Petty '69 Talladega and '69 Torino

[bbowser]

Wow. I've never attempted casting anything, looks like you're doing very well for a beginner. Great start on the Petty builds, looking forward to their progress.

[Scottnkat]

Thanks for the comments, Bruce. I appreciate. it. Not alot to post today - been sanding and cleaning up the resin parts that I cast. Here's one of the wheels freshly primered and getting all ready for paint:

Nice thing about getting to the primer stage - it helps show you where you still need some work. Forgive the quality of my pictures - this was the best picture out of four of them that I tried -yes, this camera sucks

Edited February 6, 2012 by Scottnkat

[car-man666]

real nice ,, happy for you

[Scottnkat]

Thanks, Daniel - I appreciate it.

I do have an update - all eight wheels have received the basic paint now. Unlike the Belvedere I did previously, the cars this year had either black or dark blue wheels. I decided to go with the dark blue. Here's a pic of the wheels so far. Note that there is really no red on these at all - that's just a reflection from within the spray booth. Sorry about that:

[Scottnkat]

Not much to post tonight. I've been doing some sanding and prep getting the bodies all ready for paint. I did finish painting the wheels, though.

The blue is actually darker than this - the camera's flash kinda washed this out. Sorry about that.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Scottnkat

[Scottnkat]

No, I just cast the regular stock wheels - I added the valves after the fact. Thanks.

Well, I just had a little mini-disaster. I was removing a few parts from the sprue and had them in a pile in front of me. I was using the X-Acto knife and sanding stick to trim them and get them all cleaned up. I decided to glue a couple of the pieces together before I painted them, so I grabbed the glue. After unscrewing the lid, I had a little spasm (yep, I still get those a year and a half after my accident) and knocked the bottle of Pro-Weld over, spilling it all over the parts. Boy! That stuff melts those pieces away darn quickly!! Looks like I will be scrounging in my spares and scratch-making the parts that got ruined. So, I am calling it a night. I'll get back to it tomorrow after work and see what I can salvage.

[Scottnkat]

Well, after last night's little accident, I wanted to have something positive to post today. So, here's a picture of those resin-cast tires that I made - they are all ready for some decals and a nice flat coat:

Here's the engines mostly complete, as well. They just need the top end finished off:

I haven't decided if I will wire them or not yet. I already put in the kit distributors, so that rules out what I normally do. I am still thinking I will maybe, but if I do then I am going to try a different way that I heard about. More on that later if I decide to go that way.

[Scottnkat]

I also thought I would show some status pics of the chassis. They are coming along. I'm still kinda slow on all the scratch-building stuff, but they are getting together. The blue is actually a bit lighter than what shows in the pics - it's closer to the blue of the engines shown above.

[Scottnkat]

Finally, I started painting the bodies. Other than the fuel vents on both cars that I showed earlier and repositioning the gas cap on the Torino, I also added the little window clips around the frame on the Torino. Here they are in the spray booth, followed by a couple of shots of them by themselves. They do still need some work as I got a little orange peel in a few spots. On a side note, I have gotta stop taking pics in the spray booth as it throws the color off. These are showing lighter in color than they really are in the individual shots. Oh, well.... new camera is still on my wish list.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Scottnkat

[Scottnkat]

Thanks for that, Jacen. Well, the glue mishap has put me behind a little bit, but I'm working with what I have - I was able to salvage a few of the parts and the parts bin provided a couple of more pieces - I think I can get it worked out without too much trouble, but it has slowed me down just a bit. I'm hoping to get some sanding done on the bodies tonight to get rid of the orange peel finish - but we'll have to see if I can get some time tonight.

[Scottnkat]

Thank you much for your offer. But I think I'll see what I can do with what I have. All the parts that were ruined were all suspension-related parts (those that I was going to be painting in the Industrial blue), so they won't show unless the car is picked up. I am grateful that is was only those parts that were doused. If I do get stuck at some point, I may hit you up, though. Thank you again.

[car-man666]

ho! real sorry about the mishaps with the glue,, sob, but the body's ,,,wooou! hou! this is nice baby blue, eye candy, nice job, ,and i'm sure you will catch up with the rest of the salvages pieces,still following ,even with that bug i have,can't wait to fell better, have a good night.

[Scottnkat]

Thanks alot, Dan - I appreciate the comments. I did sand down the bodies last night, then primered 'em up - gotta lay the paint down again - I had a few bad orange peel spots show up. Hopefully it'll do better this time.

[Scottnkat]

Well, I decided to wire up the engines after all - they just look too plain without it. Someone had suggested using firm wire that holds its shape, glue in the plugs first, then just shape the wire so it comes up to the distributor. You can then just glue the wire to the distributor.

I thought, "What the heck? I've tried it other ways and it's not too bad - let's try it this way". Gluing the spark plug boots in went well. I then started to bend the wire to route all the wires to the distributor. I gave them all a nice little curve at the end so they all went down onto the little nubs of the distributor cap. Then I took a little superglue and dropped it onto the distributor cap to hold the wires in place. I had my finger holding things in place but when I moved my finger, all the wires on the distributor came loose.

So... we try again. Get all the wires into place on the distributor cap, finger holding everything in place, drop the superglue into place on top of the distributor cap, stand still to hold it. Then a brilliant idea hit me! Why not just spray some CA Activator in there so it gets solid and I don't have to hold it anymore? So, I pull it out and spray. Gently moving my finger, everything stays in place. Woo hoo!!

Then I try to remove my finger. Apparently, there was some CA on my fingertip when I sprayed the accelerator on. My finger was firmly glued to the wires coming out of the cap. So, I did what came naturally to me: I pried my fingers off the wires leaving a nice sheet of skin behind. Now my plug wires coming out of the distributor have a wonderful little cover on them. Oh, well. Now I know better. I said at the beginning of this build that I was going to try new things. Next time, I may not try this again.

[Scottnkat]

Here's a shot of the engines sitting in the frames. You can make out the flap of skin sitting on top of the distributor and wires of the car on the right. Yep, that's mine! I decided to paint it flat black so it would sorta "blend in" (yeah right). I guess it's a good thing the hood will be closed on this car. But now I know - don't do the wires in that way - stick with the way I had been doing them.

On a brighter note, I checked out the paint jobs on the two cars and no more orange peel finish. These are about ready for me to start foiling - woo hoo!! Here's the Torino:

And here's the Talladega:

Edited February 14, 2012 by Scottnkat

[jjsipes]

You've got me thinking about pulling out my various Petty models to work on. Great job so far. Loved the '64 and these '69's.

Just a suggestion. when I do my plug wires, I drill the distributor first, cut wire and glue them into the distributor cap first leaving them stick straight up. Glue the cap to the engine and then when glue dries on everything, I cut and bend to place in head of valve cover in the case of Hemi's or Ford's 429. You might want to try this way sometime. Works for me but may not work for someone else. Good luck finishing these great looking models. I will be watching.

[roadhawg]

Sorry 'bout the skin....good thing it's a "renewable resource", but very nice work so far. I think you've helped me decide what color to paint a Salt Flats '57 T-bird I put away a year ago....because I didn't know what color to paint it. Lol.

[bbowser]

We all try to put a little of ourselves in each build, but that's going above and beyond Great work so far!

[Scottnkat]

You've got me thinking about pulling out my various Petty models to work on. Great job so far. Loved the '64 and these '69's.

Just a suggestion. when I do my plug wires, I drill the distributor first, cut wire and glue them into the distributor cap first leaving them stick straight up. Glue the cap to the engine and then when glue dries on everything, I cut and bend to place in head of valve cover in the case of Hemi's or Ford's 429. You might want to try this way sometime. Works for me but may not work for someone else. Good luck finishing these great looking models. I will be watching.

Normally, that's the way I do it as well - distributor first, then going to the plugs. Someone suggested trying it this way, so I did. I am not one to bash someone else's ideas, but I don't think I'm doing it this way again - I'm going back to the old way!

[Scottnkat]

Well, the decals for the tires finally came in, so I was able to finish up the wheels today. Here's the two chassis sitting on the tires:

I was going to put the headers on, but I found that they stuck out way too far down. I knew this to be the case for the Talladega, but this is also the case for the Torino. I had to cut part of the header flange off in order to get the headers to fit tight up against the chassis instead of dragging on the ground. Here's an uncut header on the left and the modified header on the right:

Finally, I just had to do a mock-up to see how everything is fitting together so far. It's not coming out too badly:

[Scottnkat]

And just so you can see, here's how the resin wheel / tire combo came out:

[Bartster]

Wow, Scott! I didn't realize how long it'd been since ! looked in. You're moving right along. Sorry to hear about your glue blues but it looks like you've rebounded nicely. Awesome work brother!

[ROY AVERY]

Looking fantastic Scott. What paint are you using on these builds?

[Scottnkat]

Hi there. For the industrial blue, I was using Krylon's dark blue. For the Petty blue, I used Rustoleum light blue with a bit of white added to it. Funds are tight and I'm on a budget, so I've been having to make due with Walmart paints. I know they are not exact and there are better paints out there, but this fits with my budget.

Thanks for the suggestion, Jacen - I know the old cars did have a rake to them, but wasn't sure to what extent

[Scottnkat]

Thanks for the comments, guys. If I hadn't already put the headers on, I would take your idea, Mo. I'll remember that for next time though.

Well, I did get a little done today. Finally put together the rear end coolers that I made from resin and got those mounted, along with the air tank behind the driver's seat. I also made a couple of small adjustments to the mounting locations of the wheels so I could adjust the ride just a bit. Here's the chassis as they are right now - still a little bit left to do, but coming along:

I also started foiling the windows on these cars. There is no side trim, so it's only the windows that needs the BMF on these two cars. Also, note that the interior is not painted Petty blue. One done - one to go:

I finally finished up tonight by working on the dashes. I didn't make a resin copy of the Talladega dash, but I used the flat dash that came with the Torino instead. Since the gauges were different on these, I went ahead and just decided to just go with it. I did have to modify it a little to make it fit in the new rollcage I made, but overall I don't think it's too bad.

Well, that's about it for tonight. More to come...