A Streetrod Beetle

[Steve H]

Yep, that’s what I’m talkin bout. Love watching the process. One day I’ll grow up and learn how to paint, I the meantime, I’ll watch how the pros do it… 

[David G.]

Fabulous color work! 

It reminds me of some of the figure painting techniques I've read about.

David G. 

[Zippi]

That color is looking pretty kewl man.  

[TopherMcGinnis]

Createx has some AWESOME paints! I love how your Bug is looking!

[TopherMcGinnis]

I shot this with Createx Pearl Orange over Wicked Orange.

[OldNYJim]

Thanks fellas!  Appreciate the nice comments!  

So, the body is awaiting some more paint…

I shot a couple of coats of intercoat just to make doubly sure I don’t end up hurting it with the next steps, but whilst that has been sitting and waiting I made some more progress…

Picked out my base color for the interior and started laying it down…I originally thought tan, but decided on a nice peach to tie it to the body…

These parts have a couple more colors, but they too are in intercoat purgatory…

Ordered some photoetch - not all of this will end up on this build, but I’ve been slowly collecting Highlight Model Studio’s VW and Mooneyes collection…

Shot a bunch of pieces in a flake silver…

And then shot the same Tamiya clear orange over top:

Reprinted one of the bumpers, because the first one I printed had a super-thin wall thickness and it got broken…thickened them up and made a new batch:

And whilst the paint is drying on the engine block I started looking through the rest of the kit pieces and identified some areas for improvement…spun some pulleys on the lathe:

Then those pulleys made the alternator (generator?) look bad, so I made one of those too:

And then the air filter looked out of place so I made one of those:

Not a tonne of progress since the last update, but I’ve got a bunch of stuff in primer and various parts waiting for clear so I’ll get to start making some sub-assemblies soon - exciting!

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

[Zippi]

It's starting to come together.  Nice looking air filter.  

[David G.]

Dang Jim, you're just marching along with this build. Lots of pretty little details!

David G.

[OldNYJim]

15 hours ago, Zippi said:

It's starting to come together.  Nice looking air filter.  

Thanks Bob!

14 hours ago, David G. said:

Dang Jim, you're just marching along with this build. Lots of pretty little details!

David G.

And thank you David!  I’m only getting a lot done because it’s the weekend ?

A little more today…felt brave enough to mask on the body so I laid down the next few little bits of detail painting…I’m not going WILD on this one, but had a couple of little touches I wanted to add…

All masked and ready:

All I’m doing here is adding a couple of little highlights…a couple of small scallops coming off the top of the headlamps, painting a stripe on the hood and adding a little strip of gradient along the sides…

Paint shot!

And some careful de-masking later…

Nothing too crazy, just a couple of little touches…

Whilst I was painting, I 3D printed a tiny Ratfink and shot him in Wicked Color silver then candy orange, and whilst that was drying shot the fabric roof cover with some craft acrylic that matched the color I wanted:

That Rat Fink was tough to paint…still not quite done…

And after I didn’t feel like painting any more today, I did some more work on engine parts…the kit distributor looks undersized to me (and was going to be about impossible to wire) so I printed one and spun up a mount for it:

Even the larger one I printed is still TINY, so excuse the poor photo…

Got it painted, made some plug boots and got it wired ready for installation:

And that’s about it for this weekend…thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[Zippi]

Nice looking distributor and I'm diggin the ole Rat Fink.  

[David G.]

Nice work on the Rat Fink and distributor. It looks like the masking work for the paint took some patience.

David G.

[espo]

Like the body paint details. 

[milo1303s]

I like this is the up top gonna be the same color top boot cover ? 

Can we see a pic of the up top on the car in that color please ?

Great build !!

Bob C.

[OldNYJim]

Thanks fellas!

On 2/19/2024 at 5:28 PM, milo1303s said:

Can we see a pic of the up top on the car in that color please ?

Great build !!

Thanks Bob!  I didn’t actually paint it yet - need to make sure it fits the body ok…

It’s paint week here - working thru tonnes of little parts and prepping them for base colors…did some slightly more fun stuff too tho…

Painted the interior panels…they started off peach:

Masked them for the second color of the three I had in mind…couldn’t find the exact color I wanted in ‘regular’ paints, but this Crayola paint worked well ?

Then, shot a coat of intercoat and then remasked for the third color:

Then de-masked:

Carpet color will be brown, so that’ll tie together the orange tones and the brown on the interior (hopefully)…masked the chassis for embossing powder:

Applied some custom mixed powder over Testors brown enamel:

I’m excited to see the interior all together…

Meanwhile, have been clearcoating the body - this is coat five of seven:

Painted the license plates, first with white, then clear lacquer, then Createx black - you can remove the Createx with an alcohol wipe, leaving the white copy and border visible:

Found a gauge face that would work for the dash - it’s not super high resolution, but it’s better than the ‘no gauge face’ the kit comes with…

Then went thru the dash and started adding switches, a ring for the speedo and some photoetch…not quite done with this yet, but the little metal switches really catch the eye and add some nice detail when you see it in real life:

Still PLENTY to do, and the way this kit assembles doesn’t really encourage building sub-assemblies so it’s touch to get any ‘big stuff’ together, but hopefully that means it’ll come together quickly at the end…thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Edited February 25, 2024 by CabDriver

[TarheelRick]

Really enjoying watching this build come together. If this kit is anything like the "Flower Power" kit, you probably scraped off enough flash to cast another body. Anyway, your choice of colors and the way you added them is excellent. Not really too keen on the cambered look, but as you said that is pretty much the look of the day. Also really impressed with your 3D printing and lathe work. Keep those updates coming.

[David G.]

What a fun build! I love watching you pull all this together; all the cool details you add.

David G.

[OldNYJim]

On 2/24/2024 at 7:00 PM, TarheelRick said:

Really enjoying watching this build come together. If this kit is anything like the "Flower Power" kit, you probably scraped off enough flash to cast another body. Anyway, your choice of colors and the way you added them is excellent. Not really too keen on the cambered look, but as you said that is pretty much the look of the day. Also really impressed with your 3D printing and lathe work. Keep those updates coming.

Yessir, there was definitely some flash to deal with.  And I’m with you on the ‘cambered look’ - a little on a racecar is cool, but the ‘flattened’ look isn’t my favorite.  That said, I’m going with it on this one, because that’s kinda what happens with these things I guess if you really dump them down - the rear in particular, due to the suspension geometry.  I did a heavily-lowered Beetle a couple of years back and did it in such a way that the extreme-camber thing DIDN’T happen, then every show I took it too, someone told me I forgot the camber ?.  Oh well ?‍♂️

12 hours ago, David G. said:

What a fun build! I love watching you pull all this together; all the cool details you add.

David G.

Thank you sir!

 

A little more progress today…

Got the body mostly polished out and waxed:

I was determined to use a photoetch center section for the steering wheel, but couldn’t find a spare hoop that would work…decided to fire up the lathe:

And just made one…

I was planning on painting it, but the color of the copper DOES kinda work well with the theme…need to decide on what to do with the center cap too…right now it’s just a little threaded bar that the wheel spins onto…

Speaking of wheels, I wanted a gunmetal center for the wheels with a billet-looking outer, so I shot some Tamiya acrylic…

…then a coat of intercoat, then masked with some Silly Putty:

Note: if you leave Silly Putty for a few minutes it’ll start to flatten itself out and seals the edges really nicely… 

Next some Hyperchrome over the satin silver:

And some careful de-masking…(and a silver pen for the lugs…)

Still some work to do on these, but I shot the 3d-printed tires today too so that I’m ready with those…

The pile of ‘finished’ bits is starting to build up now…

Pile of unfinished bits is still pretty big tho ?.

More soon, soon as I’ve done more, thanks for looking!

[stitchdup]

6 hours ago, CabDriver said:

 I did a heavily-lowered Beetle a couple of years back and did it in such a way that the extreme-camber thing DIDN’T happen, then every show I took it too, someone told me I forgot the camber ?.  Oh well ?‍♂️

 

just tell them its on an irs pan. they dont camber when slammed

[David G.]

The paint and wheels look great!

David G.

[Zippi]

Super sharp looking.  This is going to look nice when assembled.

[Steve H]

Coming along very nice Jim, it’s a very shiny Bug! Great use of colour as usual. I will definitely use that technique to mask/paint wheels in the future, thanks for showing that.