Ace-Garageguy

Wow my66s55, cool site. I'll be researching there for sure. Many thanks. All the answers in one place.

Gold first over the whole top of the car, then candy red over the whole top of the car. Then tape the stripes and shoot a black basecoat just to cover. Untape. GENTLY sand the tape lines. Clear the whole thing, wetsand and polish. Do it right and you'll have no tape ridges. Lots of paint buildup though. If you mess around shooting the gold and then taping it and shooting the black and then untaping and retaping and shooting the candy red, you're going to have a DEVIL of a time getting all the tape lines to "line up", you'll get edge bleeds, and you will most likely disturb the metalflakes in the gold and will be able to see the buggery under the candy red. I do paint real cars too.

Um, I would kinda think if he had the whole Johan 300 kit, he wouldn't have bought a Flintstone body, maybe. Buying the expensive 300 kit kinda doesn't make sense to use as a donor for a Flintstone repop, does it? Quoting Ian: "OK, thats a start. I still need to come up with a doner for the interior...any suggestions?" Ian, I don't have the Superbird interior to look at (I only have the chassis), but I'd look at that first, or the 330. Easy enough to change the seats.

1) I think your vacuum is a little low, and you may be asking your sheet plastic to draw too far. 2) On your second pull, the plastic is sealing itself on the ridges on top of the body and roof and shutting off the vacuum to pull the wrinkles out of the center. Try more heat, more vacuum, or cutting relief slots on your molds to allow the air to escape.

Ummmmm, reading the label is sometimes a good idea. I'm looking at a fresh can of Testors Phoenician Yellow Custom Lacquer 28102, and it says : "2 Part System. Base+Clear Required". Maybe that's your problem. Notice it doesn't asy "clear okay if you feel ilke it", but "clear REQUIRED". I really don't mean to bust your chops David. Sorry if it seems harsh.

Thanks guys. I love rebuilding junk, as you can probably tell. Glad you like the results.

Thank you gentlemen. Glad you're enjoying what I'm trying to do with this old wreck.

The longest wheelbase Mopar torsion-bar chassis I know of right off hand is the Monogram '70 Superbird. That car had a 116 inch wheelbase, but the Monogram model is 1/24, so if you use it in a 1/25 car, it scales out to about 120 inches. You'd still have to modify the chassis somewhat to get the correct 124 inch wheelbase for the 300. The monogram Superbird can be had for as little as 6 bucks on ebay. Possibly a more accurate donor would be the Lindberg '64 Dodge 330. It is 1/25, and the real car had a wheelbase of 119 inches. You would have to lengthen that chassis also to get it to the correct 124" for the 300. All the Mopars of that era used very similar chassis designs of different lengths, even the pony cars.

When you first said "two tone" I really didn't think I was going to like it. Especailly with the shaved handles and emblems, this car has such good lines and proportions it doesn't need much to look outstanding. BUT, what you came up with works great on this body style and really makes an attention-grabbing model. Interesting, unusual color choices, and I like the dark on the top. Nice ideas.

My associate bought a fairly complete east-coast '30 coupe, rusty but buildable, a little over a year ago for about 5 grand. Sold the chassis and mechanicals on and recovered about a couple thou. Just a decent body shell needing a lot of work for a '32 roadster at the same time was over 6 grand. 3 grand for an A coupe shell, 6 grand for a '32 roadster shell. I'm personally building a '30 roadster on repop '32 rails. '32s are beautiful cars and I love them, but I honestly couldn't possibly aford to do a nice steel '32.

How about the size of the door handle? Nah, it's just owned by a really big dude.

I was 6 or 7 or 8, when the Revell '57 Ford Country Squire wagon was in its first release. Made an incredibly horrible mess of it too. Sure wish I still had it though.

The Japanese have been pretty good at bringing out new products quickly for a long time. Look at the history of their 1:1 motorcycle industry for a convincing example. If I remember correctly, the Honda Formula One engine also went from a clean sheet of paper to a running unit very quickly. There was a time America could do some pretty spectacular pulling of rabbits from hats too. The P-51 fighter only took six months from napkin sketch to test flight. The Lockheed U2 and SR-71 Blackbird each took less time to design and get flying (all without CAD by the way) than some widely anticipated kits of '50s cars have been in gestation. So, why is it possible to build an all new motorcycle, or an exotic racing engine, or extremely high performance aircraft in less time than it takes to make a MODEL KIT of something that already exists and doesn't have to function ???? I think the changes in the American business model, which has become more about covering-your-backside than actually getting something done, and complicating the process with gibberish baloney like "brand cross-platform deliverables" and "redefine back-end initiatives" is largely responsible.

Fine fine looking work.

Beautiful work.

Well, possible if you have a 3D scanner and the appropriate software. More expense. You also WILL lose resolution doing that, much as a Xerox of a Xerox eventually becomes unreadable. Even multiple copies from the first scan won't be as crisp as the original.

Same problem the music and film publishers are having with free downloads and file-sharing, unauthorized CD and DVD copying, etc.

Yes, that's part of what I was getting at too. Right now you can get a desktop unit for less than $200 / month, but only a few years ago, they were $30,000 for a machine that would do the same thing. I can easily imagine the cost coming down to the level of a high-end personal computer. Depending on the cost of the files, the entire annual outlay for models could conceiveably be in line with what some of us are paying now for styrene and shipping.

There are without a doubt some copyright issues, and they will be determined by things like specific subject matter and whether it's become public domain. I would be interested to know if Modelhaus, for example, is forced to pay licensing on the representations of older Big 3 American cars they produce. No one can stop you from scratch-building a perfect model of a brand new whatever for your own enjoyment, so it follows that no one can stop you from creating digital files to run a 3D printer, for your own enjoyment. It's when you go to make multiple copies for sale that the licensing issues come up, as Brian said, BUT giving away free copies would probably violate copyright law. Technology is changing the entire landscape of intellectual property ownership and how it's interpreted everywhere. As far as the eye-hand skills go, I never meant to imply it doesn't take a lot of skill to build something well in a virtual environment, but it's an entirely DIFFERENT skillset than traditional modelers use. At one time I made a pretty good living doing prototyping for industry. I've been pretty well replaced by computer programmers and machines, and most of the people I've talked to in the new version of the industry admit cheerfully that they couldn't do what I used to do by hand, period. I can't do what they do, either. Yet.

Man, a hot-rod 7. too cool. Have you guys ever seen the Donkervoort cars? They're a development of the Lotus / Caterham 7, but on mega-steroids. http://www.donkervoort.nl/en/

Ummm......Gone? It wasn't uncommon at all to put hidden door hinges on these things. Not real common, but doable and a well known mod back in the dim recesses of time. The car's going to be gloss black lacquer, and I just didn't want to fiddle with sanding and polishing around hinges....so, they're "hidden".

That's kinda what I was getting at about learning new skills.....like modifying illustrations and photographs into 3-view drawings, and then on to printable formats. It's a jell of a lot easier to manipulate an image in a computer (no sculptural ability and tool-using eye-hand coordination necessary) than it is to scratchbuild, eh?

Fiddling with the nose and tail. Thinking of doing a floating surround for the grille. The rear panel I'd started to use has moved to the front, and a similar panel, again sort of Pontiac looking, has grown on the rear so both ends will have some design unity. Also moving the windshield back a few scale inches. Mostly dechromed at this point, too.

Getting there........letting the primer shrink in while I work on other parts of the build.

Tony, I REALLY think you shoud go ahead with the Dodge. It's a killer looking truck, and entirely different from what I'm doing with my '38 Ford. Just my opinion, but that Dodge would be really something spectacular.