'71 Petty Roadrunner

[roadhawg]

That looks awesome!! Great work, as usual.

[route66modeler]

nice work! I think nascar banned the hemi in 1972. Steve

[wraith]

WOW!

That looks sweet! Petty blue and cool!

[Scottnkat]

I'm sorry for the delay - work has been a pain this week, so I haven't gotten much done so far. I've been getting a little work done on the Petty engine - the engine is wired and almost ready to go. I've just got to touch up some paint, make a bracket for the alternator, and finish the intake and she's ready.

Forgive the stuff in the background - I should not have put the engine in front of other black items - the valve covers blend.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Scottnkat

[Scuderia]

no worries on the engine pic, looks good great detail

[Scottnkat]

Well, I've been doing some body work. The hood that comes with the kit is the one with the two bulges on either side. However, most of the time the Roadrunner was run with a hood that had scallops on the sides (for want of a better term) as seen in the pics above.

I was able to get ahold of the hood from the GTX which has the proper scalloped sides from one of our fine forum members here (thank you, Jacen). However, it has a large power bulge in the middle. I began sanding that down. It got so thin, I had to support the bottom with a little styrene and putty. I can resume sanding tomorrow, but here is a side by side shot of the GTX power bulge hood next to the hood I've been working on

Edited May 13, 2012 by Scottnkat

[Scottnkat]

I did get some work done on the Roadrunner. I didn't want anyone to think I have been just leaving it be. I've been working on the suspension and the interior. I made a black / white checkered decal, then trimmed it to size to fit the seat (although I think I got the pattern too small). Here's where we are so far - I know I still have more work to go, but I did want to let everyone know what's going on with this.

[rustybill1960]

I really appreciate your scratch building skills!!

Most impressive Scott!

I like your subject choice, the Road Runner.

I had to do the same thing to the power bulge for a Charger "500" conversion I am doing,

it got "very" thin in some spots too!

I am going to convert the Monogram GTX into an RR.

You can't beat the "King" either!

Very nice Man

Thank You for sharing

Later

Russ

[Bartster]

Shaping up very nicely, Scott. I envy your "stick to itiveness". Look forward to more progress.

[wraith]

She is loooking better and better every time I look! Nice work!

[Scottnkat]

Sorry for the delay, but work has been crazy lately and I just haven't had much time. However, I did finish the hood for the Roadrunner and laid the paint on this evening. Sorry, but this is all I have to show for now. More coming, I promise.

[Scottnkat]

Thank you for the comments, Russell, Bart, and Darrick - I do appreciate it. I started doing the BMF around the front window tonight, so hopefully I can have a bit more to show in just a day or so.

[Scottnkat]

I did do a test fit and it sits right on the car right now. I expect it to once the body is on the chassis, but sometimes things happen - I will keep you updated.

[Scottnkat]

Well - it's official now - I am building the '71 Pepsi car! I did the BMF around the front and rear windows. I've also started decaling - not alot done but it is finally starting to look like a Petty car!

Edited May 18, 2012 by Scottnkat

[Scottnkat]

I need a window net for the car. After some thought (and checking with my wife), I got ahold of this stuff:

This is 12 Mesh Needlepoint Canvas that we picked up at Hobby Lobby. I started out cutting a swatch of it off the roll:

I cut this into three pieces. While it seems like it will work, it is a mesh and it does have some thickness to it. My goal in this was to make it thinner so it would be more in scale to a real mesh window net. It took me three tries (well, four actually) before I figured out how to do this. First, I tried using a J Roller (used for laying on laminate tops) to roll it out. Here's the J Roller:

And here's the results (on the left) next to an untouched piece (on the right).

Hardly any difference at all, and I was pushing pretty hard. Hmmm... Time to think of something else.

[Scottnkat]

I decided to use a hammer and pound the mesh flat. Yeah, a hammer should work. I figured that the steel of my table saw would be firm enough, and I figured I would sandwich the mesh between the table saw and a piece of laminated board:

After trying it with not only the regular hammer, but the sledge hammer, this was the result:

Still no difference. Dang! I looked down and noticed the floor. Hmmm... Concrete is pretty darn hard. So I proceeded to hammer the mesh straight on the concrete. Well, this tore the mesh up pretty quickly. As I was trying to think of what I could use to keep it from tearing, my wife says, "Why not use paper or something?" and handed me some paper. This is what I ended up using:

I laid the paper on the concrete, then the mesh on the paper and hammered straight on the mesh. No tears! Yippee. When I lifted it up, it was nice and thin! Much more to the proper scale thickness. Here is the completed mesh on the left:

While it may not look different, there is a definite difference in thickness. Now I can paint this, cut it down to size, and I will be set! Woo hoo!!

[Scottnkat]

Also, I forgot to mention - the body is all done with decaling - tomorrow it gets a clear coat over everything. Woo hoo!! We're getting there!

[Scottnkat]

Well, I'm almost done with the chassis for the Petty car. You can also see the newly made window net in this pic. I hope you enjoy:

[Bartster]

Coming together nicely, Scott. Sometimes cleverness is better than skill!

[jjsipes]

Looking great Scott. By the way whats the chassis for in the background?

[Scottnkat]

Thanks, guys - the chassis in the background is for the Polar Lights Charger - it's just being done completely out of the box and I'm just doing stuff when I am in between things

[Scottnkat]

by the way, I decided that I wasn't happy with the front suspension on the Roadrunner, so that's been clipped off and I am re-working that.

[Scottnkat]

Dang! You know how you can stare at something and not see something staring you right in the face? Well, I have that feeling right now. I didn't like the front suspension so I cut it off to start again with it. After I did that, I realized that I had never added the vertical bars to the rollcage. Duh!! I feel like such a numbskull!! Anyway, here's the chassis now - mostly missing front suspension and now with the vertical bars:

[Scottnkat]

...and I finished up the decaling on the body - here it is:

I still need to do a little work to get the hood to lay down perfect, but you can see how it's shaping up so far...

Edited May 22, 2012 by Scottnkat

[Scottnkat]

The body is on the Plymouth, the front chassis and wheels are mounted again, and we're starting to get to the end of this one - I guess the next pics will be on the Under Glass section.

In the meantime, here's the engine compartment:

Edited May 28, 2012 by Scottnkat