David Thibodeau

Thanks guys!! Here is more..... all decal work is complete. A combination of kit and John Barker alps decals.... again, John did a great job matching the blue I used... His decals are all HP and nicoderm decals..... I also began the front suspension work. The lower arms and air deflectors were covered in High Def CF from scale motorsport..... more to come.....

I have had this project planned for quite awhile and decided to get the itch... I was very impressed when Speed channel aired the show called "Tradin' Paint" in June of 2003 when Jeff Gordon and Juan Montoya traded cars.... it was equally impressive to see Gordon run fast enough to qualify for the Indy 500 in Juan's FW24!! Juan pretty much burned up Gordo's brakes in his trip Here is a cool pic of both cars taking a lap that day. Anyways, I always thought doing the 2 cars in 24th scale to look like the cars that they played with would be an interesting project. FW24 is up first. I am using the Revell of Germany FW23 kit which is passable for the FW24 that ran that day. I wish I could have used the tamiya kit, but the uniquness of this project is both cars will be the same scale.With exception to the exhaust not being present in the body work the FW23 is extremely close. The car Juan's team brought was indeed an FW24 however it had the FW25 paint scheme. The problem with the sponsor decals in the kit were they are Compaq and not HP like the car that ran that day. I called on John Barker and he whipped me up some needed sponsors on his alps in the HP logos etc..... I will skip the body details but here it is in basecoat white and Scalefinishes.com BMW F1 Blue. Its a little darker than the car that ran but that was the intention to match the kit decals appropriately which the FW23 blue did appear darker. After all.... I am going for the look and not complete accuracy here. As you can see like the indy cars, the front monocoqe is 2 pieces. I glued the bottom half on and filled all seams and gaps and drilled locator holes for the suspension that I will pin in place. As you can see, paint is dark but matches the nose decal perfectly.. a compromise I can live with!! Wheels and tires are ready as well.... Painted with alclad dark aluminum and normal tire treatment with kit decals!!!! YIKES!!!!! :D More to come! once the F1 is out of the way I will begin the flame job............... DaveT

And wait till you see the final!!! This thing took home a top 10 in Atlanta..... it was awesome...... DaveT

Yes sir Bob!! It will be there Sat.... and I am undecided on if the FC will be in the Mopar category or not.....

Thanks guys.... I thoroughly enjoyed the build and with a few modifications it looks like a high dollar kit in my opinion..... Thanks again! DaveT

Thank you guys.... if anyone wants to see it in person it will be at the Atlanta Southern NNL's in Ga this weekend.... DaveT

Its been done for awhile but I never did post it all finished. alot of you who followed it, know it and some have seen it complete. Here it is. A real joy and challenge to build. Here is a link to the WIP thread for alot of the details of how the car was built. http://badscaleracing2.com/index.php?topic=21.0 On with the pics! Bare Chassis shots: With Body on Shots:

Revell of Germany kit, Tires from the Cobra Revell kit, Added plug wires, PE hardware, and seatbelts.All Intake stacks on engine are made from Aluminum tubing as well as the exhaust tips are made from 2 sizes of aluminum tubing. Paint is PPG "hellrot" a BMW color followed by Dupont Chromaclear. One of my favorite Ferraris! The kit had its challenges, but it builds up fairly well! No the doors,hood, and rear trunk do not fit well closed so this is the way it will be displayed most of the time.

John, If you look at the second set of photos I posted you will see the shifter has been changed, I just forgot to mention it! The seats in the Racing GTO's were a blue cloth. I just dullcoated mine after painting them Tamiya Brilliant blue. Alot of builders flock them but to me they look to fuzzy... The velocity stacks were simply duplicated from the kit parts size wise out of aluminum tubing. Seatbelts are paper painted with black sharpie and SMS PE hardware. As for the ride height...... That is simply where I glue the brakes to the wheels and cut off the locator pins and glue all assemblies to the stubs on the axles using index cards to get the car level and ride height proportional... Thanks everyone!!

How did I miss this one?? Beautiful job Izzy...... I wanted to go nuts like you did but I did mine for SA and had to keep in simple..... Want this one to go with yours?? DaveT

And I did a little more as well...... The signature exhaust made from polished aluminum tubing....Big improvement over the kit exhaust. Also take a look at the shifter in these photos... it looks more to scale....... Bottom view..... Glass is all in as well..... Its close to completion..... such a classic "Pure thoroughbred" Ferrari....

I was in a zone tonight..... this one is close to completion..... just needs windows and minor stuff.. I think I will display it all open.... Not bad for an old protar kit! Looks like the trunk wont be closing!!! The John deer tire hits the hinges!!

Thanks guys, Crispy. To you and the others. the decals are in the SMS superkit. They are 1/24 Twill weave from Scale motorsports all in templates in the kit. They are cleared on the belly tray and spoiler with Dupont Chromaclear. Izzy, I figured this would get you going.... take a break from that Jorgenson resin brick and do the #3 car to go with mine!!! :) DaveT

Here is the chassis complete before Body attatchment. And here is the completed car. Sun was a little overbearing here it is!!

Try with a nice soft brush putting a coat of future over the chrome. IT will take the haze right away.

Lookin Excellent so far Izzy.... DId you find decals? DaveT

DOH!!!

Dave, I think you will have the theme wrapped up with this one!!! Killer job!!! DaveT

Izzy, If I can find them somewhere I have pics of that car on a disk.... The rear braces are Bracket style pieces not solid rod like most of the teams in that time. They were also painted black! I can tell you that of course Dale's interior was grey on that car. That is when the Childress team started sharing chassis with Mike Skinner. The lowe's monte team car. Dale also always ran a Mustang "old school" seat in that car. You can easily make that accurate using the kit seat and this Tuturial in my fotki... http://public.fotki.com/Daveyracer/faq__sp...e_earnhardt_sr/ Other than that he had pretty much what is in the kit. Take a look at my Peter Maxx detailed car here: http://public.fotki.com/Daveyracer/superde...atlanta_nnlnas/ It is a 2000 car but still the 98 car was not much different chassis wise. I got your PM about decals... I would email Mike Herman at Mike70ss@aol.com and see if he has any of the sets to do this particular car. Hope this helps you.... DaveT

Yes Dave, this car will be there keeping the Miller Lite Charger company!!

all fuel lines are connected and the timer box has been covered in CF decal and mounted... Side PE panels were painted semi flat black and attatched. Then decals applied. I also made a new tin for the scoop when the body is down. Windows are all thats left! In case some are wondering, the scoop hump was made from a soup spoon! An idea Clay was kicking around and like alot of them.... it works!! Stay tuned! DaveT

Engine is in for good... One of the trickier aspects is also complete. Once I installed the engine I made the main fuel lines from Solder, tapped them with a few fuel valves and hooked everything up..... Also CAREFULLY filed away the scoop outlet on the body so the body sits down on the chassis perfect. I will paint the bare resin areas black and add a CF lip around the whole opening. Here are a few CHassis/body up and down pics...... More to come soon!!! DaveT

Cockpit area is done. Lots of reference research for the results here. The Steering box is scratch built. Model car garage used for the gas pedal and clutch. MAS PE for the brake lever. Pro tech wire used for the radio. The helmet side cushions were cf'ed on the outside with foam on the inside topped off with MCG PE dzus fasteners... And here is the engine..... its done for the most part. An abundant array of Pro tech braided line, Hex fittings, Craft crimp tubes, MAS, MCG, you name it!!!! ;D The hemi decals on the metal wire covers were made by Mr Kemp...... here is the motor sitting in its home... just a test fit!! Things are starting to look busy!!!! DaveT

Following several reference pictures I scratchbuilt the rear computer box, oil tank, and added a Detailmaster fire extinguisher cut down to look like the one in the reference photo painted with TS-44 brilliant blue. I also plumbed the brakes and added sensor lines coming from the Computer box. I also worked on the cockpit. Modifying the seat, adding seatbelts and impact decals from Clay. Once the seat was in place I added the rest of the head bars as well as the steering box and bar. With the slicks installed..... If you look closely you can see the clutch dust line capped with a pro tech breather.... Thanks for looking! Dave T

Fuel cell is done and installed. The cell itself is a Competition resin piece that was modified to modern specs. Then it was painted TS-14 black. I made the fuel caps from polished slices of aluminum rod and PE parts. The bracing is embossing metal, crimp beads and #2 DM hardline. Not much done but it does busy up the front of the chassis....