3rd gen Camaro

[MarkJ]

Thanks, Pierre. I have almost got the basic cage finished so the rest of the interior should come along much better hopefully. I also need to change up the under chassis to also make it kinda resemble a banjo chassis which these cars used. There was no way I could have taken a nascar kit and used the chassis for this body. Again, thanks for dropping by

[MarkJ]

The cage is coming along slowly, like everything else I do. Been a lot of trial and error but at least i found a pretty good ref picture. Those vertical bars are just locaters to help me install the horizontal bars and locate where the vertical bars on the cage go. they won't be part of the cage.

Edited January 17, 2024 by MarkJ

[MarkJ]

Just a few more bars. They are all .080 evergreen rod. It surprisingly bent without breaking where I had to bend it.

[Pierre Rivard]

Excellent scratch building. This is quite the transformation, especially considering the humble beginnings of this Camaro chassis pan.

[MarkJ]

Thanks, Pierre. It's not going to be correct as a rivet counter would view it, but I hope to make it look somewhat like the Banjo chassis that this car used. Like I said earlier I could not have used a Nascar kit chassis and made it fit under the Camaro body. It's just too small and shaped a lot different than the Nascar racers of its time. I am using Nascar cup chassis ref pics from the late eighty's to modify this model's kit chassis into a Banjo chassis by adding some square tubing to it for the frame and also the rear suspension. I will be making longer arms to replace the short-armed chassis that the stock Camaros used. Well at least I hope I can. I didn't want to make a stock Camaro model and just put the right wheels and tires on it and decal it.  But it sure is taking a lot of time which I really don't care about. Just hope to finish it someday.

[jjsipes]

Looking good. Keep the good work up.

[MarkJ]

Thanks for dropping by, Jason. 

[MarkJ]

A few more rods.

[MarkJ]

I found this Earnhardt kit many, many years ago at a model car show and when I got home and opened the box, I realized what a bad looking kit it was. You basically could not make a good model out of it worth putting on the shelf. When I started making this model, I remembered that I might be able to use some parts from it for this build. Turns out with a lot of modifications I can make a seat pretty close to what was in this car. It's probably the only thing though from the looks of the other parts in the box. It does have a driver figure that I might try playing with, but I think the guy is too tall and skinny to represent the driver that drove the car I'm building.

[MarkJ]

Mr. White Putty is actually tan.

[MarkJ]

Looks like I have a lot of diamonds to make. Oh well, what else do I have to do in the afternoons. No fixed completion date on this or any of my models. Thats why I could never do a community build. Too much pressure to meet a deadline.

 

[Rattlecan Dan]

Doing some fine modeling Mark. I usually have a frustrating time with roll cages. I also am doing a headrest mod on the seat, as you did. Keep up the good work.

[MarkJ]

2 hours ago, Rattlecan Dan said:

Doing some fine modeling Mark. I usually have a frustrating time with roll cages. I also am doing a headrest mod on the seat, as you did. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for stopping by, Donato and making a comment on the build. It is much appreciated.

[MarkJ]

The diamond pattern will continue on the entire seat. I made a bunch of diamonds yesterday but will probably need some more. The seat will be black so it will hardly be noticeable when finished. Probably a good thing. Couldn't just leave it with a flat texture.

[MarkJ]

Slowly but surely, step by step, inch by inch. 

[MarkJ]

It's getting a little dicey now that the seat is intersecting the sides with the bottom. I'm having to do the best I can to make it work. The outsides of the seat should work out just fine because it is one plane of work all the way around. I just have to clip off the excess and sand it smooth. I will add a narrow piece of styrene at the top to separate the inside surfaces of the seat from the outside surfaces, if that makes any sense at all. Like I said, it will be black, and half covered with seat belt and shoulder harnesses so any big gaffs can be hidden. Plus, I'm not taking any close-up shots of the finished seat at all. You can bet on that one.

[Intmd8r]

Awesome conversion-keep up the good work!

[jjsipes]

That's a lot of work on that seat, more than I do. I would have tried scribing the pattern and said good enough. I applaud you doing it this way. Looks great.

[MarkJ]

Thanks, Steve and Jason. I thought about just covering the seat in putty and then scribing like you said Jason, but I knew it would end up looking terrible, so that's what led to this. Which will probably look terrible too, but maybe a little more uniform than freehand scribing. But I think I might have bit more off than I can chew, so to speak.

[MarkJ]

Got the inner part of the seat finished except for some sanding and adjusting here and there and got back on the outer parts of the seat.

[MarkJ]

Trudging along. Wondering why I decided to get too ridiculous on the seat. Senior moment, I guess.

[Pierre Rivard]

We all do it sometimes, going a bit too deep into making one part...but that seat will look very good. Definition of a pastime. ?

[MarkJ]

2 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

We all do it sometimes, going a bit too deep into making one part...but that seat will look very good. Definition of a pastime. ?

So true, Pierre. I'm passing a lot of time on this seat. I hope you're right about looking good, but it really won't matter with all the stuff blocking the view of it.

[MarkJ]

Finally have all the diamond shapes installed. Just need to take a small file to clear up some of the lines between the diamonds and then sand, prime and paint.

[stitchdup]

wow, nice work on the seat