many questions?

[B_rad88]

Hey everyone long time no chat! Any who I do have a few questions if I may ask?

 

 

1: how to make modern (1980's+) car bumpers I.e. for example turning a revell '99 Mitsubishi eclipse into a sort of stock 1998 Eagle Talon TSI AWD? I always liked the look of the talon better than the eclipse hands down! But the eclipse kit comes with 3 front bumpers none of which is stock or anything close to a talon bumper, so needless to say I chopped up the f&f styled bumpers and started with that in pieces but I'm now stuck on it ugh.

 

2: how long and what temp can I soak styrene in water for it to be bendable? For example if I want to make of offset instead of dish\ lip on a set of rims?

 

3: I have seen and read Mr. Newport's article of stance (a.k.a.: hellaflush, stance nation, low life, dumped daily, just to name a few) on "slamming" a car in today's fashion fad. How do you achieve such "low n poke" i just can't seem to get anywhere without a lot of cutting........ Ugh. (Specially the stupid revell kits that everyone claims are easy to slam)

 

 

Idk if anyone of you guys seen these videos but they are awesome and amazing!

 

1/24MOTORING

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 8/17/2015 at 2:56 AM, B_rad88 said:

Hey everyone long time no chat! Any who I do have a few questions if I may ask?

 

 

1: how to make modern (1980's+) car bumpers I.e. for example turning a revell '99 Mitsubishi eclipse into a sort of stock 1998 Eagle Talon TSI AWD? I always liked the look of the talon better than the eclipse hands down! But the eclipse kit comes with 3 front bumpers none of which is stock or anything close to a talon bumper, so needless to say I chopped up the f&f styled bumpers and started with that in pieces but I'm now stuck on it ugh.

 

2: how long and what temp can I soak styrene in water for it to be bendable? For example if I want to make of offset instead of dish\ lip on a set of rims?

 

3: I have seen and read Mr. Newport's article of stance (a.k.a.: hellaflush, stance nation, low life, dumped daily, just to name a few) on "slamming" a car in today's fashion fad. How do you achieve such "low n poke" i just can't seem to get anywhere without a lot of cutting........ Ugh. (Specially the stupid revell kits that everyone claims are easy to slam)

1) Cut and paste until you have a rough shape that's similar to what you want. Shape and fill until it's perfect. There aren't any shortcuts or magic tricks.

2) Most "styrene" has a Tg (glass transition temperature) of around 100C or 212F. Tg is where the material flows, basically. It will simply sag, pretty much uncontrollably, at that temp...not really possible to re-mold complex shapes like wheel rims. You CAN bend styrene rod for roll-cages at slightly lower temps, and possibly correct body warps if you're careful and competent.

3) By far, the easiest way to lower any strut-type suspension, or one with a spindle, is to simply cut off the stub-axle from the strut or spindle and position it UPWARDS the amount you want to lower the car. The same relationships exist on model car parts as on real cars, so if you understand what you're doing, it's all pretty obvious.

[B_rad88]

Thank you for the reply, but I have  never made a bumper before, so I kinda dont have a clue on how to do . And I dont want to melt the rims I just want to "warp" them. Make the plastic soft enough to bend. And to me moving the shock tower mounts or wheel pins or even sanding the brake hubs at an angle is a shotty mod and I never seen angled brake hubs on a 1/1, the rocket bunny gt86 from aoshima has a set of those, ues it makes nice camber bit very unrealistic to me. Thank you for the reply.

[10thumbs]

I'm trying to understand exactly what you want to achieve.  I noticed you have about 1600 posts and I feel enough info could've been gathered to figure your project out yourself.  Grafting a new bumper sounds do-able, and making a suspension fit is done often.  "Bending" styrene wheels sounds a bit too adventurous and maybe aftermarket would be the better way to proceed.

I have the feeling you're just asking too much of the kit you have at hand, and perhaps better to get one that's more suited to your plans, with more of the parts you want already included.

[B_rad88]

Thank you for the reply I have been absent in the model world for a long time, amount of posts has nothing to do with it. Not tring to sound rude but if I knew what to do then I wouldnt have posted this. If ppl can warp and bend bodies then why not rims? Specially if no aftermarket wheels exist of what I want. And I never found any aftermarket goodies for a revell '93 honda civic besides engines. Maybe I didnt word the questions correctly..... sorry

Thank  you

[detailstymied]

soak the rims in acetone for 20 minutes at room temperature.

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 8/19/2015 at 9:47 AM, detailstymied said:

soak the rims in acetone for 20 minutes at room temperature.

DON'T. This will RUIN your parts. 

I have no idea why someone would tell you to do this, as you're a novice and may not know any better. Acetone is a solvent that will melt styrene into goo.

Addressing your other comments:

Nobody "warps and bends" bodies with heat and gets anything approaching a model that looks like it was built by something other than a chimp (at least, nobody I've ever seen; the technique may have some uses modifying certain parts, flaring fenders, etc, but it's far too difficult to control it accurately for a novice...to find what works for you, experiment and practice).

Far as relocating the "pins" on struts to lower a car, well, that's basically the way it's done on real ones. Ever hear of "dropped spindles"? Same exact geometric relationship.

And as far as moving strut towers to get camber, again, relocating the TOPS of struts INBOARD is how you get lotsa negative camber on a REAL car. Works the same way on a model.

On the bumper thing...here's how you do it. You use your eyes to look at the difference between what you have and what you want. You use your brain to analyze what's different. You use your hands to cut up what you have, and put it back together looking like what you want, all the time using your eyes and brain to check your progress.

There are no shortcuts, no magic, no easy way to get good results. 

You look. You think. You do. You learn.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[aurfalien]

  On 8/19/2015 at 12:18 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

You look. You think. You do. You learn.

This is now on my list of mantras together with;

Timing + Speed = Distance

Edited August 19, 2015 by aurfalien

[detailstymied]

X

[B_rad88]

O K thank for the replies   everyone. And yes camber plates on newer cars but dropped spindles I havemt seen done since muscle cars. I have been absent for way to Long.

 

And theres a video of a dude on youtube talkin about fixing warped bodies by dipping  in boiling water for 10 secs, but I wasnt sure.... 

Here is the video

[Tom Geiger]

Brandon, use caution in accepting any tips you find on the Internet.  You never know the expertise level of the person, unless you know them or have seen their models. Both on this board, other boards and on Youtube there are people who are not experienced or good modelers offering you tips that won't work.  I know people in this hobby who have been at it 20-30 years and still build crummy models... and they're really happy to offer you advise like they're the end all expert!

As for the Youtube video, what did we actually see?  Six minutes of small talk to watch a guy dunk a model body in water twice.  He didn't have a warped body to begin with, he just dunked a body in water and put it back on the counter... he didn't show us how he unwarped the warm body.  Nothing!  In six minutes I'd expect to see that!

As far as your rims, post a picture of the rims you have from the kit and the rims you want.  Either the group here will be able to tell you how to modify the rims, or if some resin caster actually makes them.  Another way to get them is to use one of the guys doing 3D modeling, like Frank Rizzo on this board, and see if they'll make the rims for you.  They may be interested, especially if they think they will be able to sell the same rims to other people.

The last two times  I needed a specific rim, I posted that need here and my need was answered!  There happened to be a kit rim I didn't know about on the first one, and I found that a resin caster had just started casting the second one I needed.  It wasn't even in the catalog yet!

Good luck

[Ace-Garageguy]

Brandon, Tom is exactly right. A lot of advice is groundless opinion based on hearsay, or a muddled understanding of the facts. My own work visible on this forum, and my real-life experience back up the advice I offer.

On the suspension thing, back in my real race-car days, before you could buy tuner parts ready made, we dropped strut-type cars a couple of ways. Simply using shorter springs is one option. If the strut in question has a bolt-on spindle, another way is to cut off the mounting ears for the spindle from the strut, and re-weld them higher up. This lowers the car the exact corresponding amount you raised the ears. This would work on the struts on the left, shown below.

This type of strut, or struts that have integral spindles, can be lowered by cutting the strut body below the spring mounting plate and shortening it. This method requires a shorter strut insert cartrigge.

The spring mount can also be cut free from the strut and re-welded LOWER. This lets the car drop, but can keep the same spring rate.

Another option is to convert the struts to an adjustable configuration like these BMW units, and use a shorter spring and cartridge. You can buy stuff like this for 1:1 cars too.

In some cases, you can also get some drop by using a trick upper strut-mount / camber plate that allows the top of the strut to protrude farther up in the tower, and again, lowers the car a corresponding amount.

There are many variations of these methods, and which one a tuner chooses depends on the exact design of the suspension under the vehicle, the amount of lowering desired, and they all require careful measuring and understanding of the principles involved to work well.

Raising the stub-axles on a model relative to the strut body, as long as you put a nice backing plate or brake rotor in the correct location too, will usually accomplish a believable lowering job...and unless your audience has built a lot of real cars, if you do it clean, no one will say it's wrong for a particular vehicle.

Major, road-scraping lowering and silly way-too-much, tire-and-handling-destroying negative-camber take more work.

 

Edited August 20, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[Art Anderson]

  On 8/19/2015 at 12:18 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

DON'T. This will RUIN your parts. 

I have no idea why someone would tell you to do this, as you're a novice and may not know any better. Acetone is a solvent that will melt styrene into goo.

Addressing your other comments:

Nobody "warps and bends" bodies with heat and gets anything approaching a model that looks like it was built by something other than a chimp (at least, nobody I've ever seen; the technique may have some uses modifying certain parts, flaring fenders, etc, but it's far too difficult to control it accurately for a novice...to find what works for you, experiment and practice).

Far as relocating the "pins" on struts to lower a car, well, that's basically the way it's done on real ones. Ever hear of "dropped spindles"? Same exact geometric relationship.

And as far as moving strut towers to get camber, again, relocating the TOPS of struts INBOARD is how you get lotsa negative camber on a REAL car. Works the same way on a model.

On the bumper thing...here's how you do it. You use your eyes to look at the difference between what you have and what you want. You use your brain to analyze what's different. You use your hands to cut up what you have, and put it back together looking like what you want, all the time using your eyes and brain to check your progress.

There are no shortcuts, no magic, no easy way to get good results. 

You look. You think. You do. You learn.

Amen!

 

Art

[B_rad88]

Thank you for the replies! And i never seen those trick top mounts, but I do know some coilovers have a threaded spine that you can screw the hub mount up, and yes there is the shock plates for adjustable camber and caster. But I wasn't sure how to go bout it. And yeah the video was a bit dumb, but he did talk a little bit of what he did. I have never tried to fix anything warped, hince my damaged roof 1/16 fujimi lambo countach is still in the box after 5years...... And I just want to play around a bit with the idea of offsetting rims instead of the tradtional dish/lip approach. Which i am adding some dish to my tamiya Honda s2000 wheels for my civic. I had some extra scrap rims so thats why I wanted to try it. Mirco torches are way to hot! And As far as the bumper, i never been to good at sculpting or making it even.....

[B_rad88]

The 1/24motoring videos in my first post is exactly what I want to build.

 

And I do know the tires also makes a difference, Vince aoshima came out with Cambered tires!

[chunkypeanutbutter]

The other thing, and you probably already know this: the wheels on stanced cars aren't actually conical.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/5546088896_a809323dc2_o.jpg

Edited August 21, 2015 by chunkypeanutbutter

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 8/21/2015 at 3:32 AM, chunkypeanutbutter said:

The other thing, and you probably already know this: the wheels on stanced cars aren't actually conical.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/5546088896_a809323dc2_o.jpg

More like comical.