Ace-Garageguy

OMG!!! IDK !!! Do they still read, period? Does anybody?

Beautiful model of a beautiful car. For me, this will always be the golden-age of F1. The cars were elegant, logical and straightforward, with prominent mechanical elements contributing to the design.

Me too.

Cool project, Dennis. Good use for the newer Ala Kart body bits. The one huge thing to hate about the later A'Kart kit is the ridiculously underscale engine. I've measured a real Red Ram, and the early kit got it very close to right, but the "new tool" kit's engine is a joke. Interestingly, the OLD (correctly scaled) Ala Kart engine will fit in the NEW Ala Kart body, so why they blew the scaling, I'll never ever know. There ARE some things on the newer kit that make it great for kit-bash fodder though, like the very nice dropped-and-filled front axle, the wheels and tires, etc. (as I'm sure you know). I've always thought the newer kit caught the stance, proportions and balance of the real car a little better than the original kit did, and I've had a hankering to combine the best bits from both kits to make one accurate Ala Kart. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing this one of yours come together.

Strip it. Wet-sanding will only smooth out the clear. It looks like you shot your clear too wet and have disturbed the metallic particles in the silver by re-wetting them too much, which lets them fall over and become blotchy. Get your procedures down by testing before you commit to painting a model you want to look good. If you don't have any spare bodies to practice on, I have found that soda bottles that have molded details make excellent stand-ins for practice-painting. Scuff them with Comet, hot water and a stiff toothbrush (also the best...by far...method of prepping model car bodies). Then primer and paint with the materials you're trying to learn. The Testors materials you're using WILL produce quite nice results...

The Revell interior panels really are hugely thick. You could build really fat door and quarter interior panels if you wanted to in 1:1, but that's not the way it's usually done. I wouldn't. Here are a few real cars for comparison. Though one is an RPU, the panel thickness is pretty obvious on all of them.

Just to clarify my position on these...I love this old kit. I've never bad-mouthed it, and I've overcome the top-fit issues on several. It's well-proportioned, and the earlier-release chopped-top 3-window version is one of the coolest rods ever kitted...IMHO. It DOES take more skill and effort to produce a first-rate model than some others might. Bernard Kron's chopped 3-window is one of the coolest of the cool...

Here's a simplified version of the Ford system Steve posted just above. Lotsa Fords use the remote solenoid as shown, and it can be mounted on the firewall or an inner fender...especially on a custom or rod, you can put it anywhere you want it, for the most part. A remote Ford-style solenoid can be used on non-Fords too, and is sometimes used to shunt heavy current. As you see, the big heavy + wire runs to the solenoid, and out the other side to the starter motor itself. Lotsa other cars, NON-Fords, have the solenoid mounted on the starter housing, in which case, the big heavy + wire runs directly to that (as per the LOWER schematic in the second post). NOTE: Your big heavy + and - wires are roughly 1/2" in diameter, or larger, on a real car...significantly larger than plug wires. In 1:25 scale, use .5 mm wire (or about .020 inches...much larger than your plug wires should be).

Started the big ol' 47 Caddy last week for the first time after a year and a half of non-stop work. ONLY thing I haven't personally done on the car to-date is the exhaust system from the headers back, and the guys who did the work made me VERY happy. Quality job, followed my requirements EXACTLY. Reasonable price. When she came home from the exhaust shop, other than a very few minor hiccups, she popped off on the first twist of the key. Finished up testing most of the primary systems today, and just about got all of the instrument sub-harness built. The owner came by and I got to give him the dog-and-pony show, all the trick onboard electronics working, engine purring happily, shifter shifting, etc. He's happy, signed on for more work, so I'll be getting her 100% roadworthy between now and the end of the year. Then she goes to the paint shop...and I'll probably do the dis-assembly and much of the panel fitting on their site, then the build-up after she's candy-apple-red.

I like 'em, especially the top two. I sometimes shoot in a similar style, taking shapes and forms out of context, and forcing them into abstract designs.

Hmmmm...and I was thinking just the opposite...a face only its mother could love.

There is NO direct connection between the starter or the battery and the ignition coil. Besides the big wire on the coil that goes to the distributor, there are two other small "primary" wires that attach to the coil. One comes from the ignition switch, and the other one connects the distributor to the other small terminal on the coil (to tell the coil when to make a spark). Besides the large wires from the battery to the starter and a ground, and the big secondary coil and plug wires, most modelers don't bother with the rest. They're really too small to deal with in 1/25 scale. Below is a schematic of a point-type ignition system. The large + wire that runs to the starter is not shown. The arrowy wires are the "secondary" coil and plug wires that many modelers replicate. The other wires (except for the battery ground) are small gauge, and as you see, run from the ignition switch, to the coil, then on to the + side of the points in the distributor. Below is a typical starting circuit in a simple car. The two large hot and ground wires from the battery are clearly shown. The rest of the wires are small-gauge control wires.

Duplicolor makes a "clear yellow" for replicating anodizing. Over the right base, it can be very effective.

Beautifully done.

Beautiful. This is the first model I've seen finished using the Cosmichrome process (though I've seen a fair number of 1:1 parts done with it). Looks like you did a first-rate job.

I've been living kinda primitively for the past year and a half in my under-renovation house. I've had only portable heat, no AC, and NO HOT WATER. I finished up enough of the plumbing today to safely fire up the water-heater and take a long hot shower. Man oh man. This changes everything. I feel almost human again.

Even the photo rusted away to nothing.

If the photo is removed from Photobucket (or any other photo storage site), it will disappear here. If Photobucket (or any other photo-hosting site) goes down for any time at all, the photo will disappear here until it comes back online. If you copy and paste a photo from another site, some of them discourage "hot-linking", and though the pic may show up for a while, it may also disappear. One way to prevent this is to "save" any photos you want on your own hard-drive, then transfer them to your own Photobucket (or other hosting site) account, and post them here as usual. That way, even if the original site goes down, the photo will remain on the hosting-site, and will remain visible here. And too, if you copy and paste a pic from another site, if THAT site goes down, your photo here will disappear as well. PS. Nick, I highly approve of your "test-shot" material.

At least a hundred grand to make anything decent out of that poor old mess. Minimum. Bare minimum. Bring two.

Seein' as how it's a Terraplane, i guess he thought he needed a "plane" engine.

Next, they'll be saying THESE photos aren't of REAL astronauts...or is this all part of the NASA "conspiracy" too...

Somebody on Ebay was willing to pay $183 for one a couple years back... http://www.ebay.com/itm/261221531360 $400 ?? http://geb.ebay.in/g/ImportHubViewItem?itemid=201438414628&Monogram-Horn-Toad-Model-kit

Well...there's that little problem of the widening, climbing character molding at the front of the doors, and the kinda deep looking scribe below the A-pillar... You'll notice the REAL car doesn't look like that...

Pegasus has some kinda similar...