Ace-Garageguy

Thank you both for your interest and comments. It's kinda interesting to me, but I've found if I take the time to get on the model bench, even a little, it makes my real-world-work more pleasurable too...which I guess is kinda the whole idea of having a hobby anyway, eh? And hopefully I'll learn something from this one too.

Thank you very much, but I have a plan that should work one way or another (see above).

I do have a virgin kit that I could steal a windshield from, but they're kinda rare...and they also have the wiper molded in, which I'd need to file and sand and polish off to get the appearance I'm after. So I have a twofold plan: 1) Make a negative mold of the windshield frame, which is part of the clear molded kit part. I've given it some thought, and purchased the thinnest fiberglass woven cloth on the planet specifically so I could do a minimum 3-layer (positive part) lamination that would be reasonably close to scale thickness. My old thinnest cloth was about .0035", while the new stuff is .001"! With the very high strength aircraft epoxy I use, I can do extremely thin laminations that are way stronger and stiffer than an equivalent thickness of styrene, and strong enough to withstand filing, finishing, etc. The frame gets painted body color, so it needs to be tough enough to be handled. 2) Sand off the frame and wiper detail from the buggered kit part, repair it as necessary to form a perfect "plug", get as many waves out of it as possible for good optics, polish it, then make a negative mold of the windshield, and make a positive mold from that, that I can vacuum-form clear PET over. The part vacuum-formed over the positive mold will, of course, be oversized by the thickness of the PET...which may or may not be an issue. The f'glass frame and the PET windshield should be flexible enough (I think) that they can be mated, with the frame on the outside of the "glass" (just like the real car), held together with PVA glue, and correctly fit the body with minor fiddling. Sounds like a huge PITA, but I've seen one completed that used a vac-formed windshield with a painted-on frame (which is a fallback option if the fiberglass frame doesn't work out), and it looked really good...much better than the thick styrene kit piece. Wish me luck. EDIT: I do want to build a full-detail version of the 275P if I live long enough, so having the windshield molds already made saves a little time there.

Thanks. If I recall the rules correctly (I ought to check) only the class winners are required to have engines. As I'm doing the #23 car, which I believe finished second in the race, she'll be curbside only. I specifically picked cars that wouldn't require full detail, as knowing my propensity for getting bogged down in scale engineering, I figured I should avoid the temptation if I wanted to finish this thing before I die.

Agreed, but my comment was specifically directed at the OP's mention that... ...which is entirely possible, but hardly a replacement for more conventional approaches, as this is a scale modeling site, if I'm not mistaken, and not a scattershot appeal to the lowest common denominator...as is YT.

"Slowly", or more accurately "a little more slowly than I used to" is the way I do most things these days...including eating burritos.

"Afternoon delight" has become a trip to Taco Bell, rather than time out at the girlfriend's place.

Man, I'd love to have one of those as a real shop truck over here.

I agree. Once you start putting time pressure on something that's done as a hobby for relaxation, it becomes "work", at least in my mind. But I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from guys who finish a lot of models, and I rarely finish anything but subassemblies, or specific modifications. Even so, I enjoy my bench time enormously. So it all comes down to what you get the most pleasure from.

Correctly played by the simple rules anyone should be able to master, or just post anything, disregarding the rules: one way it's a game, the other way what's the point?

I like it, but I don't believe I'd let my kid get on it.

I like it...but I don't believe I'd let my kid get on it.

Nothing says "I don't know what a sentence is" more than the last post.

"Independently" is a concept that makes a lot of herd animals uneasy, top predators not so much.

Looks good topless, and in giallo.

Definitely a tool worth adding to the box, and impressive skills, but a lot of that work would be much more logically accomplished starting with styrene sheet and tube/shapes.

This one's on the bench again too, so it gets its own thread. Not much more fun you can have than to do 3 Ferrari builds and a hot-rod in rotation. Starting here with a lightly molested Testors/Italeri 250 GTO. Though I prefer the proportions of the Gunze GTO (the only other Ferrari GTO kit I haven't moved west yet...and which is the third Ferrari in the group, getting a Pontiac GTO 3X2 engine), this one has the correct rear wheel arches and lips, and a slightly flatter nose that looks, to me, more like the Sebring #32 car...but it needs an additional gill on each front fender, and the vent behind the side windows needs to go away. The nose lower valence had already been glooed on, in the wrong place slightly, but getting it off was no real problem. Template to transfer the additional gill shape in process too. Unfortunately, the primer I elected to try resulted in the most spectacular crazing I've ever encountered on a model. I should take my own advice: TEST FIRST. Anyway, I've about fixed it, know it will be fine, and pix will follow, again, shortly.

This one has made it back to the bench, so it's time to give it its own thread. Starting with a gloobomb Monogram 275P. This is going to be more work than I thought. Heavy gloo on everything, window unit effectively ruined, etc. Teardown was complete a while back (I had to do something in order to reserve the car numbers I wanted), except for sawing off the heavily glooed fairing and interior bits. Getting the wheels out of the tires without destroying anything wasn't easy, but everything is still OK. The builder apparently used what remained of the tube after assembling everything else to make sure the wheels would hold together at 200MPH. This week's photos to follow shortly. It's not going to be as bad as I'd thought, as long as I keep it a curbside.

Very beautiful work, much skill, enviable perseverance.

Pretty sweet 3-fer deal. I already had a Europa and a couple of Sevens, but I've been wanting another Europa to do a Lotus 47 race car, and another Seven to do a Donkervoort derivative.. EDIT: Oh my. Looks like I'm going to need another Europa... ...or two. Or three.

Pretty cool. The Deora's windshield and frame started life as a '60 Ford wagon rear glass, so it's only natural to see something inspired by it built from all Ford stuff.

Who wooda thunk all this "old junk nobody wants" would ever make a comeback? Kinda like when you couldn't give flathead stuff away, eh?

Slightly rough 1/24 Leo Models 1967 Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 "Stradale", pretty cheap. Little car needs some careful polishing on a couple of the windows, minor cleanup, otherwise looks great. It appears to be identical to the much more expensive Hachette version currently available new. I think the Alfa 33 Stradale is one of the most perfectly proportioned, most beautiful exotics ever, right up there with the Miura, so I'm happy.

Exactly.

Skill with a scalpel is something one would prefer his surgeon to possess.