Ace-Garageguy

That profile shot looks really good. Nice proportions, relationships of the wheels to everything else is great. You'll just about HAVE to do a suicide front perch to keep that look. I'd respectfully suggest you try to straighten the line of the hood at the cowl...just a tad. It looks just the smallest bit sway-backed as is. It's so close to having really perfect hot-rod lines, just a small adjustment would get it to 100%.

That;s pretty slick, man. Sorta a phaeton phunny car.

I'd say she's a keeper. But I guess you've probably already figured that out.

Well, there's still apparently a pretty good market for model RR stuff, even very high-end brass steam-era equipment...and wooden and cardstock "craftsman" RR kits that haven't been manufactured for decades. There's also interest in WW I and WW II aircraft kits...and there aren't a lot of pilots still around who flew the real ones...or have even seen them up close. The guys building the really spectacular RC aircraft seem to be on the younger side too. If the level of model-car stock in the physical stores around here is anything to go by (Hobby Town and Hobby Lobby), there's lots more stuff on the shelves than there was in the 1990s, and our local ACME show is huge compared to what it was then. I think we had something like 800 entries last year. It can't ALL be boomers retiring who are driving the apparent sales. But choo know...maybe it WOULD be a good idea to make provisions in the ol' will for the distribution of all the tools and kits and parts. It would be a shame to think of them getting tossed because somebody administering the estate (I have no family) didn't know anything about their 'value' to other enthusiasts..

Hmmmm...definitely an interesting idea. I don't have any small diameter aluminum discs, but I DO have a hole-punch the will do several different diameters in styrene sheet. This needs some looking into...

Hmmmm. I often buy two of the same kit, one for reference, and one to build or scavenge parts out of. Sometimes I'll have several of the same kit just to get a specific something-or-other, like the four Hilborn FI setups I needed from the old Revell Anglia /Thames kit to do my non-blown Challenger One. It doesn't bother me in the slightest to know I have models I'll almost certainly never get built. I use my own stash as I would a full-scale junkyard out in the desert...most likely there's something there I can think of something interesting to do with, and there's almost certainly most of what I need in basic parts for anything I can imagine. As long as I'm here and still enjoy building, I think it's unlikely that will change.

Not too exciting, but I've been trying to get good tight landing and flying wires using nylon mono-filament with less-than-stellar results. Then had an "aha" moment, got some .010 wire in very straight sections that will give me a close-to-correct representation of 1/4 inch wires, and look like they'll be easy to install while keeping the appearance of being 'tight'. Being able to install the wires at the end of the build and have them still appear 'tight' simplifies things somewhat, so I can get on with the rest of it.

One of these followed me home from HL. It will get sectioned and generously donate its custom wheels to another project. I picked up some .010" music wire for the flying and landing-wires on the Gee Bee build, too.

I LIKE that. Neat little lathe, for sure. What's the runout like on the spindle? And if you don't mind...about what kind of $$ are we talking about?

I guess I'm just one of those old fashioned, boring guys who expects a woman, any woman, to at least know the difference between chicken and fish. Hmmmm. I guess it IS kinda hard to tell 'em apart. I wonder how she does with other kinds of protein on-the-hoof.

Here's a switch. My OWN stupidity and failure to pay attention over the past couple of days. Mind elsewhere, no smartphones to use as an excuse. Really NO excuse at all. Just a big ol' case of "duh".

Duh. I knew that. I've had an attack of the stupids the past couple days. Anyway, same remarks hold true no matter which way the swap would be done in 1:1. When you stop to consider what a huge amount of metalwork was...and still is...done to channel and section older bodies, the body / chassis swap is really easy by comparison.

Yes, two-part molds insure the material of the finished body will be relatively thin and uniform...depending on how precisely the inner mold segment is made. My completed epoxy molds and parts these days have perfect surface finishes and can be as thin as .020". Early Corvettes were made using a similar process to what I described, but today's 'Vette bodies are made in matched steel molds using a process called resin-infusion. Boats, kit-car bodies and aftermarket "tuner" parts are still very often made in open molds with the chopped mat and resin mixture sprayed in, as you mention, but it's still quite common to see short runs of parts, and tooling in particular, done the old-fashioned way using brushes to wet-out the dry mat. If the manual wet-out is done correctly, there is no dry fiber apparent when the part is cut or trimmed. Hand layups often produce higher quality results than the "chopper-gun" spray layups, but require more highly-skilled operators, more time, and are more expensive. I apologize if you feel this is too much of a digression and detracts from your thread, and I'll happily remove it in that case.

Yeah, the blower in the old AMT'57 Chebby looks pretty good, I agree, but it's not really accurate for a S.C.o.T unit...not enough fins on the housing. I've been working on figuring out what the AMT kit unit looks the most like in 1:1. The S.C.o.T blower is shown below, on a flathead Ford manifold. The GMC 3-71 and 4-71 units were popular in the early post-war days and well into the '50s on flatheads. Barney Navarro is usually credited with being the first guy to run the venerable GMC unit, pirated from a surplus landing craft engine, on this dry-lakes racer in 1948. The problem I'm running into on all my old-school blower setups is doing the multi-V-belt drives that were common before the Gilmer belts took over. This is Navarro's 3-71 equipped engine. The V-belts were a problem for him too. I may just use a chain drive to get this one done without having to machine a bunch of tiny pulleys.

"A nightmare of epic proportions"? Probably not. I don't know if you're a fabricator by trade...but I am. Anyone competent to measure, drill, cut and weld steel ought to be able to do it. I've seen a multitude of bodies swapped on to frames they weren't designed for over 40-odd years in the business. Some were hack-jobs, some were very clean. Whether it was ever really done is moot. It could have been done, and here's why it MIGHT have been done. Suppose you have a fairly nice '57 body shell bolted to a frame that's been lozenged or has a badly bent front rail. Entirely possible. Again, I've seen this kind of damage frequently. And also suppose you don't have access to a frame machine or tie-down pots and a dozer capable of straightening the '57 frame, but the junkyard DOES have a straight '56 frame, maybe under a burn, cheap. There's your reason to do a backyard swap. So...agreed, it's probably not the best way to go about building a drag car, but it's entirely within the realm of feasibility.

Welcome indeed! It's pretty cool for you to be one of the builders whose work has been re-created. I'm certain a lot of us here would LOVE to see some of your originals. I sure would. This is the John Teresi build mentioned above... And this is Jack Herndon's original...

Well...it like...ummmm...has a picture of an apple on it...and like...well...it might be an apple you could eat, right? And then there's the mystery of just exactly WHAT Chicken of the Sea is all about...

Nice work so far. I like your grafting in the straighter rails from the front of the '53 pickup. This is something very much in keeping with how a real car is built well from junkyard bits. I went in a slightly different direction and only removed the OEM suspension bits. Here's a link to my own version (which I will happily remove if you feel it's the least bit distracting from your work here).

Just got another one of these little guys, really cheap, and complete / unstarted. Though this is the "new-tool" kit with the engine-scale issues and the misshapen nose and hood, it's also a good parts source for other stuff like the dropped-and-filled front axle and the wheel / tire combo. I'm beginning to put together and mockup what's going to be necessary to combine the "new" and "old" kits to make an accurate one, and I found I'd already pirated my other (new tool) kits for several bits I'm going to need.

Just an additional thought...attitude is important. There is growing scientific evidence that suggests the mind-body relationship in fighting any kind of disease may be very real. Try to stay positive, though this may seem difficult. Fight hard, and keep repeating to yourself you can beat it. The survival rates for what you've been diagnosed with are very high these days, particularly when it's been caught early...as yours apparently has. Try to keep this in mind, because you have a VERY good chance of walking away from it in good health. Medicine has come a long long way in a relatively few years, so remember, the odds are decidedly in your favor for a complete recovery. Let that knowledge strengthen your resolve.

I agree. I've never seen a track-nose on a chopped T coupe before. Lots of potential.

Damm. That would probably explain why the pain wasn't responding to the meds or the physical therapy. All I can do is echo what others here have already said. We all care about you and hope for the best possible outcome.

Coming together nicely.

This "Claudia" could definitely be the basis of my own lift and propulsion systems. And Ray...does the model come with the cute little babes?

That's pretty much the technique. Usually, on larger parts that will need surface finishing, a material called gel-coat, which is nothing more than thickened resin, is applied to the inside of the mold first. This provides a slick surface (duplicates exactly the surface finish of the mold, which duplicates exactly the surface finish achieved on the master) which can be lightly sanded, and which isolates the glass reinforcing fibers away from the surface. Gel-coats may be clear or tinted with a wide variety of colors. The next laminations will be dry glass mat, "wetted-out" with liquid resin. Timing and thickness of the first layer gelcoat layer is somewhat critical. Too early with the additional laminations and you can disturb the surface and get fibers too close to it. Too thin and you can get a phenomenon called "alligatoring", where the gel-coat wrinkles and partially releases early from the mold. Laminating too late and you may have adhesion problems between the gel-coat and the reinforcing resin / fiber matrix. It's a lot of trouble to go to to make model-sized parts. I used to make molds for some of my own custom model parts from the identical glass-reinforced polyester material your early truck shell was made from (its in the center of the shot below), but now, after much experimentation, I use a high strength epoxy that makes much thinner, lighter molds and parts...and with the procedures I use now, eliminates the requirement to use a gel-coat to get a slick surface.