Ace-Garageguy

Thanks for your interest and comment, Bob. Probably something like Kilz would have held the bleed back, but it doesn't really matter on this one as it's going to be red anyway. I shot both the red plastic models as a kind of experiment, as there's been so much debate over the years whether "red bleed" was real or not. Now I know.

Shot the body on this one with the same hot self-etching green as I used on the 275P. No color bleed, BUT the crazing was so bad you could almost hear it cracking. Not to worry though. It'll block out. So...the takeaway from this little experiment is that RED BLEEDS SOMETIMES, and HOT PRIMERS CRAZE SOMETIMES. Always TEST FIRST. You may not be able to see it, but the red bleed on the 275P was so bad, it even came through the white Tamiya putty. And note the color differences between the two bodies shot with the same primers, where one red plastic bled, the other didn't.

Little bit o' progress. Stripped one chrome wheel, shot it with Testors "aluminum plate" buffing matalizer, buffed it, blackwashed the spokes, put a chrome knockoff on. Looks good enough for what I want out of this build. Shot the body with a hot self-etching primer to see if I could get away with it. Yup, no crazing, but the red bled through so much it turned the primer brownish. Interesting. Primer really helps getting the mold lines and divots to stand out. I removed the cockpit fairing too, just because. I'll dress the mounting points on the body, then pin it for correct assembly after paint. Locations for all the lights, latches, etc. will be drilled, panel lines will all be deepened, and the locating notches for the windscreen will be filled.

Allrightythen. As mentioned earlier, I started with the engine from a kit piece marked 1/24 on the box, but it had a slew of problems...one big one being it's WAY too short, so there was nowhere to mount the distributor correctly. And the oil filter mounting point on the block was totally wrong. This required extending the block and pan to the rear, fabbing a valley cover, and removing and filling the oil filter mount from the block. Not surprisingly, the exhaust port spacing of the 1/24 engine doesn't match anything from 1/25 kits. And I'm not going for anything like "perfection" here, just "good enough" so everything looks reasonable to anybody who's actually ever seen a Pontiac V8 from this era. Yes, it looks grotty at this point. Stay tuned. All the block mods are done, including casting details at the bellhousing end that were missing, the block is in primer, the heads have been drilled to represent freeze-plugs on the ends, and the plug holes have been drilled and spot-faced. Not apparent are some subtle mods to the ends of the heads adjacent to the end exhaust ports to better represent reality. The timing cover / water pump is from a Revell parts-pack engine kit, slightly height-adjusted to work with the "1/24" engine. The front face of the block has also been massaged to look reasonably correct with this cover. Still looking for an exhaust manifold that's close at this point, too. The white one is pretty close. Major engine mods done, and painted with gen-u-wine Duplicolor mid-production Poncho V8 blue, which represents the right period if this was a junkyard GTO engine. The first test fit in the chassis required the removal of part of the driver's footbox to clear the LH cylinder head, and would most likely be required on a real one too. The head stagger is the reverse from the Chevy engine this project started with, so the footbox intrusion is worse. Still, it looks like it would work on a real one, just requiring something custom in throttle and possibly brake pedal linkage. Rear trans mount and a support under the engine are temporary. Brake master / booster unit will be used to determine pedal mods required. Also visible here is styrene strip fill of casting voids in the tops of the frame tubes adjacent to the engine. As the kit was intended to be a curbside, this was not an issue. You can also see the thermostat bypass tube added to the front of the intake manifold, to mate correctly with the timing cover passage. Intake manifold flanges have also been thinned and reshaped. And still looking for workable exhaust parts. NOTE: The original Ferrari engine is a 60-degree V-12, considerably narrower across the heads than a big fat 90-degree American V8, hence the footbox intrusion. I checked the ground clearance with the engine mocked up, and it's a tick low. No fun denting the oil pan or breaking the cast aluminum bellhousing on every speed bump. The next trick was to get a rough idea of what kind of hood clearance issue, if any, there'd be with the engine at that height. Remember...the whole point of doing the engine NOW was to see if I'd have to mod the hood prior to paint, as the light metallic blue she's gonna be (NOT the blue on the hood now) needs to be shot with the hood in place on the body...just like a real car. We have a problem. Even with the engine a little low in the chassis, the hood isn't going to clear the carbs, and there's not enough meat in the hood panel to shave it on the inside. Yes, I know it's down in front. It's still not gonna work. Looks like we'll need a custom hood...which I kinda wanted to do anyway.

I find myself using whisky tango in more polite company, and tango foxtrot to save a valuable syllable I could be using saying VW.

Thanks. I Can't take credit for the design of the gauge faces and idiot light symbols. They were done before I got the job...which had been in multiple shops previously. The bezels were hand shaped. I did the "brushed" finish by drawing the faces across 180 grit sticky-back sandpaper, with a fence on the bench to keep the lines straight, prior to bonding the assembly together. EDIT: Thanks for the heads-up on the brushed product you guys use.

Went to get set up to start doing a little more scale glass-work, noticed the belly pans had cracked and moved around some. They were never intended to be permanent, only to serve as "plugs" or masters for f'glass molds to be pulled from. But you don't want to make molds from bad plugs, so a little remedial grinding and filling is in order.

The custom DeLorean instrument panel as it stands today. Still some way to go, but the worst is over. Screen-printed gauge faces on a vinyl overlay on clear styrene sheet; hand-made brushed aluminum, stepped bezel face; instrument movements by Classic Instruments; everything to put it together and make it actually function like an OEM assembly by me. This unit, parts of which were made for a DeLorean show car, was supplied to me dissembled, with parts that didn't go together, had been damaged, or were just poorly thought out and made....cool looking junk, essentially. Now it's a real part.

"History" is of no use to those who constantly want to reinvent the wheel, including those who don't understand the concept of "round".

Not exactly geezer music...I love this stuff, great to work to too.

Jackie Gleason's Orchestra w/ Bobby Hackett on trumpet...music from when I was a kid

Sometimes I just like to get high with a little elevator music...

Check out fleabay. Tons of 'em. Solar chargers too.

We have seen the future and it looks a lot like us...

Thanks fer bringing this up, guys. I needs 'em too, and my local Wolmort's all show 'em in stock. Getcha a solar-powered charger to live on the windowsill and help save the planet.

That bites. Thanks, Mom.

I, for one, really appreciate your vast knowledge about your subject matter, your willingness to help by sharing it, and I very much like your build style and presentation.

Yes, the Porsche and both the Scarab shells are 1/24. There's a thread on this forum of a good looking curbside built from one of the Scarab shells, which prompted me to find one.

Couple more recent acquisitions, mostly inspired by builds on this and other forums: A pair of very old 1/24 Strombecker front-engined Scarab shells, one tooled as a slotcar hard-body, one tooled as a battery-powered toy, both based on the same master, in the same box, below. Much scratchbashing required to make nice models from these, but there's no shortage of reference material available, and the real cars still exist. Coupla cool things about front-engined Scarabs: 2 were powered by Hilborn-injected smallblock Chevys, and ran Halibrand QC rear ends...unusual in road-racing...with DeDion rear suspension and inboard rear brakes using Mercury drums. Definitely a hot-rodder's road-racer. 1/24 Protar Mercedes W196. Kit is only curbside, has some glaring scaling and proportion errors, but with some hacking and addition of Revell 300SLR guts, should make a beautiful piece An excellent Johan '61 Dodge Phoenix body shell for an ongoing long-term project (to replace a badly warped resin shell that I might be able to save), below. EDIT: It was my own stupidity, not paying attention, and not thinking that caused the warpage of a very nice resin body I acquired several years ago. Point being, I'm not immune to doing dumb stuff for one reason or another, but I try not to make it a lifestyle, and I most definitely don't see it as something to be proud of or to defend by making excuses. And a very old 1/24 Revell Porsche RS-60 slotcar body shell; this fills the last gap in competition Porsches I'm really interested in, and with some scratchbashing using Fujimi parts should make another beautiful model.

A couple of my list toppers: old Modelhaus 1957 Mercury Monterey, below And the ancient Aurora 1/16 Chrysler and Donovan engine kits, below

Done that, been there, and wrote an article about it on the t-shirt 'cause I had no paper at the time.

Does anybody really know what time it is; does anybody really care?

They made some 1/20 automotive stuff.