Scottnkat

cool! glad this is back on track

Here's a shot of the engines sitting in the frames. You can make out the flap of skin sitting on top of the distributor and wires of the car on the right. Yep, that's mine! I decided to paint it flat black so it would sorta "blend in" (yeah right). I guess it's a good thing the hood will be closed on this car. But now I know - don't do the wires in that way - stick with the way I had been doing them. On a brighter note, I checked out the paint jobs on the two cars and no more orange peel finish. These are about ready for me to start foiling - woo hoo!! Here's the Torino: And here's the Talladega:

Well, I decided to wire up the engines after all - they just look too plain without it. Someone had suggested using firm wire that holds its shape, glue in the plugs first, then just shape the wire so it comes up to the distributor. You can then just glue the wire to the distributor. I thought, "What the heck? I've tried it other ways and it's not too bad - let's try it this way". Gluing the spark plug boots in went well. I then started to bend the wire to route all the wires to the distributor. I gave them all a nice little curve at the end so they all went down onto the little nubs of the distributor cap. Then I took a little superglue and dropped it onto the distributor cap to hold the wires in place. I had my finger holding things in place but when I moved my finger, all the wires on the distributor came loose. So... we try again. Get all the wires into place on the distributor cap, finger holding everything in place, drop the superglue into place on top of the distributor cap, stand still to hold it. Then a brilliant idea hit me! Why not just spray some CA Activator in there so it gets solid and I don't have to hold it anymore? So, I pull it out and spray. Gently moving my finger, everything stays in place. Woo hoo!! Then I try to remove my finger. Apparently, there was some CA on my fingertip when I sprayed the accelerator on. My finger was firmly glued to the wires coming out of the cap. So, I did what came naturally to me: I pried my fingers off the wires leaving a nice sheet of skin behind. Now my plug wires coming out of the distributor have a wonderful little cover on them. Oh, well. Now I know better. I said at the beginning of this build that I was going to try new things. Next time, I may not try this again.

Thanks alot, Dan - I appreciate the comments. I did sand down the bodies last night, then primered 'em up - gotta lay the paint down again - I had a few bad orange peel spots show up. Hopefully it'll do better this time.

Thank you much for your offer. But I think I'll see what I can do with what I have. All the parts that were ruined were all suspension-related parts (those that I was going to be painting in the Industrial blue), so they won't show unless the car is picked up. I am grateful that is was only those parts that were doused. If I do get stuck at some point, I may hit you up, though. Thank you again.

Thanks for that, Jacen. Well, the glue mishap has put me behind a little bit, but I'm working with what I have - I was able to salvage a few of the parts and the parts bin provided a couple of more pieces - I think I can get it worked out without too much trouble, but it has slowed me down just a bit. I'm hoping to get some sanding done on the bodies tonight to get rid of the orange peel finish - but we'll have to see if I can get some time tonight.

Finally, I started painting the bodies. Other than the fuel vents on both cars that I showed earlier and repositioning the gas cap on the Torino, I also added the little window clips around the frame on the Torino. Here they are in the spray booth, followed by a couple of shots of them by themselves. They do still need some work as I got a little orange peel in a few spots. On a side note, I have gotta stop taking pics in the spray booth as it throws the color off. These are showing lighter in color than they really are in the individual shots. Oh, well.... new camera is still on my wish list.

I also thought I would show some status pics of the chassis. They are coming along. I'm still kinda slow on all the scratch-building stuff, but they are getting together. The blue is actually a bit lighter than what shows in the pics - it's closer to the blue of the engines shown above.

Well, after last night's little accident, I wanted to have something positive to post today. So, here's a picture of those resin-cast tires that I made - they are all ready for some decals and a nice flat coat: Here's the engines mostly complete, as well. They just need the top end finished off: I haven't decided if I will wire them or not yet. I already put in the kit distributors, so that rules out what I normally do. I am still thinking I will maybe, but if I do then I am going to try a different way that I heard about. More on that later if I decide to go that way.

Rob, I always liked this kit. I've been outbid on 'em a few times on "that" site. Your trailer looks fabulous - love the color. I'm enjoying the heck out of watching this.

No, I just cast the regular stock wheels - I added the valves after the fact. Thanks. Well, I just had a little mini-disaster. I was removing a few parts from the sprue and had them in a pile in front of me. I was using the X-Acto knife and sanding stick to trim them and get them all cleaned up. I decided to glue a couple of the pieces together before I painted them, so I grabbed the glue. After unscrewing the lid, I had a little spasm (yep, I still get those a year and a half after my accident) and knocked the bottle of Pro-Weld over, spilling it all over the parts. Boy! That stuff melts those pieces away darn quickly!! Looks like I will be scrounging in my spares and scratch-making the parts that got ruined. So, I am calling it a night. I'll get back to it tomorrow after work and see what I can salvage.

Not much to post tonight. I've been doing some sanding and prep getting the bodies all ready for paint. I did finish painting the wheels, though. The blue is actually darker than this - the camera's flash kinda washed this out. Sorry about that.

I've gotta say, it's somewhat nice to have a kit that you're not trying to make look the best it can - I'm just kinda rolling along without trying to fix anything or make anything better at all - this is a different kinda build for me, and Damien's having fun with it, too.

Damien has an update, too. He mounted the engine in the chassis and has begun work on that. The Revell kit is on the left and the AMT kit is on the right. Now that the Revell engine has the top on, it looks a bit better.

Thanks, Daniel - I appreciate it. I do have an update - all eight wheels have received the basic paint now. Unlike the Belvedere I did previously, the cars this year had either black or dark blue wheels. I decided to go with the dark blue. Here's a pic of the wheels so far. Note that there is really no red on these at all - that's just a reflection from within the spray booth. Sorry about that:

Thanks for the comments, Bruce. I appreciate. it. Not alot to post today - been sanding and cleaning up the resin parts that I cast. Here's one of the wheels freshly primered and getting all ready for paint: Nice thing about getting to the primer stage - it helps show you where you still need some work. Forgive the quality of my pictures - this was the best picture out of four of them that I tried -yes, this camera sucks

Well, Damien made some time to do some more work. We've completed the engines (at least the basic assemblies as called for in the instructions). The Revell kit will finish getting it's top half once installed in the chassis. The AMT is on the right and the Revell is on the left. The AMT kit seems to have slightly better detail on the engraving, but they are actually both pretty much the same. And here are the wheels from the two kits. Note that the large rear wheels on the Revell kit did not want to fit in the wheels - we had to do some work to get them to fit. The details on the AMT wheels are better. The Revell are on top and the AMT are on the bottom.

I spent some time last night doing a little sanding and clean up on those parts. They do look better now. I'll be posting pics later. Right now, I've gotta take my wife to get her license renewed then get her to the dentist and in between, I have to get to the dump. Busy morning.

Wish I could, Rob - but I appreciate the invite. Thanks for the info, Jacen - I may have to put talcum powder on my shopping list next time. Okay, it's taken some time, but I am calling it a night. Everything still needs some trimming, sanding, and general cleaning up, but even with all the screw ups (and there were a few more than I showed here), we were able to finally get it down so the parts came out okay. We're finishing up our night with four tires, four rims (both pieces), two rear end cooler boxes, two Mopar cross-ram manifolds, and one bumper. Overall, I am rather pleased with how things ended up. Granted, I still need more practice to make things really nice, but I can live with this. So, here's the final shot of the night:

Ah - we forgot the chili dog fixins. Guess we'll just have to drop by your place instead!

Rob, we'd love to have ya - drop on by around 3pm MST for the pre-game food and festivities.

Okay, for those of you that don't know, this is what happens when you don't mix the two parts together well: In my haste, I rushed mixing and didn't ensure it was fully mixed. See the dark areas of the tire? Those are not dry and I expect they will remain this way. Yep, it's just a gushy mushy goo. Thing learned from this? MIX WELL

Okay - that seems to have helped resolve the issue for me. Here's the bumper complete now that I have added the second vent hole: And here are the front and back of the wheels. Sorry the details kinda washed out, but this is actually pretty good and my camera is pretty crappy. Okay, so I am starting to get the hang of this. I still need some more practice, but I think I'm getting it. Sure the parts need to be cleaned up, but I'm actually kinda happy with how these turned out.

Okay - things may be looking up - here's a Mopar cross-ram manifold - a couple of small air bubbles, but it's an improvement:

The first thing I poured was the bumper. I had a pour spout in the middle and a vent on one side. I should have had a vent on the other side as well, as this looked acceptable except for the large air bubble at the end: The second one I poured was the tire. It started to pour in and I thought it became full. I think my vent hole was too close to the pour hole and it ended up getting plugged up. Most of the tire came out okay, except for the large bubble at the top: By this time, the resin was starting to thicken up so I quickly tried to pour it into the other molds. Nothing good resulted from that as you can see in the next few pics: Oh, well - I will try again. This time I will mix smaller amounts to see what happens. I did make a second vent hole in the bumper mold already. This has been a little disheartening, but I knew going into this that I was probably going to stumble here and there so it's not totally a surprise. I'll post pics again when I make my second attempt.