Ace-Garageguy

Wow. 15,000 pounds. Heavyyyy...

The slower cure material is also "stickier" than "regular" epoxy too, and yes, in general, the fillers or modifiers added to an epoxy formulation for various applications change it's behavior...BUT the resin itself is also a major contributing factor in the performance of the stuff. Adding powdered steel to 5-minute goo will give you nothing but a low-strength gray glue. Powdered metal is added to enhance surface hardness and 'toughness' to resin-systems that are already very tough on their own. Press-dies capable of stamping 1/8" thick steel wheel centers have been made from an epoxy-powdered-steel mix. If you've ever tried to bend a 3" long piece of 1/8 inch thick steel in your hands, you'll get an idea of just how tough those dies had to be. One very high-performance epoxy-resin system I use on aircraft (MGS 285) performs as a very-high-strength structural adhesive with the addition of milled cotton fibers (cotton flock, or "flox") in European composite sailplanes. The exact same resin becomes a medium-strength structural panel adhesive when mixed with micro-balloons and fumed-silica powder, and is used to hold the US-built Cirrus SR-22 together. The same resin again becomes a non-structural lightweight filler when mixed with straight micro-balloons (but the cured MGS epoxy itself is quite hard and not easily sanded; a lower-strength, less-hard epoxy is preferred when using an epoxy-micro-balloon filler). Generally, higher-strength epoxies take longer to cure than the low-strength products, adhere to the surface they're used on much more tenaciously, and are much harder when cured. The straight MGS 285, fully cured, is considerably harder than polystyrene and can be drilled and tapped without the addition of any fillers or modifiers whatsoever. Hobby shops tend to stock several 'timed' epoxies for RC aircraft: 5 minute, 15 minute, and 30 minute. The 30 minute is the strongest and sticks best. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of epoxies for differing applications, but the generalization 'longer cure, stronger cure' holds true for all of them.

Fresh material from unopened tubes makes a difference in strength, and careful control of the 1:1 mixing ratio is also important to get the stuff to perform at its best.

Really like this one...gave me a big 'ol smile. Sure looks the part of a weekend warrior.

People build some weird things for Bonneville, and even a fair number of the real ones fail to pass tech inspection due to questionable engineering. Coil-overs, especially made with two differently-wound springs, would be unnecessary on a car like this. Coil-overs CAN be used to augment or fine-tune a leaf-spring setup, but I've never seen anything like what's represented here. I have a feeling there's some artistic license being taken, and parts were made to look vaguely mechanical but that don't have 100% analogs in reality. What WOULD be necessary is a lateral-locating link for the front axle. The quarter-elliptical front springs do not provide sufficient positive lateral rigidity to keep it going straight; nor do the coil-overs. But my intent wasn't to start picking the model apart...as I said, the craftsmanship looks to be excellent...but rather to ask about something that jumps out immediately. I have seen people build real cars and never once sit in them to see if it's possible to drive the things....until they push them outside, get in, and find their knees in their faces. I'm always baffled by major oversights on full-scale pieces, as well as a seeming lack of regard for an understanding of the functions of subjects being 'modeled'

I'd sure pay for that. Hillary, BamaLlama or Pelosi, too. One thing still great about the USA...freedom of speech.

Absolutely beautiful craftsmanship, no doubt. But where are the driver's legs and feet supposed to go?

I always hoped Revell would release a full-fendered version of their nice '32 roadster, but with a stock-buildable option. Naturally, the frame and suspension would fit all the other Revell '32 kits as well. And they might look at their OLD model-A chassis for inspiration. It's a true thing of beauty (though incessantly complained about as "fiddly"...which I don't get at all). The tooling is crisp, the parts are represented correctly (not softened blobs made up by someone who doesn't understand the workings), and it has two of the best front I-beam axles in the modeling world.

Somehow I missed this one earlier. VERY cool. Love it, love it, love it.

Very interesting concept.

Nicely irreverent. There ARE fiberglass SL-clone kit-car bodies in full scale that would be a natural for building this in reality without destroying a million-dollar car.

Multiple build-options are always better than only one. I have a large stash of swappable parts, but many modelers don't have that to draw on. To limit a builder to only one possible way to build a kit may tend to limit the enthusiasm of those just starting out, but who want to do some customization. An obvious alternate engine choice for just about anything (included in a 2-in-one OR available as a parts-pack) would be the Chevy LS, with an appropriate 5 or 6 speed manual, or a 4L60E or 4L80E automatic. These engine / trans combos are extremely popular in the real world of car-building these days, and Revell, at least, already has nice tooling to represent the engines. These engines are also being fitted with carb manifolds and distributors in the real rod world (in place of the full electronic FI and ignition controls) for more retro installations, and tooling parts to represent this would be relatively easy. Again, the Chevy LS engine is showing up in every imaginable form of real car these days, from early Corvettes to old Mustangs, '30s based hot-rods, Asian drifters, pro-touring rides, and even European resto-mods. It is the "smallblock Chevy" of the present, and it might be nice to see this particular reality reflected in scale availability.

Without doubt, the most believable slightly-weathered bare metal finish I've seen so far on a model. How'd you do it?

Depends on the particular Krylon. The "Fusion" product, made for plastic supposedly, is WAY too hot for many models, and has produced severe crazing of the surface for a lot of guys...crazing so bad the model was useless for anything other than a radical custom. I have no experience with any other Krylon products on models, but the best advice you'll get here is "test ANYTHING, yourself, before you use it on a model you care about".

I did an experiment like you describe on this old AMT '32 gluebomb I wanted to turn into a "barn find" that's being brought back to life. The car had been enamel painted and decaled years ago, and was completely dry. It also had a lot of orange peel, bad decal edges, and trash in the paint. I started sanding on it with 1200 grit wet, chipped it in a couple of places intentionally, and just fiddled until I got a feel for how it might look in the end. It turned out being more experiment than serious build, and this is as far as it ever got (though I'm considering using the technique on something similar in the future).

(holy cow !!) Gorgeous. I'll for sure be studying your woody build thread. I never really liked the plastic woodies, and your work here gives me inspiration to do a few cars I've never seen in 1/25.

The front suspension from the T-bird "Supercoupe" wouldn't be at all appropriate for a light car like a '32 hot rod. The rear suspension, on the other hand, could be made to work very well. A better (and pretty easy) choice for independent front suspension would follow real-world practice, and use the front crossmember and control-arms, spindles and brakes from AMT's "Phantom Vickie" kit. Here, I've transplanted the Vickie front end, complete, into a '34 Ford. It's even easier to put it in a '32, because the Vickie IS a '32 Ford. To swap the rear suspension, you'll need to assemble the Supercoupe parts on the Supercoupe chassis to see where all the attachment points need to be. I usually do this kind of mockup fitting using tiny drops of liquid cement to just barely hold everything together. Measure carefully, and make brackets or modify the rear frame rails of the '32 as necessary. Every build like this is different, even on real cars, so you just have to play it by ear. Pay close attention to the ride height you're going for, and measure frequently.

And an electric Continental concept car...

Story here: http://jalopnik.com/5079498/neil-youngs-lincvolt-an-all-electric-1959-lincoln-continental-mark-iv-convertible

I can tell you the Revell Bug Bus kit 2355 and its derivatives / cousins do not represent the gear-reduction boxes on the type-2 correctly. I used a similar idea to get the rear of this thing down in the weeds. The output shafts from the Ferrari Boxer motor are too low to use these silly-tall tires / wheels, so I had to improvise. Your idea is sound mechanically, and transfer cases wouldn't be hard to fab. And you wouldn't be the first to utilize the idea, though this setup is used to raise the axle housing...

That's pretty much how I found it too, as I explained to Harry early on. It definitely looked Italian to me, and reminded me of some of the Zagato design work done in the early '90s. I image-searched '90 and '91 Zagato, and there it was in all its horribleness. Hard to believe they built 200 of these things, supposedly.

Yeah, well...it's in such dirty turbulent air coming off of and around the cabin, it's not gonna do much but make more drag. But other than the goofy and aerodynamically-uninformed wing, I kinda like it.

I don't honestly know. I tried the black lacquer on this one because I was after a kinda old-school look, and frankly, I expected to be needing a lot of paint to get the results I wanted. I'm going to try the same Ace store-brand white rattlecan lacquer (the only other gloss lacquer they sell, IIRC) on the '28 lakes car...much for the same reasons...and I'm pretty sure it's a simple "refrigerator" white, more in keeping with a vintage lakes machine.

I've had excellent results with Ace Hardware big-ol' cheapo rattlecan black-lacquer over Duplicolor gray lacquer primer... ...sanded and polished...

Thanks for the reminder, Miles. If the US hadn't gone to the aid of Europe back then, we'd be living in a very different world today.