Psychographic

???

It was small parts day. I cut two pedals from a Nascar kit, made a bracket to hang them from, and made a master cylinder which will mount to the pedal mount. I reworked the steering column to give it more detail, the turn signal lever it a pin dipped in Styrene Bondo and shaped by rolling it between my fingers after it had set up a while. I was afraid there wasn't going to be enough room for the pedals and the steering column, they just barely fit. While I'm on a roll with small parts, I thought I would sand down the stock taillights to fit my sunken buckets which are smaller than the stock lights. I drilled the back side and Ca glues some beading wire into the backs to hold them for sanding. I wont remove the wire until the body is painted as I'm sure they will need a little more finessing to fit.

I've got the door seems cleaned up and two coats of primer on the body. The right side door needs more work, I think the hinge is a little off making the bottom of the door in a bit from the body. It was quite a bit easier to do many things with the roof off, but it also made aligning the doors a nightmare. Now that the body is not flexing, the hinges work pretty well. I had to build up the rockers with some melted styrene which from now on will be known as "Styrene Bondo". Once this hardens up I can start with round one of finishing putty.

Well it looks like all the major fabrication is done. Now it's time for the guys in the body shop to have at it.

Door latches.

I made a simple rollbar as there's not enough room for a cage of any type, and added a fire bottle to the back wall.

My original plan was to do a street rod style car. I didn't have a frame that I could use, nor did I want to build my own this time. When I decided to use the Stingaree frame the build changed from a street rod to a crazy fairground cruiser, cool looking but totally impractical. This was mostly due to the front wheels being so far forward. The wheelbase is fine to me for a trailer queen, but the mass of the body and motor still needs to stay as short as possible. I could have shortened the bed more, but then the body would not have the look I wanted. Right now the bulk of the car starts at the front of the engine. If I add the grill and radiator to the front, the grille needs to be in front of the tie rod, which is even longer than the pic. This now puts of the mass to the front and adds almost an inch to the model. To me the balance of the whole car would be wrong and much too long.

After breaking the glue joints on the body twice, I figured I had done enough to the interior to cement the roof on. This means I will think of something that will be a whole lot harder to do with it on that I forgot to do. I originally had the idea of making a grille shell that mimicked a bug hood, unfortunately it made the car look way to long. I made the grille from a plastic spoon and added about 3 layers of melted plastic filler, then sanded to shape to give it the raised look. So now the idea is to mount the radiator in the back. After cutting out the hole I wrapped it with .040 rod. The lip was too pronounced to my eye, so I sanded the bottom of it off and it looks much better. I also decided to sink the taillights and move them out a bit.

I use flocking for carpeting. I had to dump all the model pics from PB as I was running out of space. I'm sending you a PM.

I tried to cover the hinges with some .020 that I sanded down to about .008, but the cement distorted it, so I filled the gap with 3 pieces of .030. The one line from the door panel is in line with the hinges, so I can add that to them and make them blend in better. A look through the widow. I thought the frame was ready for paint, but I forgot to fill in an angle that was in the frame so the floor would lay flat. In doing so I broke a glue joint, so a brace was added and new body mounts were made. Hopefully now it's ready for paint.

I came up with a way to help prevent lost parts that drop and go "who knows where". Take an old blanket, preferably one that is solid colored, and has a lot of stray fibers that small parts will get caught in. Set it up like a baseball diamond where your chair is home plate. Put this corner on the seat of your chair and bunch up the edges that are on the floor. Now if you drop a part there is a good chance it will fall into the carpet. Since I've done this, Ive lost a lot less parts.

I've got one side of the interior panels done. I used .060 half round for the two lines on the top and the one on the bottom. the center section is .030 sheet that I rounded the edges on, and wrapped it with .040 rod.

Start a thread in the CB section and see if there is any interest. I would bet there are not going to be many takers as this is a peculiar kit and has a limited audience.

Rommel's Rod ?

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately the gap has to stay because the door swings into the open space. The gap isn't bad with the space taken up by the door panels. I could fill it in along the face of the dash, but that will leave an open spot behind it and would look worse than the gap. When I first made the dash and looked at it, the gap was huge looking, now it's fine. I have also thought of wrapping the hinges, but I can't find any scrap .010 sheet. I'm afraid if I try to do it with anything thick it will knock them out of alignment.

I started framing out the door for the door panels. One thing that bugged me was how big the hinges looked, the door panel cleaned them up a lot. Now the big question, will the seats still fit? Yup, they fit! Also, the gap between the dash and the door panel isn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would look.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Do those epoxies work on metal? The only gas tanks I mess with are bike tanks.

A tail tank on a quarter midget is fake, hence the quotes around the word tank in my post.

I wonder if the term floral foam can be more than one type of foam depending on where you get it. I know I used what was called floral foam to repair a hole in a fiberglass tail "tank" on a vintage quarter midget last year. The repair used polyester resin and the foam was not effected by it.

I've got the door jambs done in the back, unfortunately I cant do anything in the front due to how the doors open.

While that's a cool idea, I had the paint scheme figured out before I even started on this. I promise it will be pretty wild.

Try using floral foam and after it's shaped give a coat or two of epoxy or fiberglass resin. The foam shapes very easy and is impervious to epoxy and resin.

Thank you all for the comments. No, but I'm hoping to get back to it after I finish this project. That's funny you say that, I always hated the look of this style hat. But for some reason I thought it was the perfect look for this build. Now I'm kind of liking the style.

I added an oil filter, and and alternator. The pulleys are the rear mounted oil cooler set from a NASCAR cup model as is the alternator.