Harry P.

I scratchbuilt a storage/tool box with hasp and lock...

I finished up the top... got the framework assembled, stained and detail painted...

You're a bit late to the LED party, but welcome aboard, Bill!

Not sure where you will end up with this... but I hafta say I like the way it was at the beginning!

Your photos are too big, the forum is squeezing them to fit within the allowed max. Shoot smaller photos.

There is a vertical panel line at the front and the back, the kit is missing them both.

Thanks, Scott. I am cutting a few corners due to my not feeling 100%, but hopefully nothing too noticeable.

No.

To give the top more of the look of canvas and take away that "plastic-y" model car look, first I painted it with oil-based wood stain... Then I wiped off most of it, leaving slightly more in the "recessed" areas and less on the raised areas, just to give the top some depth and try to make it look more like fabric than molded plastic. Compare the stained top to the unstained in the previous photos.

The first step in detailing the top was to drill out the molded-in brass snaps. They will be replaced by real brass tacks with round heads... I will not be using the kit's plastic molded "leather" top hold down straps up front... I will scratchbuild those using heavy paper. So I needed to add the mounting loops for the straps on the top. I used thin bead stringing wire that I found at HL... it's soft enough so that I could bend very tight radiuses into it, yet stiff enough to hold its shape. The wire is red (remember, it's decorative bead stringing wire)... the loops will ultimately be painted black.

Front end details finished. The RR logo on the grille shell was a decal that disintegrated into a million tiny pieces once it hit the water, so I googled "RR logo" and printed one out at several sizes... picked the size that I needed, cut it out and glued it on. The license plates are also decals, but rather than risk them disintegrating too, I just cut them out of the decal sheet dry, and glued them to the backing plate.

I decided to go with red wheels instead of black. I think they give the car a sportier look...

Just got home from the hospital, where I had a "mediport" implanted into my chest. They will hook up my chemo to this port every time I have a chemo session. The port surgery went smoothly, it only took about 1/2 hour.

Hmmm... were the kit engineers/designers using a broken ruler?

He says 1/12 in the title of the thread.

Every time I hear of someone who has died of cancer, I get chills. It sort of hits home and makes me wonder why some make it and some don't. I hope Mike's family is at peace. We know that he is.

What kit is this?

Metzner's Mufflers! I love it! You have to send him a photo, he'll get a kick out of it.

I don't. I was just trying to describe how I feel in terms you guys can relate to.

That turned out very nice! Excellent work.

I hope so. I am cutting corners a bit due to fatigue and general crappy feeling overall... sort of feels like I have the flu.

It's coming together. Here is the interior. The panel below the seat was scratchbuild of basswood, stained and varnished. The drawer pulls are straight pins. I drilled out the molded-in fasteners on the wooden trim piece that runs along the top of the body side from firewall to seat and added real brass pins.

Only if the wheel cutout is perfectly round, which in most cases it is not.

I stained the running boards, trimmed the edges with BMF, then gave them a black wash to tone them down a little...

Here are those panels installed. Painting the body was a nightmare. I first sprayed everything with Tamiya Bright Red, then masked off the recessed red panels and brush painted the exposed raised areas with gloss black acrylic. I had a real hard time masking off the recessed red panels with all those curves and tight radiuses. I did the best I could, but when I removed the tape there were a ton of spots where the color break lines were... um... "less than satisfactory." I tried my best to fix the rough areas with a tiny brush and red and black paint, but even so the color breaks are pretty bad in too many areas. Definitely not my best work, but once the body is in place and all the accessories like the spare tire, battery box, horn bulb, etc. are installed, your eye won't be drawn directly to the lousy job I did with the color breaks. The red panels should have been individual pieces, like the cane inserts. That way you could paint the body black, paint the inset panels red, glue them in place, and have perfect color separation lines. That's how the kit should have been engineered...