My take on the most famous ‘55 gasser street machine’…

[CabDriver]

Oh, and in case the BMV is watching…YES it will be street legal and wearing it’s plate…

 

[Straightliner59]

4 hours ago, CabDriver said:

I’m going to try a military modeler trick of simulating some additional shadows and depth to the inside of things like the hood and the inner trunk by leaving them in gray primer, to give some very subtle color variations to the (fairly thin) yellow paint.  

I love that you are doing this! It's something I've been attempting/doing for many years, now--I'm still nowhere near as good as I'd like to be. In fact, I'm pretty lousy, at it! But, t's interested me since I first attended some IPMS meeting and shows, back in the early '80s, and seeing it on armor and aircraft models, and on figures. Later on, in Russ Schwenkler's work. Russ was using it overall, but, it was in his interiors, that it really caught my eye. I would contend that it adds a lot of visual interest, when it's done properly. Excellent work, with the body, Jim! I'm diggin' the chassis work, too!

[bobss396]

I picked up one at a Hobby Lobby, 40% off. So far I have opened the box and looked at it. The exhaust in the floor has got to go. I have a few 572 3D printed big blocks that may be good options, although the headers may be too short. Maybe I'll make up some fenderwells out of solder.  

I would like to open the rear wheel wells deeper and lower the rear, like a TLBT car. I have only got about 15 projects ahead of it in the queue. I also got a '66 pro street Nova... cracked that open and cut out the trunk lid last night. Gonna be rainy here today, will make a batch of pickles and hang out on the bench.

[CabDriver]

Thanks fellas!  Good luck with your pickles Bob!

A couple more tiny bits of progress…

I wanted to paint the engine Chevy orange, but I didn’t like how the color looked with the other colors in this build.  The brightest yellow I could paint, bright red lettering…I wanted a nice bright cartoony orange to keep the color palette how I had it in my head.  Even my usual go-to Createx collection didn’t quite have the tone I wanted but I found one that matched the color in my head:

I’ve been trying to solve the puzzle of how to paint the embossed 3D printed license plates that I’ve been printing lately, and found a few tricks that work but none of them were quite as easy and foolproof as I would’ve liked.  I found a little rubber roller on Amazon at the weekend, and ordered one to experiment with.  Painted the license plate black, then used a little white acrylic on the roller to pick out the fine lettering…I haven’t nailed the technique yet, but it’s the best way I found so far:

I also got a set of aftermarket decals in the mail…

…so obviously I’ll be trying to paint as much of this stuff as I can instead of actually using them 🤪

First up, the stripes:

I measured the decals as a guide, but also referenced the look of the box art seeing as that’s the thing I’m really trying to copy…turned out ok I think!  

Once this black has set up overnight I’ll clean up any little flaws or bits of whatever that needs fixing, then I’ll hit it with a light coat of clear so I can get the next steps done.

Oh, and I’ve been working on the base for this thing a little too…can’t beat a fun evening of Bondo-ing some flaws on some concrete blocks to get them as perfect as can be 🤪

Just a little progress, but some progress…more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[customsrus]

Great job on opening up the doors and trunk. 

[Straightliner59]

That's a great idea! I've used pink erasers, before, but, the brayer may be even better!

[Zippi]

The 55 is coming along nicely.  That little rubber roller you found looks like it worked out pretty good.

[NOBLNG]

Fantastic work you are doing on this one Jim!👍 I love all the corrections and modifications you’ve done.😎

[Kenmojr]

On 8/7/2023 at 12:06 AM, CabDriver said:

Thanks Jim!

 

A little more progress - and if it seems like I’m going slowly on this, that would probably be accurate…lots of fitting and refitting and reassembling to do once you start cutting stuff open…but it’s coming along ok…

Next thing to handle, was how the interior tub will interface with the body and those opening panels…hopefully if I did my measurements ok then we’ll be good.  Cut open the inner doors so I can re-attach them (with some upgrades, of course, now that they’ll be more visible) to the doors:

Test fit of the door cards to the doors:

(ignore those vent windows, they’re going away anyway…)

And a test fit…the doors still close as they should and (importantly) open too:

Success! Of course, the interior tub, when installed, doesn’t mate up to my door jambs…got a nasty gap to fill:

No biggie, some more styrene strip fixed that:

I had this idea to open the fuel filler up too, but when I looked at the original TD art, there is no filler, so I guess that saved me from myself…Bondo to the rescue!

In other dumb ideas I probably shouldn’t try, I was trying to think of how I could open the cowl vents…they’re way too small and shallow to sand the inside of the cowl to open them, but I did draw up a 3D model of a replacement piece I could install in there:

This part proved near impossible to print - the vents are really thin and it’s tough to print them without them warping, sagging or getting clogged with resin but after a dozen tries and tweaks I got a part that is CLOSE:

It needs a few more rounds in my ultrasonic cleaner to clean out the vents as best I can before curing it, but it MIGHT be usable…

And, whilst I was waiting for stuff to dry and print and whatnot I did some research on the ‘69 Winternationals, which I think was the inspiration for TD’s artwork.  I found a good square-on image with the copy on that banner so that I can make a little scene for the car to sit on:

I’ll make a little version of that banner to go on this base that I started fabricating (it’s too big to fit nicely in my photobooth without the insides showing…sorry about that):

The asphalt is an AK Interactive product that I picked up to play with…I’m not very good at using it yet but it has a nice realistic texture and it dried pretty quick:

And, that’s about my progress this past few days…will eventually run out of stuff to do on the body and move onto something more fun…more soon, thanks for looking!

Awesome work!

Can I ask what 3D app do you use? Is a cad app like Rhino or MOI3D? or a polygonal modeling app like Silo3D or Blender?

Thanks kindly...

[speedy5963]

Outstanding work, at first glance back on page one, was thinking this can be a tough kit, then all the work you are doing, but then again, all the mods are probably a good way to work through this kit, lots of great work!  Keep it up, look forward to following the rest of the build! 

[CabDriver]

Thanks everybody!

On 9/1/2023 at 9:13 AM, Kenmojr said:

Awesome work!

Can I ask what 3D app do you use? Is a cad app like Rhino or MOI3D? or a polygonal modeling app like Silo3D or Blender?

Thanks kindly...

I’m using Adobe Illustrator and Dimension mostly - and TinkerCAD for the simpler stuff…

A little update - started laying down some decals.  The numbers on the side of the car span the front fenders AND the doors, which isn’t an issue unless you cut the doors open.  To lay them down, I taped the doors closed and laid down the vinyl, spanning the two (and laid down the one for the trunk too, while I was at it…

Then once they had dried, carefully sliced down the door gap with a new scalpel blade, and applied a little setting solution to the edges on both sides to make sure they wrapped around the edges nicely:

The various sponsor decals aren’t well printed on the repro decal sheet that I ordered, so I dug through my decal stash and found replacements.  The Hooker decals on the fender took the most digging to find…I wanted some smaller ones than would have been on the original Monogram decal sheet, because in the box art they’re smaller too…found about everything I needed after a couple of hours opening boxes and hunting through stuff…

There’s another one I need to tackle on the door too…but that’s gonna take a little more work than I was hoping…

Just a little update - but I was pleased to make a little progress in making this thing look Badman-y finally!

More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[ModelcarJR]

Nice work on this less than stellar kit! Your work on the doors, paint and decals is top notch! 😎👍

[Zippi]

The 55 is looking killer dude.  

[CabDriver]

Thanks fellas!

Today’s job was the signwritten lettering on the rear quarters.  First up, cutting some masks (not that the cut lines are very easy to see…)

There will be two steps to painting these…step one will be a larger sized letter, painted in red:

Masks applied to the body:

Then, a light coat of Createx pure red (which only lays down nicely over yellow pink or white, but luckily we’ve got one of those as a underlayer already):

Next up, I shot a little intercoat, which is a clear to protect the paint so we can (relatively) safely mask over the top of it:

Whilst that was drying, I weeded the next layer…the idea here is that I’ll lay a smaller set of the same letters down over top the ones I’ve painted already, leaving a thin edge that I can paint in black, as though the letters have been outlined with a pinstriping brush:

A good trick to apply multi-piece masks is to use a very low tack tape to hold them in position - I’m using a cheap vinyl tape from Amazon that has a less sticky glue than the masking material:

Once I got the second set of letters aligned (as best I could anyway - there’s only a scale quarter inch gap either side that will form my black outline) I shot Createx black sealer:

 Then, after giving it five minutes or so, removed the outer edges of the masks (if the paint starts to pull up with the mask at this stage, wait a little longer…)

Then CAREFULLY with an X-acto and tweezers removed the remaining mask material…

Looks something like this:

As usual, I’ll leave this overnight and then do any little touch-ups before locking it in with some clear.

Whilst I had my airbrush out, I did a little weathering on the base I made for this thing, and masked and painted some divider lines on what will be a little drag strip:

And I’m starting to paint some interior pieces.  Since there isn’t any color guidance from TD’s artwork on how the interior looks I have a LITTLE creative license I can use here, but I’m trying to keep it sensible and feasible…the bucket seats will be black with yellow flaked vinyl inserts (plus red belts, to keep the color scheme going throughout this build) and I wanted to do a flaked red Mooneyes style rim for the steering wheel (so that when you look at the dash you’ll see yellow dash, black gauges and red wheel all complimenting each other).

The seats got a coat of a coarse-flaked Createx silver, and I shot the steering wheel silver, then dipped it in Future, then dipped THAT in a little silver flake mica powder:

Once this has set up overnight I’ll brush the excess flake off the wheel (and clean up the spokes) and shoot candy red over that, and candy yellow over the seats.

Another fun day at the bench…thanks for looking…more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[customsrus]

Excellent work on the graphics. 

[Straightliner59]

Great job with the lettering! Decals most certainly have their place, but for something like that, paint is the cat's meow. I thoroughly enjoy watching you work, Jim.

[Steve H]

Jim, I would love to hang out with you during one of your paint sessions.  You make it look so easy.  This is without a doubt, the best build of that kit ever done. Excellent stuff sir!

[CabDriver]

Thanks fellas!

14 minutes ago, Steve H said:

Jim, I would love to hang out with you during one of your paint sessions.  You make it look so easy.  This is without a doubt, the best build of that kit ever done. Excellent stuff sir!

Luckily, past-Jim made a lot of mistakes and learned what NOT to do, so present-day-Jim struggles a little less…I still mess up my fair share tho 🤪

Speaking of paint, a couple of little projects completed today…

I felt like working on the display base for this thing a little today, so I painted the 3D printed concrete blocks that I had made previously, and wanted to lay down some lettering to they match the scene in the box art.  Cut some masks…

Taped the blocks together to keep the alignment right, then laid down the masks:

And after a little of my favorite Createx black sealer, we have some passable lettering:

These will get a little weathering before I’m done, but I was excited to make a little progress on the display stand anyway…

There was no way I was gonna be able to successfully paint the tiny door lettering that this car should have, so I laid down decals for that today…

And with that the body is finally ready for clear…excited to shine this thing up.  Less excited to lay down the chrome portions after clear, but it’s gotta be done…

And finally for this weekend, stripped the chrome off the suspension pieces so I can start pinning them together, removing imperfections and seeing where I can add some detail to bring them to life:

That steering linkage can definitely use some work, and there’s some boltheads and stuff I can add to help things along.

And that’s about today’s progress because I spent the rest of the day by the grill reading old SAEs 🤪

Hope everyone had a good labor day!  Thanks for looking!

[Straightliner59]

2 hours ago, CabDriver said:

Thanks fellas!

Luckily, past-Jim made a lot of mistakes and learned what NOT to do, so present-day-Jim struggles a little less…I still mess up my fair share tho 🤪

Speaking of paint, a couple of little projects completed today…

I felt like working on the display base for this thing a little today, so I painted the 3D printed concrete blocks that I had made previously, and wanted to lay down some lettering to they match the scene in the box art.  Cut some masks…

Taped the blocks together to keep the alignment right, then laid down the masks:

And after a little of my favorite Createx black sealer, we have some passable lettering:

These will get a little weathering before I’m done, but I was excited to make a little progress on the display stand anyway…

There was no way I was gonna be able to successfully paint the tiny door lettering that this car should have, so I laid down decals for that today…

And with that the body is finally ready for clear…excited to shine this thing up.  Less excited to lay down the chrome portions after clear, but it’s gotta be done…

And finally for this weekend, stripped the chrome off the suspension pieces so I can start pinning them together, removing imperfections and seeing where I can add some detail to bring them to life:

That steering linkage can definitely use some work, and there’s some boltheads and stuff I can add to help things along.

And that’s about today’s progress because I spent the rest of the day by the grill reading old SAEs 🤪

Hope everyone had a good labor day!  Thanks for looking!

Hey! My replica of "The Bug" is in that issue!

[CabDriver]

On 9/5/2023 at 12:53 AM, Straightliner59 said:

Hey! My replica of "The Bug" is in that issue!

Ha - I was reading that article and thinking what a great build it was - (belated) congrats on the well deserved magazine coverage!

 

A little more progress this weekend - I’ve been trying hard to tie up all the little loose ends of making parts and fixing stuff so I can start batch-painting some of the chrome pieces (which is a lot of pieces on this one…)

First up, designed and printed some pulleys to replace the kit part:

Whilst the printer was running, printed a PA horn for my base, plus I designed and printed some track rod ends:

The kit steering linkage looked like a good place to make some improvements…still need to figure out a steering box for it:

That whole front axle assembly could actually use some more detail, so I added some spring shackles and printed bolt heads:

Need to figure out some little disk brakes and then these bits are ready to go to the chromer’s…

Speaking of brakes, this kit doesn’t have any for the rear either so I printed some 2-piece drums that will still work with those distinctive kit wheels.  One snuggles inside the rear wheel so you can see the drum thru there, and the other piece is a backing plate file that has better detail:

Keeping the printer busy this weekend, next job was printing some magnetos to replace the kit piece…also started cleaning up the scoop and getting it ready for more detail later:

And finally, I’d been playing with some new paint techniques on the sister car, knowing it would be super easy to strip that acrylic craft paint that I used…well, the experiments didn’t blow me away so I stripped that back and started laying color down on the second car again…

And that’s about my process this weekend - thanks for looking, everyone!  More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[Straightliner59]

7 hours ago, CabDriver said:

Ha - I was reading that article and thinking what a great build it was - (belated) congrats on the well deserved magazine coverage!

Thanks, kindly! I haven't seen that model in over thirty years. I wish I could visit it, some day.

You are taking this Badman (that's what it will always be, to me) to a completely new level. There's something special about these old Monogram kits, when they've been worked over. A lot of people don't think they're worth it, but I think they're wrong!😃 I love what you're doing, with this one!

[CabDriver]

On 9/11/2023 at 5:16 AM, Straightliner59 said:

Thanks, kindly! I haven't seen that model in over thirty years. I wish I could visit it, some day.

You are taking this Badman (that's what it will always be, to me) to a completely new level. There's something special about these old Monogram kits, when they've been worked over. A lot of people don't think they're worth it, but I think they're wrong!😃 I love what you're doing, with this one!

Thank you so much!

It’s the weekend, so a little more progress…

Trued the tires to get rid of some of that shine and make them round…the rears weren’t too difficult, but had to go easy on the fronts because that distinctive triangular tread pattern is pretty shallow and I didn’t wanna scrub it all off…

I’ll shoot them with some dullcoat once I’ve rounded those sharp edges off the rears to round them out a little…

Foiled the dash:

Added the decals from the new Revell issue of this kit, and made some toggle switches:

Then used a little of this Glossy Accents from Hobby Lobby to add the gauge faces:

It goes on cloudy, but clears right up when it drives, and it’s thick enough to make domed glass, if you need to:

Whilst that was drying, masked the seats - I’m going for a sparkly-yellow-vinyl look for the insert and black for the bulk of the seat…Silly Putty to the rescue for that tricky masking job:

Worked great…just a couple of touch-ups with a brush and these will be ready for the next stage:

Whilst I was messing with the interior, made a template and cut some carpets:

And added some detail to the roll cage with heatshrink and monofilament to represent roll cage padding:

Quick mock-up of the interior…I wanna improve on that kit steering wheel, I think, it’s not really cutting it for me…although I’m pleased with the metalflake effect on the rim…

And back on the outside, got some clear built up on the body and it’s ready for its last wetsand and final coats of clear before it bakes a while before polishing…touched up some flaws in the lilac one too and shot some intercoat on it ready for laying down some lettering:

Plenty of disjointed all-over-the-place progress…but at least it’s progress, I guess 🤪

More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[CabDriver]

A little more progress this weekend…

First order of business was a little signwriting on the sister car…designed some lettering for the doors and cut some masks:

I’m going with colors that will compliment the rest of the scene I’m trying to create here…first up, a pure white base:

Then, a little masking with a Post It (which is a useful tool when you don’t want to use anything too tacky over recently shot paint…) and some of the same yellow I used on the ‘main’ car:

Then, some more masking and a third color:

Next up, I shot some intercoat to protect the work I already did, and once that dried I laid down some more masks:

And then some black, to outline those big chunky cartoony letters:

Then, the moment of truth…tada!

I have a little more to do on this one, but like the box art that inspired these builds this one will be a lot simpler…it’s really just part of the furniture for the little scene I’m making…

Speaking of the box art, I felt like doing some work on the base, so I cut some styrene sheet to make the banner that you can see top right here:

I covered the ‘banner with medical tape to give it a little texture, then cut some more masks for the lettering and that snowflake graphic, then shot some Createx baby blue and dark blue over top:

Some careful unmasking later…

Whilst I was doing all that, I had the printer running, making some from brake disks, fire extinguishers for the interior and a shot at a better looking steering wheel…parts fresh off the printer:

This steering wheel is SUPER fragile, but I like how it looks compared to the kit piece - what an improvement!

The kit part was fragile too, but at least the new one is round to start with…

Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[Straightliner59]

You're killing it, Jim! Awesome!

[Mattilacken]

Great build!