Harry P.

I've never understood why it's legal for shops to install window tint on cars, but it's illegal for you to have it (in most states) on your car! If it's illegal to have it, it should be illegal to install it, no?

The fenders have been painted and foiled. The running board storage compartment lids were painted silver and then black window tint to bring out the diamond-tread detail, and the edges were trimmed with gold BMF. It's beginning to look like a fire truck now!

Here are a couple of other models of mine that have cushions made the exact same way:

And how it will look when installed: This is the same way I made the cushions on my doctor's buggy, buckboard, stagecoach, Barcelona taxi, etc.

Once I have all the pins in place I carefully remove the masking tape, being careful not to pull any of the pins out as I pull the tape off. Now I push the pins all the way through the balsa backer board, and pull them tight from the back side. The trick is to pull them all equally, so they all compress the cushion the same amount on the face of the cushion: I'll check the face side of the cushion to make sure all the pins are pulled the same amount. Once they are all good to go, I place a good size plop of CA on each pin on the back side of the cushion to lock the pins in place. Once the CA is completely dry, I snip the excess pin lengths off with sprue cutters, as flush to the surface as I can. When we flip the cushion right side up, we have this result: This could very well be the finished product, but in this case I decided to go with black upholstery, so I painted the cushion with black acrylic craft paint. The finished product:

To do so, I cover the cushion with a piece of masking tape, and use a ruler to lay out a grid pattern on the cushion. I divide the width of the cushion by four and mark the long lines. Whatever the dimension is as a result of dividing the width of the cushion by four, that dimension (in this case 1/4 inch) becomes the distance that the short lines are spaced apart. So I basically have a grid of 1/4 inch squares. Now I take some small brass pins (actually the planking nails from a model ship kit) and use my needle-nose pliers to push the pins down through the cushion and into the balsa backer board in an alternating pattern that will form the "diamonds" of the finished pattern:

And here is what we have at this point when we flip the cushion right side up. Basically a padded cushion: In some cases this could be the final product, depending on the model and what I'm going for. But in this case we're just beginning! Now we have to add the diamond-tuft detail...

Next comes the trickiest part of the whole process. I lay down the upholstery material, face side down on the work surface, then the foam padding, then the balsa backer board. Then I press down on the balsa board to compress the foam, while at the same time pulling up the upholstery "flaps" and gluing them to the bottom side of the backer board. I also pull the corners taut as I press the material down so I will get nice tight corners. With contact cement you get one shot, and one shot only, because once the upholstery piece comes in contact with the backer board, it sticks tight! Once the upholstery is glued to the backer board (with the compressed foam in between), I use an X-acto to trim off the excess upholstery. I want as smooth a surface as possible on the underside of the seat cushion: As you can see, neatness isn't the goal here on the underside, as this side will never be seen once the cushion is installed. What's important is that I get a good, solid bond between the upholstery and the backer board. I also flow some CA over the corners after I trim the excess material to "lock" the corners of the upholstery in place and prevent the upholstery from coming loose later.

Next, I apply contact cement to the edges of the "leather" and the back (bottom) of the balsa backer board. You can see that I also glued a piece of thin cardboard to the back of the balsa piece first... that's to strengthen the balsa a bit so it's less likely to crack during the next steps.

The next step is to cut a piece of the upholstery material, large enough to get a good amount of overlap when I wrap the material around the balsa backer board and the foam padding. The material was found in the sewing department of Hobby Lobby. It's not really leather, but a very soft and flexible vinyl that has a grain to it that looks amazingly like leather in 1/16 or 1/8 scale.

Let's skip around again... just like I do in "real life" when I build a model. Let's talk about the driver's seat cushion, and how I do diamond-tufted "leather" upholstery. My technique only works in certain applications... like if the upholstered cushion is flat (not curved like in a bucket seat), and only in large scale. I couldn't imagine trying this technique in 1/25 scale! Here's how I do it. In the photo below you can see the molded kit piece on the left, looking very much not like an upholstered leather cushion! In the center is a piece of 1/8" balsa sheet cut to a size slightly smaller than the finished cushion will be, with the corners rounded by sanding. And on the right is the cushioning material that I cut from a larger piece of foam padding found in the sewing department of Hobby Lobby. I used ordinary scissors to cut a piece to the same size as the balsa backer board, and about 3/8 inch thick. It's not necessary to be super precise with the foam piece... it'll be compressed under the "leather" upholstery:

Or was it the JUDGES who set the hobby back a few years? Unless, of course, his models really were the best and deserved to win all the awards.

The brunette or the blonde... I like 'em both!

Nice looking model.

Oh yeah! That's what it's all about. Beautiful models.

The main body is coming along. I got it painted, added my usual wash where needed (the lines on the top and the brass baseplates for the brass rails to come later), and foiled the trim on the storage door edges on the sides. Trying to get the foil to conform to the molded-in "hinges" at the tops of the storage doors without wrinkling and/or tearing was a real pain. Still much to do on this part of the model, but this is where I'm at as of now:

Here's one guy's take on the loud pipes issue that seems to look at the subject pretty fairly and objectively: http://www.straight.com/life/loud-pipes-irritate-enhance-motorcycle-riders-safety While I can understand how some (most?) bikers think that "loud pipes save lives" (and maybe they actually do, to a point)... that still doesn't excuse the guys who sit at the light and constantly rev the engine the whole time.

Nice work! Keep them coming!

Thanks, Peter. Yes, I find that a subtle wash adds a lot of realism and seems to take away the "model" look somewhat. If done right, you don't necessarily seeing the black wash jumping out at you, but things just seem to look "right" somehow.

I looked it up, you're right. There is no noise limit in some states, but there is in many states, including where I live, but a lot of bikers here in Illinois apparently think the law only applies to everyone else, not to them.

Running a bike without mufflers is illegal, isn't it? I mean, not that some bikers would care.... but it is illegal, for the same reason that running a car without mufflers is illegal. Can you imagine what the world would sound like if everyone decided they don't need mufflers on their car/bike? Maybe I need to take the mufflers off my car so I can annoy everyone around me? And maybe turn up the stereo to 11, too. You know, to show the world how cool I am.

S60.

Man, you sure do go for the krazy kolors!

Well, they got one. Now the kid drives a Volvo. Suddenly he's all growed up!