures. When it's complete there will be a concrete looking slope for the appraoch to the garage as well as the step through the door.

O.K., here is more. The base is pretty much done, except for the ballast for the driveway, but I have to wait until the garage is ready to be permantly attached before I can finish that. The pond is complete with all of the wildlife. All of the rocks and surrounding foliage is also complete. There will be a few more hidden items still to add to the landscape but I'm not going to disclose any of that because I want them to remain hidden for people to be able to look at and find as they study the diorama. There is still plenty to complete on the garage and that is what I will be concentrating on next. In one of the pictures shown below you will also see that the garage door is closed. It had been added temporarily to see how well it will work opening and closing. I still have a few more tweaks to that to get it to work just right.

Another excellent build, Chuck.

Very nice Chuck. Excellent work on the paint job and the stance looks perfect.

Here is more work on the inside of the building. The stereo was printed off the internet as a cut and fold printout. The detail is all one dimensional so what I did was to create a styrene buck of the stereo, cut out all of the sides individually and glue them in place. I took the main face of the strereo and recessed that section to add another dimension to it. I opened one of the cabinet doors and filled the cabinet with record albums (also printed from the same site). The top of the stereo has a few stacks of cd's (again, from the same site). From this same site, www.printmini.com , you can also print off the speakers to go with the stereo, including smaller surround sound speakers, which will be added shortly. So far I have one speaker in place and it is sitting next to the scratchbuilt couch made from the trunk section of a modern Chrysler 300. And finally I have the first figure in place, in the office, sitting at the desk reading his latest issue of National Dragster. More to come soon.

Looks good Ed. I really like the building and the stock Willys are no slouch either.

Here is my latest completed project. Revell Bill Elliott Dodge Intrepid, built pretty much straight out of the box with added JWTBM and Slixx decals. This was a bear to do as the entire paint scheme is decal and has to be laid out just right to get everything to fit. It was by far the longest decal project that I have ever completed.

See, you make a stupid statement like this and voila, it shows up in todays mail.

Lyn, the model show season for Florida is pretty much over with for the year. What shows we do have here are during the first part of the year. There is the Street Rod Nationals in Tampa in October that has a model show in conjunction with the 1:1 car show but that's pretty much it for this year. There is a very good show coming up in October in Charelston, SC. Check out the web site www.scmodelers.com for information. The largest show coming up within reasonable traveling distance is the Southern Nationals NNL in Atlanta in November. You can find more info. on this one at www.acme-ipms.com

The body you are referring to was a Celica, not a Solara and the person that cast the body was a person by the name of Jim Hannawalt. Jim had the Dragworks resin company back in the late 80's, early 90's. His stuff was all slush cast but very nice and useable. Jim was dealing with some serious health problems the last time that I communicated with him and that was over three years ago. Every time that I've tried to contact him since I come up empty. I'm not sure but he may not be around anymore. I'm not positive on this so don't quote me on it. Comp resins does have a Toyota body on their future bodies list but it has also been there for a while now.

Great! Here we go again. I get to read two pages of posts about how everybody has theirs while I'm still waiting for mine.

Now, moving inside the garage I was able to hang another cabinet near the compressor. The doors on this one actually open and close and it is stocked with parts boxes. On the opposite side of the garage there is a shelving unit with parts, oil bottles and parts boxes as well as the torches, arc welder and smaller compressor. Back in the corner is a mop bucket as well as a fully stocked drink machine. And in the office area the desk is complete with a laptop computer, phone and digital frame. More soon!

O.K., here's more in the way of updates. The water is pretty much done. It is Valspar two part clear epoxy resin with a bit of blue food coloring mixed in. You have to pour it in layers in order for it to set up properly. All of the trees and shrubs are in place along with some of the dogs and a few of the ducks/geese. I'm really pleased with the German Shepard that is in the process of running towards the birds by the pond. I was also able to get the rocks in place along with any turf and ground clutter. The edges of the pond that are painted blue will be shaved away to the level of the water once the pond has had a few more days to cure.

Stellar job! Love the paint scheme and what are those wheels? They look like vintage five wides. Whatever they are they are cool looking.

Excellent job! Great black finish that you pulled off there.

Uh.........Dave, how quickly you forget your "Luxo-Rod" 32 Chrysler.

Yes. I picked up something from Lowe's, where I work. It's a two part clear epoxy resin from Valspar. It's marketed to use on counter tops to give it that thick glaze appearrance. You can pour it in stages and even add color.

Nice work Dave, which doesn't surprise me with your building skills. I had to go almost all the way to the end of this post to finally see that your weren't actually going to run Billet wheels on a Billetproof project. Can't wait to see more.