Fat Brian

Against my better judgment I'm going to wade into this. I've held off buying anything from Iceman because the pictures on ebay aren't very good and nothing posted here has changed my mind. His 3d models are low polygon count leading to the octagonal headers and the printer is equally of a lower resolution than what is really necessary for our small scale. I can't speak to if or how much paint it takes to hide the layers as I've never used a printed piece that heavily layered before. These are items I've gotten from Dmitry on ebay who used to be with the USCP guys. The difference in quality it obvious and the price is reasonable. The transmission was $8 and the wheels were $22. The clear stuff I got off Shapeways, it's the highest quality print they do and almost completely smooth.

I know your pain, my build for last year got painted five times and stripped four before I got something I could live with.

Wow, he managed to take a car I really like and kind of mess it up. Something about the front end is wrong, I think it's trying to give it the modern ducted front end look under the bumper and the fog lights. I'm also not feeling the tail lights, as someone else mentioned 70 Torino lights would have been better or even 67-69 Shelby lights. The horizontal stripe is at an odd place too, it should be above and follow the body crease and kick up along the rear fenders. The wheels are also doing UT no favors, I love big wheels but these are just not working.

Does anyone make rear windshields for these? I'm working on one too and would love to find a rear windshield, even a template would be better than nothing. This body is a shortened Ranchero body with the roof and deck lid from a 63 grafted on.

Round2 dropping both of these now does hint at something coming from another company. They seem to try to get their version of a kit out when there is a new version of it coming out later.

The 90s issue of this kit has some pretty nice BBS style mesh wheels, I guess they're still in it.

I made some bases out of sheet plastic for these lights. I just traced a circle on the sheet and sanded it out then covered it with bare metal foil and attached the amber lens with clear acrylic paint.

One thing I started doing that makes plug wires easier is drilling the holes all the way through the head and block into the hollow center of the block. This allows you to not have to trim the wire to an exact length.

A tip I'm going to try soon is to use metal washers. They come in a huge range of sizes for diameter, thickness, and hole size along with having a nice metallic sheen. Just add a piece of plastic filed vaguely into the shape of a caliper and you're ready to go.

The only 1/25 monster truck tires with lettering are the early AMT ones from the Bigfoot 1 kit and the 87-91 body style Bigfoot kits without the red and yellow stripes. Overall these tires are awful so I wouldn't recommend trying to find any. You're best bet is probably to try to find a 1/18 or so scale tire decal or dry transfer.

I think 10 might be the cockpit piece from a Johan funny car like Boss Hoss or Crazy Horse kits. 12 looks like the hood from the Revell stepside square body hot rod truck, 2 might be the dash from the same kit. That red dash might be from the MPC 80s Bronco.

I have some of those tires I can send you, pm me your address and I'll get them to you.

That's an early to mid twenties model T truck dressed up as a semi, what a neat little kit. As for tires, most AMT tires should fit those wheels.

Ryan at Z-force was supposed to be working on one in 1/25 but I don't know if he got it finished or not.

I have this particular one bad, fully a third or more of the kits I have are donors for other builds.

My order didn't make it today, but it got to New York yesterday so it should be here by the end of the week.

Yeah, I don't know that the shape of the silver one is functionally possible, at least not for a chain driven unit.

The majority of those are the venerable NP205, used by all of the Big 3 in the 70s and in heavy duty Chevy's and Dodges into the 90s. Column 1 #1 and #3, column 2 #1, column 3 #1 and #2, and column 4 #1 and #2 all look like various interpretations of an NP205.

I placed an order with Dmitry from ebay who used to be with USCP last month and so far everything is going okay. It's supposed to be here Monday so I'll update then. I know it's not the same company but it's coming from the same city.

As Hakan said, it takes a lot of fitting to get the parts to go together correctly and run straight. I might spend an entire day filing and fitting and adjusting to get the thing to true up.

I live just outside Charlotte. Painting in the summer can be brutal if you have to paint outside but drying too fast will certainlynot be an issue. It doesn't really matter for flat colors but if I'm painting something shiny in the summer I try to shoot it around mid day, the humidity is way too high in the morning and late afternoon. Another thing I've done is try to batch paint bodies in the winter on nice dry days. This worked better before winter turned into monsoon season around here. It's really going to depend on your setup and where you paint as much as anything.

I took a wooden dowel about 3/16 in diameter and six inches long and drilled into one end and stuck the unwrapped core wire of a wound guitar string in it. I left about 1/8 of an inch of wire exposed and it's just a bit thicker than an Xacto blade. It also makes a good scratch awl for marking tiny holes for drilling.

That is paint shrinkage. The color coat didn't bond to the primer properly. You'll have to see what kind of paint the color is and pick a more appropriate primer for it.

I'm working on closing up the interior now, the rear fire wall is done but the front looks like it's going to be tough.

I swapped a v8 for a turbo 4cyl that's less that half the displacement and I'm at least doubling the fuel capacity so I've got fuel economy covered. Driver comfort is a bit limited though due to the race interior.