1/16 Scale Army Vega Funny Car - Finished 10/14/2018

[W-409]

Nikko... Hey Its great to hear from you my friend. I hope life and school is treating you well, also hopefully you are getting a little bench time in yourself. Thank you for the kind words. I am really pleased with how some of my recent items have turned out. I know they probably cold be better but at this point they are good enough for me...haha I just want to get it done to move onto my next project.

 

Yep, I'm doing great, just working hard before school starts in the autumn to get some money for my 1:1 '62 Chevy II project, so I haven't had too much bench time... A bit of progress with '65 Ranchero has been done, but not much. I managed to win one ET Bracket race with our Stock Eliminator Malibu too.

 

Can't wait to see more updates on this one!

[Mooneyzs]

Randy D.... Thank you my friend. I really appreciate the kind works. You are so right that I need to get back to the bench. The past few weeks  have been tough for me to get to the bench, I have lost motivation due to some other things but I am slowing getting it back.

Bob... I know its been way too long for an update. I have a little something that I have been working on the side that I will show some pics and hoping to get back to the bench later today and tomorrow.

Nikko... I am glad to hear you are doing well. Enjoy that time before school starts. I know the feeling of building the 1:1 I was the same way back when I was building my '71 El Camino in my late teens and early 20's. Congrats on your ET Bracket Race win in your Malibu. I am sure that is a blast to run. I still need to get a Posi and some 3.73 gears put into my El Camino and would love to take it out the track after that. I will be tickled if I could get it to break 12's.

[Mooneyzs]

Well Fellas I know it's been over a month since you have seen an update and well I have gone thru a period of losing motivation on this one. I had started to put decals on it but was having trouble with the decals ripping on me so instead of really getting ticked off at it I decided to put it to the side for a bit. I am slowing getting the motivation back to work on this again but there is something else going on that has me frustrated at the moment with making me not want to build. Anyway so in the mean time I decided to work on something else and actually for a while I have had this idea of making a Chassis Jig Plate which will be used to assist in building chassis's. So I decided to draw some stuff up in my CAD program of what I wanted. These Jig plates will be 2 separate plates.... One I am making 6" x 17" which will be used for dragster chassis and the other is an 8" x 10" plate which will be used for any type of door car, Funny Car, and Pro Mod Chassis. I will be making them out of Mic 6 Aluminum that is 3/8" thick and it will have holes on 1/2" centers. Here is what they look like after drawing them up in my CAD system:

Here is the 6" x 17" plate design:

 

Here is the 8" x 17" plate design:

 

So today I had to go into work today for a little bit and well I got one of the Machinist to help me with my stuff and was able to get them fabricated. Here is how they turned out....

Here is the 8" x 10" plate:

 

Here is the 6" x 17" plate:

 

Here is a shot to show how it will be used. All of the Holes are threaded with an 8-32 thread and have a counter bore of .075" and I have 3/16 shoulder bolts that will get screwed into which ever holes and then you can bank your parts/tubing up against it to keep things square. I have plans on designing clamps that will bolt to the plate to hold parts in place as well as making brackets that will keep things lined up:

 

Showing it with the funny car chassis sitting on it:

 

Here you see some 1" x 1" Angle plates which will help keep the from wheels square when time come to put them on. I am still actually debating if I will glue the front wheels on or if I will keep them a slip fit so I can take them on and off depending on how I want to display it:

 

Upclose shot:

[John Teresi]

Chris.....you are AMAZING dude......your designs are golden......looks AWESOME Buddy!!!!!!

[Mooneyzs]

John... Hey Brother... thank you my friend. It was fun drawing that up. Now I just need to start some designs for the clamps I would like to have for it and also want to draw an engine up too  

[bobthehobbyguy]

That jig is cool. I know you will get back to the funny car when you are ready. 

[Nytrozilla]

I totally empathize with you on finding motivation. I always take the easy way out on rationalizing whether I've "made progress" after doing something aside from the build.

Then you realize you're benefiting not only this build, but many builds to come.

Seems there is a little bit of motivation going on there. Snuck up on ya' when the Minions were playing Pokeman Go, didn't it?

 

[gasser59]

Sorry to hear of your non-building funk. I too have been having the same issue. Must be the heat along with the humidity. Glad to see you're still fabricating. Those jig bases are perfect.

[Dragline]

The jig is a great idea but i wouldn't call it an update Chris.

 

Hope you get off the schnide.

[Twokidsnosleep]

A true genius at work designing and fabricating such a system.

Love it!!!

[Art Laski]

Love that jig, Chris! Hopefully you'll break the skid soon. I'm on one of my own...

[Fun_E_Car]

Chris, I do believe Chuck Boerner, who is a member here can make great decals for this car. Pretty sure they will be better than the kits decals

He has made them for the 1/25th version and I am sure he could scale them up for the 1/16th.

Take a look: http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/stang1forever/media/ARMYVEGA1-25-SNIP_zpseadc629f.jpg.html?sort=3&o=41

--Dave

[gasser59]

Chris, I do believe Chuck Boerner, who is a member here can make great decals for this car. Pretty sure they will be better than the kits decals

--Dave

Chris isn't using the kit decals, he's using the ones I did for this build. Not sure why he's having issues.

[simonr]

 

 

Chris, I do believe Chuck Boerner, who is a member here can make great decals for this car. Pretty sure they will be better than the kits decals

He has made them for the 1/25th version and I am sure he could scale them up for the 1/16th.

Take a look: http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/stang1forever/media/ARMYVEGA1-25-SNIP_zpseadc629f.jpg.html?sort=3&o=41

--Dave

This is how Chuck's decals will look...This is the original Vega Revell 1/25 version I finished 6 months ago...

 

Simón P. Rivera Torres

Edited July 19, 2016 by simonr

[blackbeard]

sweet looking car

[jwrass]

Chris, I've been waiting for someone to come up with a Jigs such as yours for a long time! The Jigs look superb!!!! The ancillary devices that could go with the Jigs are only limited to ones imagination! Any thoughts of engraving any types of units of measure? You can put me down for one of each! Sorry to hear of the Modelers Blues.... It will come back when it's meant to be! Keep the Faith....... Jimmy "RASS"

[Mooneyzs]

Well Fellas... I finally got myself to get to the bench this weekend and got myself to sit down and work on some more of the decals. I know I had frustrations with them when I had some of them tear on me and felt like putting the darn thing away so I did for a while. I messed with the decals today and felt I made some pretty good progress on them. Needless to say it felt good back at the bench working on this. Alright let me show you all what I got accomplished so far....

I was able to finish up the rear of the body. I still wish that all of the decals in the white of the body were bigger like the restored car but I know it's the size that Revell did them:

 

Next I worked on the Stars on the left side, Put the first one on one shot not problems:

 

I got the roof stars on:

 

Now the right hand side gave me major issues and this is where I had a good half dozen sets of stars rip on me and where I shelved the body for a while basically since my last post...lol. So on the very last good set of stars that was left I was able to get it lay down with out ripping:

 

Next I worked on getting the decals on the hood:

 

Then I worked on all the decals on the front end:

[W-409]

Wow, the body is looking fantastic so far! I know what you mean by decal problems, I've had the same thing several times that I have just felt like boxing the project for a while since I've had no luck with decals. Smaller ones are fairly easy, but a bit bigger decals are causing some trouble at least for me... But I have to say that in the end your decals laid on beautifully. Great job on them!

[stump]

Well Chris, I was going to say, you just don't stop do you.....but reading thru what I've missed I can see you've had your share of drama and issues along the way mate.   So pleased you're over the hump now and are back on it bud.

Everything...........EVERYTHING looks just mind blowing, ridiculously over the top, super-duper AMAZING!!! Congrats on your determination and will to strive, to achieve this goal of #1 (which is right where you're heading, trying or not )

BTW, I'll be planning a trip over in about 5 years......I expect to see this sitting in your display case on TOP SHELF!!

[bobthehobbyguy]

Great to see an update. The decals look great. Time to get this puppy finished.

[Davewilly]

Hey Chris looks pretty good!  I know me and decals have never really got along!  But here lately they have seemed to like me better then they ever have in the past.

[gasser59]

Wow and WOW!!!  Those look really sharp and although they fought you part of he way, you persevered. Which ones do you wish were bigger? We can make that happen.

[John Teresi]

Chris......great job with the decals......they look AWESOME man........can`t wait to see the rest of them on the body ......and I`m sure it will look SWEET with the clear coat too

[Randy D]

Hey Chris,

   Great update buddy,  kinda forgot what it looked like with the paint on.  Just AWESOME!!!!!!!!

 

Randy

[Danno]

Dittos!!