THE DIECAST BODYSHOP
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CustomDiecastReplicas.com's Bodyshop Blog
Update pictures 8/19
I had promised some pictures last week but never got a chance to take them so here they are.
On top of what I had been working on you see I got the 70 Chevelle convertibles finished and boxed. While these look nice both the dealer and myself forgot that for what his retail price point will be these do not match the fthe quality of the factory diecast 70 Chevelle convertibles from Exact Detail. That being said I believe he and I both wasted time and money on these.
Beside the fact that they are not a cut and mod the window section diecast with what I charge and what he paid for the starter cars he has as much in these as you can buy an Exact Detail 70 for. Oh well.... we both live and learn I guess.
As promised here are a couple other pictures. One of the 68 Coronet hood in mock up stage and the 2000 Mustang hood that although looks like a mess is exactly where I need it to be. Once that outer white trim is sanded and some spot putty is applied it will look just like the stock factory hood.
Its funny how in this diecast modding world guys get kudos for slapping monster tires under a car, adding a blown engine with a whole in the hood and others thing they have "mad skills". I look back at some of the "stock" mods I have done that just make me think about what creativity actually is. Mind you creating something that is already made/stock is more about duplicating then creating from the mind but still someone has to figure out how to make it happen and that takes creativity.
Be it the first 70 Challenger bulge hood for a HWY 61 car, the first REAL 6 pack hood for a 69 Road Runner ,the first 64 Corvette roadster, the first 74 Corvette or even the 94 Cobra R the fact that these cars or parts are not made does take some tick of talent. I guess thats my little rant..... how the mundane, boring and stock goes unnoticed by most.
OK.... well this also goes for wheels. I have created at least a half dozen wheels not made in the industry for customers and while I don't resell them or make a big deal, some guy across the water makes some on a lathe that look like a lot of whats already out there but gets big kudos. Oh wheel (lol)....... such is life right.
Here is the mock up of the soon to be Foose wheel..... well as close as I can without having his cronies suing me like Carrol Shelby tried, LOL.
OK...... lastly we have a couple shots of the Blackjack completed for a customer. Doug ..... if your reading .... this is pretty close to what your version will look like. I will however make a strut bar for the underhood as his car didn't have one.
OK....... Im out !
On top of what I had been working on you see I got the 70 Chevelle convertibles finished and boxed. While these look nice both the dealer and myself forgot that for what his retail price point will be these do not match the fthe quality of the factory diecast 70 Chevelle convertibles from Exact Detail. That being said I believe he and I both wasted time and money on these.
Beside the fact that they are not a cut and mod the window section diecast with what I charge and what he paid for the starter cars he has as much in these as you can buy an Exact Detail 70 for. Oh well.... we both live and learn I guess.
As promised here are a couple other pictures. One of the 68 Coronet hood in mock up stage and the 2000 Mustang hood that although looks like a mess is exactly where I need it to be. Once that outer white trim is sanded and some spot putty is applied it will look just like the stock factory hood.
Its funny how in this diecast modding world guys get kudos for slapping monster tires under a car, adding a blown engine with a whole in the hood and others thing they have "mad skills". I look back at some of the "stock" mods I have done that just make me think about what creativity actually is. Mind you creating something that is already made/stock is more about duplicating then creating from the mind but still someone has to figure out how to make it happen and that takes creativity.
Be it the first 70 Challenger bulge hood for a HWY 61 car, the first REAL 6 pack hood for a 69 Road Runner ,the first 64 Corvette roadster, the first 74 Corvette or even the 94 Cobra R the fact that these cars or parts are not made does take some tick of talent. I guess thats my little rant..... how the mundane, boring and stock goes unnoticed by most.
OK.... well this also goes for wheels. I have created at least a half dozen wheels not made in the industry for customers and while I don't resell them or make a big deal, some guy across the water makes some on a lathe that look like a lot of whats already out there but gets big kudos. Oh wheel (lol)....... such is life right.
Here is the mock up of the soon to be Foose wheel..... well as close as I can without having his cronies suing me like Carrol Shelby tried, LOL.
OK...... lastly we have a couple shots of the Blackjack completed for a customer. Doug ..... if your reading .... this is pretty close to what your version will look like. I will however make a strut bar for the underhood as his car didn't have one.
OK....... Im out !
Some updates 8/13
I was recently ranked on about not blogging everyday. While I appreciate the interest the blog does take more time then I have sometimes and while I used to use it as a way to vent, and would spend 60-90 minutes on it, lately I just don't have time to type all the little things that I do on a daily basis.
So let me update some stuff. First off, I rarely work all weekend anymore...... sit back and think for a second about what I do for a living. I take apart little cars that are really not made to be taken apart... rework, create, glue, paint, sand, polish, trial fit, assemble, bla bla bla all these things repeatedly on little cars (and trucks). There is no manual.... there are no guidelines...... this is all hand work with the mental ability it takes to do it. Its not a job for everyone.... its not a job many could do for a day let alone a week, year or 10 years.... yeah, I started modding cars in 98 that were resold on Ebay. I have since my late wife died in 2001 worked pretty much ... 80% of my weekends... on these cars... to keep busy... to get stuff done.. and at some point it just becomes tiring. Most who read this do know me more then as just the diecast modder I am. Well for those who don't know me I will put it another way.... I need a life..... I need one that doesn't include diecast cars and spending my weekends working on them. Please remember most of you work a 40 hour week and have time for other things..... while I don't have other things (kids, wife, girlfriend, hobbies per say) I still need time for whatever I want to do outside of this business.
As the economy has changed so has my business..... needless to say this is a want and not a need type business and with that being said the phone rarely rings now for new projects. Even the emails have slowed, though I have had 10 emails for possible projects in the last 2 weeks yet only 1 was written and that was after the project was changed 3 times to get the pricing from $450 to $350 and its now at $150.00. While I appreciated all the business I get the lack of new business is such that it effects my overall work pattern.
See there has to be a balance between the new and old ..... new incoming cars and older longer harder projects so that things flow well and I don't get burnt out. Sadly with no new (new includes the time on the phone talking with people and then searching for the starter product) projects I am left as a worker bee in the my shop realizing every day that even though I love this, the time it takes to create these little replicas does not generate enough revenue to sustain a long downturn in the economy. Hmmm, so I have that to worry about.
I will post some of the little tedious, time consuming, money loosing things I have been working on. While you will look at the list and say " how the hell can that take so long" I will answer by saying , work a day in my shoes.
Is this a rant post....... not really, its more of a reality post. I have a shop full of work... probably still in the 50+ project area and thats without all the future Mustang projects from Doug but.... there are no simple projects outside of 2-3, mostly repaints for Pete.
So when I look at the big picture I figure unless I have something thats more in your face and involved its not worth the time to blog and thats why I don't do it every day. Whats funny is until last October I did even have a blog and I would just tell me customers to call or email me for an update. I added this as a way for them to get a little in site and view of the things that go on. While its appreciated by most and does keep them in the know I just don't know anymore if it's worth it.
So.... over the last few days these are some of the things I have been working on.
Had to search out sun visors off parts cars to find one that could be molded and mounted on the 70 Chevelle convertibles im created for a diecast dealer. This project has been here for 6 weeks..... should have been done in 2 days over a weekend but of course... its a problem child. I have lost who knows how much money on this but thats another story.
Once I found a sun visor that worked I had to make a silicone mold for it, the mold it. Looked fine but having to do 12 is time consuming (on top of cleaning the mixing cup, injector and molds afterwards) so I made another mold.... poured 2 at a time and while good, not perfect for mounting so I had to hand sand all 12.... sounds like a drop in the bucket ? Its not.... its just more time doing some hand work. These have now been shot in satin black for mounting.
Once I had the 6 convertible boots poured in resin I had to clean them and then shoot the texture on them and shoot them in a satin black for mounting.
The cars themselves needed some fine grinding.... this is where I smooth the cut lines on the tops of the fenders and finish reworking the windshield frame cut line.
With this done I can cut the one piece window insert and then mark off where they need to be cut around the window frame and re trim the windshield to fit correctly. Oh yeah..... this isn't a simple cut but one that has to be made to not remove the mounting area for the rear view mirror. This will all make sense when I post pictures.
While pouring the resin for the visors there is always more resin mixed than needed so instead of wasting it I also poured 5 carbs, a tach, 2 A/C compressors and 6 Anson slotted wheels. Whats this mean ? Means I had to also removed each of these from their molds and clean them (mold) for the next excess pour.
I created a new convertible boot for the 99-04 Mustang body style so I can make a mold for that. The boot originally came off a mid 90's Mustang and while close does not fit correctly so... its cut, trim, size.... then section, glue, fill, sand, trial fit, trim, sand, refit.... then off to primer. Now this will get a mold box made for the silicone so I can replicate it as needed.
Having had to redo the 3 spoke wheel I think its close enough to make a mold for so I got that little mold box set up. Heck making the mold box for a product is time consuming as you have to figure out how to mount the item in the box so when the silicone has set you can remove the piece and then pour them as needed and have them come out correct.
I spent a lot of time on the Foose wheel for the Roush Mustang. After cutting the spokes at the outer edge so they would sit back further I also realized that the lugs do not line up with the spokes but are offset of them.... so I had to cut each spoke off the center hub (remember how big this is) then trim them to fit the new area I needed to glue them too. While this is a major PITA that I am getting NO compensation for it had to be done and took hours to do. I probably have at least 15-20 hours in these wheels..... and the master still isn't done. Remember the cutting and such is just one part.... the laying out what has to be done is another.
I got the 69 Coronet hood just about ready for primer. This is a mini bulge hood that came as the stock R/T hood which you rarely see since most opt for the ram air version. I thought I only needed 1 hood like this but was contacted last week by one customer who informed me that her husband had decided to switch back to the stock hood from the six pack one so now I need two. I guess I will resin cast this one now, but........ what this means is the custom 68 Coronet, 6 pack hood I have a couple hours invested in is now going to take space in my junk parts bin. Oh well right ? its only time and money.
I also got the 2000 Mustang hood about ready for primer......... again, cutting, sanding, filling, sanding.... just to get to this point. Mind you I love the creating of parts not made..... but as with most of my modding its a guessing game as to what I charge and when busy with new incoming projects and such I loose track of my time on these things but when the business isn't flying along I do come to realize I loose money on a lot of my guesswork.
I also had my hands on prepping another Cuda body for the owner of the Dan Gurney AAR. He decided he wanted a 3rd car and since I was in the roll bar stage I decided to get another body built as quickly as possible so they can all get roll barred, LOL, at the same time.
Add to this some more bench time on the Woodie..... breaking down the Atomic Orange 07 Corvette, breaking down and prepping 2 Nascar bodies and there ya have it. Simple huh??? Couple hours of work huh ???? HA !
I will post some pictures later today or tomorrow.... I just don't have time.... im over an hour into this now and its just words.
OK....... Im out !
So let me update some stuff. First off, I rarely work all weekend anymore...... sit back and think for a second about what I do for a living. I take apart little cars that are really not made to be taken apart... rework, create, glue, paint, sand, polish, trial fit, assemble, bla bla bla all these things repeatedly on little cars (and trucks). There is no manual.... there are no guidelines...... this is all hand work with the mental ability it takes to do it. Its not a job for everyone.... its not a job many could do for a day let alone a week, year or 10 years.... yeah, I started modding cars in 98 that were resold on Ebay. I have since my late wife died in 2001 worked pretty much ... 80% of my weekends... on these cars... to keep busy... to get stuff done.. and at some point it just becomes tiring. Most who read this do know me more then as just the diecast modder I am. Well for those who don't know me I will put it another way.... I need a life..... I need one that doesn't include diecast cars and spending my weekends working on them. Please remember most of you work a 40 hour week and have time for other things..... while I don't have other things (kids, wife, girlfriend, hobbies per say) I still need time for whatever I want to do outside of this business.
As the economy has changed so has my business..... needless to say this is a want and not a need type business and with that being said the phone rarely rings now for new projects. Even the emails have slowed, though I have had 10 emails for possible projects in the last 2 weeks yet only 1 was written and that was after the project was changed 3 times to get the pricing from $450 to $350 and its now at $150.00. While I appreciated all the business I get the lack of new business is such that it effects my overall work pattern.
See there has to be a balance between the new and old ..... new incoming cars and older longer harder projects so that things flow well and I don't get burnt out. Sadly with no new (new includes the time on the phone talking with people and then searching for the starter product) projects I am left as a worker bee in the my shop realizing every day that even though I love this, the time it takes to create these little replicas does not generate enough revenue to sustain a long downturn in the economy. Hmmm, so I have that to worry about.
I will post some of the little tedious, time consuming, money loosing things I have been working on. While you will look at the list and say " how the hell can that take so long" I will answer by saying , work a day in my shoes.
Is this a rant post....... not really, its more of a reality post. I have a shop full of work... probably still in the 50+ project area and thats without all the future Mustang projects from Doug but.... there are no simple projects outside of 2-3, mostly repaints for Pete.
So when I look at the big picture I figure unless I have something thats more in your face and involved its not worth the time to blog and thats why I don't do it every day. Whats funny is until last October I did even have a blog and I would just tell me customers to call or email me for an update. I added this as a way for them to get a little in site and view of the things that go on. While its appreciated by most and does keep them in the know I just don't know anymore if it's worth it.
So.... over the last few days these are some of the things I have been working on.
Had to search out sun visors off parts cars to find one that could be molded and mounted on the 70 Chevelle convertibles im created for a diecast dealer. This project has been here for 6 weeks..... should have been done in 2 days over a weekend but of course... its a problem child. I have lost who knows how much money on this but thats another story.
Once I found a sun visor that worked I had to make a silicone mold for it, the mold it. Looked fine but having to do 12 is time consuming (on top of cleaning the mixing cup, injector and molds afterwards) so I made another mold.... poured 2 at a time and while good, not perfect for mounting so I had to hand sand all 12.... sounds like a drop in the bucket ? Its not.... its just more time doing some hand work. These have now been shot in satin black for mounting.
Once I had the 6 convertible boots poured in resin I had to clean them and then shoot the texture on them and shoot them in a satin black for mounting.
The cars themselves needed some fine grinding.... this is where I smooth the cut lines on the tops of the fenders and finish reworking the windshield frame cut line.
With this done I can cut the one piece window insert and then mark off where they need to be cut around the window frame and re trim the windshield to fit correctly. Oh yeah..... this isn't a simple cut but one that has to be made to not remove the mounting area for the rear view mirror. This will all make sense when I post pictures.
While pouring the resin for the visors there is always more resin mixed than needed so instead of wasting it I also poured 5 carbs, a tach, 2 A/C compressors and 6 Anson slotted wheels. Whats this mean ? Means I had to also removed each of these from their molds and clean them (mold) for the next excess pour.
I created a new convertible boot for the 99-04 Mustang body style so I can make a mold for that. The boot originally came off a mid 90's Mustang and while close does not fit correctly so... its cut, trim, size.... then section, glue, fill, sand, trial fit, trim, sand, refit.... then off to primer. Now this will get a mold box made for the silicone so I can replicate it as needed.
Having had to redo the 3 spoke wheel I think its close enough to make a mold for so I got that little mold box set up. Heck making the mold box for a product is time consuming as you have to figure out how to mount the item in the box so when the silicone has set you can remove the piece and then pour them as needed and have them come out correct.
I spent a lot of time on the Foose wheel for the Roush Mustang. After cutting the spokes at the outer edge so they would sit back further I also realized that the lugs do not line up with the spokes but are offset of them.... so I had to cut each spoke off the center hub (remember how big this is) then trim them to fit the new area I needed to glue them too. While this is a major PITA that I am getting NO compensation for it had to be done and took hours to do. I probably have at least 15-20 hours in these wheels..... and the master still isn't done. Remember the cutting and such is just one part.... the laying out what has to be done is another.
I got the 69 Coronet hood just about ready for primer. This is a mini bulge hood that came as the stock R/T hood which you rarely see since most opt for the ram air version. I thought I only needed 1 hood like this but was contacted last week by one customer who informed me that her husband had decided to switch back to the stock hood from the six pack one so now I need two. I guess I will resin cast this one now, but........ what this means is the custom 68 Coronet, 6 pack hood I have a couple hours invested in is now going to take space in my junk parts bin. Oh well right ? its only time and money.
I also got the 2000 Mustang hood about ready for primer......... again, cutting, sanding, filling, sanding.... just to get to this point. Mind you I love the creating of parts not made..... but as with most of my modding its a guessing game as to what I charge and when busy with new incoming projects and such I loose track of my time on these things but when the business isn't flying along I do come to realize I loose money on a lot of my guesswork.
I also had my hands on prepping another Cuda body for the owner of the Dan Gurney AAR. He decided he wanted a 3rd car and since I was in the roll bar stage I decided to get another body built as quickly as possible so they can all get roll barred, LOL, at the same time.
Add to this some more bench time on the Woodie..... breaking down the Atomic Orange 07 Corvette, breaking down and prepping 2 Nascar bodies and there ya have it. Simple huh??? Couple hours of work huh ???? HA !
I will post some pictures later today or tomorrow.... I just don't have time.... im over an hour into this now and its just words.
OK....... Im out !
8/6..... and the Birds Nest
Tuesday was one of those days filled with working on many little things...... well that was the morning part actually. The afternoon was spent creating a birds nest, rumble seat, for a 57 T Bird. This project..... one of the many for Pete...... involved created a flip open panel within the trunk skin with a same style seat pattern attached to it. Reworking the bottom of the seat to fit within the trunk area correctly and then making it all work just like the way they did back then.
Im not sure if this was an actual 1957 option or not. Seems to me that this might have been created a little later for the specific purpose of housing beauty queens for parades, LOL. However you want to look at it the end result is its a (real world) fiberglass panel that fits flush on the deck with the seat attached so it works like the old rumble seats.
First off I had to lay out where to make the cut on the decklid. While engineers use micrometers and such I use what god gave me.... my eyes. Plus between looking at the pictures and the diecast cars part I have to take into consideration the way the part is made and how the trunk hinges are attached since this isn't a real car.
While this might seem simple its a lot more involved then you think. Once I have the cut lines laid out and its cut then I have to layout and cut the sheet styrene to fit. Mind you this is a rough cut as seen in the picture here. Once I have the basic piece cut I will then square off (and round off too) all the edges and corners on both the decklid and the deck panel. I used a sheet plastic that is just about the thickness of the decklid. This way when its opened it will look like it was cut from the decklid to start with.
With this done I then have to size up the seats, the trunk floor and where the working hinges are going for the flip open panel. Since we are going to work with the same seat pattern and the seat itself is 5/8 of an inch wider than the opening so I of course had to lay out and cut the seat back. This involves, for me, eyeing up what should look right. See the middle of the seats have a pattern so just cutting a section out of that will not work as then the middle of the whole seat (flat area) will look much wider than it should compared to the rolled or ribbed area of the inserts.
So I made a couple cuts..... when I was done I tack glued the pieces together and test fit them. Only problem was the seat fit but gave me no room for the working hinges as needed to make the installation look correct so I had to go back and rework the seat some more. I personally want to redo this seat as I need to remove more from the (flat) middle and less from the rolled pattern area. So I have to review what I have here in projects yet to be done and see if I can snag a seat from one of them for cutting.
OK..... so the seat back is actually attached to the thin piece of metal plate (in real life) that is hinged (based on photos ) and has the seat bottom attached to it also. This is what kinda makes it all fold properly. Once I had the seat back cut up I laid out the thin piece and cut that.... attached the seat back to it and glued that too the panel. As you see with the seat up this folds into the trunk area and as the panel comes down to close there is a lip that runs around the inside of the decklid opening that it rests on. This of course will be added once I get to that stage.
So this is the early mock up...... about 4-5 hours already but hey... its what he wanted. I believe I can get away with just painting the decklid once finished but.... the sheet styrene while flexible alone is NOT flexible with the seat back attached to it. This means I will be laying some bondo on the panel to make sure the trunk contours flow the proper way so when closed it will look like a stock decklid with a seam running around the middle of it.
Ok..... im out ! Oh yeah , sorry for the dark pictures it was cloudy in AZ, LOL.
Im not sure if this was an actual 1957 option or not. Seems to me that this might have been created a little later for the specific purpose of housing beauty queens for parades, LOL. However you want to look at it the end result is its a (real world) fiberglass panel that fits flush on the deck with the seat attached so it works like the old rumble seats.
First off I had to lay out where to make the cut on the decklid. While engineers use micrometers and such I use what god gave me.... my eyes. Plus between looking at the pictures and the diecast cars part I have to take into consideration the way the part is made and how the trunk hinges are attached since this isn't a real car.
While this might seem simple its a lot more involved then you think. Once I have the cut lines laid out and its cut then I have to layout and cut the sheet styrene to fit. Mind you this is a rough cut as seen in the picture here. Once I have the basic piece cut I will then square off (and round off too) all the edges and corners on both the decklid and the deck panel. I used a sheet plastic that is just about the thickness of the decklid. This way when its opened it will look like it was cut from the decklid to start with.
With this done I then have to size up the seats, the trunk floor and where the working hinges are going for the flip open panel. Since we are going to work with the same seat pattern and the seat itself is 5/8 of an inch wider than the opening so I of course had to lay out and cut the seat back. This involves, for me, eyeing up what should look right. See the middle of the seats have a pattern so just cutting a section out of that will not work as then the middle of the whole seat (flat area) will look much wider than it should compared to the rolled or ribbed area of the inserts.
So I made a couple cuts..... when I was done I tack glued the pieces together and test fit them. Only problem was the seat fit but gave me no room for the working hinges as needed to make the installation look correct so I had to go back and rework the seat some more. I personally want to redo this seat as I need to remove more from the (flat) middle and less from the rolled pattern area. So I have to review what I have here in projects yet to be done and see if I can snag a seat from one of them for cutting.
OK..... so the seat back is actually attached to the thin piece of metal plate (in real life) that is hinged (based on photos ) and has the seat bottom attached to it also. This is what kinda makes it all fold properly. Once I had the seat back cut up I laid out the thin piece and cut that.... attached the seat back to it and glued that too the panel. As you see with the seat up this folds into the trunk area and as the panel comes down to close there is a lip that runs around the inside of the decklid opening that it rests on. This of course will be added once I get to that stage.
So this is the early mock up...... about 4-5 hours already but hey... its what he wanted. I believe I can get away with just painting the decklid once finished but.... the sheet styrene while flexible alone is NOT flexible with the seat back attached to it. This means I will be laying some bondo on the panel to make sure the trunk contours flow the proper way so when closed it will look like a stock decklid with a seam running around the middle of it.
Ok..... im out ! Oh yeah , sorry for the dark pictures it was cloudy in AZ, LOL.
Mondays short and sweet post
So today I will only be covering a couple of the cars I cut up to modify last week. Basically the 95 Cobra R for Doug.
This car started as an Auto Art Saleen. Add some body parts from a Jouef Boss Mustang and we have a 95 Cobra. This involved (as I have stated already) cutting up the Boss body for a few items of need.
First off the front end. The Boss body is molded as one unit while the AA has removable front and rear bumpers and the AA taillights are separate units also.
Cutting the front bumper was rather simple though I did make my first cut a little low and will need to do some filler work. This once cut and sized up did not fit the AA body as the bumper was to narrow but about 1/4 inch. The thing is its not wide enough at the wheel well openings so instead of slicing this I just stretched/pulled/bent the outer edges of the front bumper so it lineup correctly and it did.
Next up was the hood. Both of these diecast cars have molded in hood hinges. Of course neither line up correctly and the AA hood system is a little out of the ordinary for the diecast world so I assessed the pieces and then made a decision to fit the AA hinges on the modified Boss hood. First this was cutting the hood (at the hinges) off the Boss body. See 90% of all diecast cars have removable hoods and doors but there are some cars (Jouef is one) that mold them in so they cannot be removed without breaking the metal press points that hold it in place to work correctly.
Now..... this Boss hood is also slightly narrower than the AA hood and I was originally thinking I might just cut the scoop out and section onto the AA hood but due to where the AA hinges are located I decided to fit the Boss hood to the AA hinges. Once removed I ground down where the Boss hinges were..... then took the AA hood and actually cut the hinge bases out of the hood complete. See upon inspection I could see with the height of the Boss hood and the flatness of the AA hood I would need that full area on the AA hood so once attached the Boss hood would work like normal. Wow..... lots of, probably confusing, words here but the end result is that the once everything was cut and I notched the Boss hood a hair for clearance the Boss hood worked like it was made from the factory on the AA car. I still have to widen the Boss hood a little to fill the seam gaps but this is the best way for me to do this and make it look factory.
On to the rear bumper/taillights. Again like the front the rear bumper is molded in.... along with the taillight housings. So....this took a bit more thought when it came to cutting. Once I laid out the cut lines in marker I set about removing it as one piece from the body. Once done it was off to the grinding wheel to trim, shave and trim some more. When I was finally to a point I felt the bumper would fit on the car I had to lay out the splice cuts. See this is again way narrower than the AA body as you can see in the pictures. Of course I need to save the molded in Mustang words so I couldn't just slice it down the middle. Once this was done I then realized I needed to so even more grinding to trim around the taillight openings so the would fit in the little bucket area on the AA body. Once done and temp glued in place you can see the results. I do have to do some filling to line up the gaps correctly where the bumper meets the body and of course the gaps on the face of the bumper where its spliced.
I did chat with Mr Mustang over the weekend and he suggests I make a mold for both the front, rear and hood so these can be attached to other projects down the line....... WHAT !!!!!!! other projects !!!!!!!....... I thought we had them all covered, LMAO..... just joking..... LOL.
Note the line mark on the rocker..... this will need a recess cut so it looks like the Cobra rocker trim... I just haven't gotten to that part yet.
Now I moved onto the Falcon..... and while I will not go into deep detail you can get an idea of whats involved. I will have to section the roof but the width is pretty much correct and the tail gate is pretty close to the rear car too, once cut and trimmed. These Falcon sedan delivery cars all had framed windows on the doors so I will have to construct that from scratch but I have already on a couple other cars so it should me no problem, LOL.
Ok...... thats it ....... Im out !
This car started as an Auto Art Saleen. Add some body parts from a Jouef Boss Mustang and we have a 95 Cobra. This involved (as I have stated already) cutting up the Boss body for a few items of need.
First off the front end. The Boss body is molded as one unit while the AA has removable front and rear bumpers and the AA taillights are separate units also.
Cutting the front bumper was rather simple though I did make my first cut a little low and will need to do some filler work. This once cut and sized up did not fit the AA body as the bumper was to narrow but about 1/4 inch. The thing is its not wide enough at the wheel well openings so instead of slicing this I just stretched/pulled/bent the outer edges of the front bumper so it lineup correctly and it did.
Next up was the hood. Both of these diecast cars have molded in hood hinges. Of course neither line up correctly and the AA hood system is a little out of the ordinary for the diecast world so I assessed the pieces and then made a decision to fit the AA hinges on the modified Boss hood. First this was cutting the hood (at the hinges) off the Boss body. See 90% of all diecast cars have removable hoods and doors but there are some cars (Jouef is one) that mold them in so they cannot be removed without breaking the metal press points that hold it in place to work correctly.
Now..... this Boss hood is also slightly narrower than the AA hood and I was originally thinking I might just cut the scoop out and section onto the AA hood but due to where the AA hinges are located I decided to fit the Boss hood to the AA hinges. Once removed I ground down where the Boss hinges were..... then took the AA hood and actually cut the hinge bases out of the hood complete. See upon inspection I could see with the height of the Boss hood and the flatness of the AA hood I would need that full area on the AA hood so once attached the Boss hood would work like normal. Wow..... lots of, probably confusing, words here but the end result is that the once everything was cut and I notched the Boss hood a hair for clearance the Boss hood worked like it was made from the factory on the AA car. I still have to widen the Boss hood a little to fill the seam gaps but this is the best way for me to do this and make it look factory.
On to the rear bumper/taillights. Again like the front the rear bumper is molded in.... along with the taillight housings. So....this took a bit more thought when it came to cutting. Once I laid out the cut lines in marker I set about removing it as one piece from the body. Once done it was off to the grinding wheel to trim, shave and trim some more. When I was finally to a point I felt the bumper would fit on the car I had to lay out the splice cuts. See this is again way narrower than the AA body as you can see in the pictures. Of course I need to save the molded in Mustang words so I couldn't just slice it down the middle. Once this was done I then realized I needed to so even more grinding to trim around the taillight openings so the would fit in the little bucket area on the AA body. Once done and temp glued in place you can see the results. I do have to do some filling to line up the gaps correctly where the bumper meets the body and of course the gaps on the face of the bumper where its spliced.
I did chat with Mr Mustang over the weekend and he suggests I make a mold for both the front, rear and hood so these can be attached to other projects down the line....... WHAT !!!!!!! other projects !!!!!!!....... I thought we had them all covered, LMAO..... just joking..... LOL.
Note the line mark on the rocker..... this will need a recess cut so it looks like the Cobra rocker trim... I just haven't gotten to that part yet.
Now I moved onto the Falcon..... and while I will not go into deep detail you can get an idea of whats involved. I will have to section the roof but the width is pretty much correct and the tail gate is pretty close to the rear car too, once cut and trimmed. These Falcon sedan delivery cars all had framed windows on the doors so I will have to construct that from scratch but I have already on a couple other cars so it should me no problem, LOL.
Ok...... thats it ....... Im out !
Friday stuff
Well its Friday and a cloudy one to boot. Couple things from yesterday though. One is I spent some 3 hours trying to figure out whats up with my computer. Over the last couple months I have been running on a almost full hard drive and no matter what I delete or move to an external hard drive its still full. Apparently there is something within the system that is sucking the space up. Since I am running at over 39Gig of a 40Gig hard drive there is never enough space to run a defrag nor most of the virus programs available online. Geek Squad at Best Buy wants at least $199.00 to inspect and clean it and $299.00 if they install new virus software. My virus protection was a free be from Comcast cable when I lived in OR. Here I use Qwest DSL and I don't think the protection is working the same since I didn't have a problem till I moved here. Oh well......... guess I will figure something out ...... since I have too at some point. I wont be paying $300 though to fix this, I will toss it first and buy a new one.
So a couple years ago I contracted to do a pro street style 70 Camaro from a guy. Not to radical..... tubbed, cage, built motor.... typical stuff. This project has had various delays.... partly his fault, partly mine but he finally sent me more pictures which arrived yesterday so I was working on that. This involves a chassis swap from another car, cut, trim and fitted to this body.... along with reworking it so the interior bucket will fit and can be finished ok. I had an engine for this car lined up but since the advent of GMP's completely detailed race engines I have decided to shelve the one I had and just use the GMP version. Sadly though I cannot use the great looking GMP Drag Stars on this car as their rims are too small for the tires he wants on the diecast. This leaves me with the Ertl version of a Drag Star which is ok I guess.
One thing I found funny was the paint job and price. He was a Chromalusion Red Fire.. a paint I quoted at $200, LMAO. I must have written this contract after spraying cars back then as there was/is NO WAY I can do that paint job for that price. I will have to re evaluate this and come up with something that works for him and me. He knows he will be paying more then the original $400.00 contract price so it should be ok.
Here is a shot of the car on the bench......not sure how much you can see but its slammed to the ground for the most part.
I did finish pouring the convertible boots for the Chevelles..... I thought I had that done but upon inspection realized I needed to re do 2 of them as they were not quite good enough to put on a car.
Today I am in cutting mode..... so.... its off to cut bodies, hoods, roofs, trunks and whatever else I have lined up for cutting. I need to get to it too...... its gonna be another 110+ degree day here today so I need to cut now to avoid the heat later. See the cutting and grinding is done in a designated area in the garage since it makes so much dust and dirt. That garage gets the scorching afternoon sun so its just no a place you want to be working in the late afternoon.
OK.... Im out !
So a couple years ago I contracted to do a pro street style 70 Camaro from a guy. Not to radical..... tubbed, cage, built motor.... typical stuff. This project has had various delays.... partly his fault, partly mine but he finally sent me more pictures which arrived yesterday so I was working on that. This involves a chassis swap from another car, cut, trim and fitted to this body.... along with reworking it so the interior bucket will fit and can be finished ok. I had an engine for this car lined up but since the advent of GMP's completely detailed race engines I have decided to shelve the one I had and just use the GMP version. Sadly though I cannot use the great looking GMP Drag Stars on this car as their rims are too small for the tires he wants on the diecast. This leaves me with the Ertl version of a Drag Star which is ok I guess.
One thing I found funny was the paint job and price. He was a Chromalusion Red Fire.. a paint I quoted at $200, LMAO. I must have written this contract after spraying cars back then as there was/is NO WAY I can do that paint job for that price. I will have to re evaluate this and come up with something that works for him and me. He knows he will be paying more then the original $400.00 contract price so it should be ok.
Here is a shot of the car on the bench......not sure how much you can see but its slammed to the ground for the most part.
I did finish pouring the convertible boots for the Chevelles..... I thought I had that done but upon inspection realized I needed to re do 2 of them as they were not quite good enough to put on a car.
Today I am in cutting mode..... so.... its off to cut bodies, hoods, roofs, trunks and whatever else I have lined up for cutting. I need to get to it too...... its gonna be another 110+ degree day here today so I need to cut now to avoid the heat later. See the cutting and grinding is done in a designated area in the garage since it makes so much dust and dirt. That garage gets the scorching afternoon sun so its just no a place you want to be working in the late afternoon.
OK.... Im out !
7/31... did I meet the shipping number ?
Actually.... Im not sure. While looking at the calendar I just realized that it is the end of the month and I had a goal. I think..... I hit the original 25 number but I definitely missed the 35 number. Its just hard to push cars out the door in this business and as I will comment on here you can understand why.
First off.... I did get the Red 69 Camaro and White 70 GTO dry assembled as you see by the pictures here. The GTO became a PITA when I had to add A/C. Not only was there none for this car available but I had to make a couple parts from scratch then do the whole trail and error method to see if the hood would then close once fitted. I spend no less then 2 1/2 hours Tuesday afternoon cutting, sanding, gluing and trial fitting the parts needed to make it look correct. This finally done the car looks great IMHO and the customer upon seeing the pictures thought it was a picture of his real car sitting in the driveway. Thats always cool to hear in this business. Though.... he didn't have a ram air car so I have to change out the air cleaner and on a funny note, I told him in the email I sent the pictures in that HIS plates will be on the car when shipped. He left a message about the car and at the end said..... oh yeah... you made the wrong license plates, thats not my plate, LOL. Ugh... people, LOL.
The Camaro was a little easier except the owner (not who im doing the car for) has a 502 in it I believe and the car looks stock including the 396 badging on the fender. So fitting the much nicer GMP after market engine in the car was a little project in its self. Now however I also need to fit a chrome air cleaner and the underhood tolerance is such this I think this is going to be another trial and error method since the top of the carb had to be trimmed a hair to get the hood to close even at this point, guess we will see. I also kept calling this car Bolero Red and its so not.... LOL..... its Garnet Red. I believe Bolero was a 67-68 only color if I remember right but hey... its painted the right color and thats all that matters. I could call it Candy Apple Blue..... as long as it matches, LOL.
So you guys know the vinyl tops are shot in a satin finish though they look shiny. These will be dulled somewhat so its not as shiny. I changed my satin color as its normally not this glossy looking. I guess this is what the dragster customer meant by gloss Black that was not as glossy, LOL.
Among other things I was working on are the 67 Dart that I finally got the rear bumper done on. I also made new taillight lenses and think I have the deck lid trim piece laid out on the computer for printing so that will finish up the back end. I also spent sometime hammering out the fender trim. For those who never followed this basically the 67 Darts have an upper body line stainless steel trim piece that ran from the front of the front fender to the rear of the car. Well I had done the one side to see if it would work and was doing the other yesterday. This requires my hammering flat a standard paper clip..... yep paper clip...... then getting it as straight as possible to glue to the body and making any bends where they need to be made. I will try to find a picture of this so you can see how it looks finished.... at least on one side, LOL. I was also working on the grill and headlight area but that still needs some work. I have to use a picture of a 67 dart grill for duplication and getting a nice clean eye level view picture of one has been a tough job.
I also worked on the 59 Impala some as I had to do some filler work where the rear window meets the deck lid. I say deck lid as it really does come close to meeting there. Its not like most cars where you have a filler panel between the rear window and the deck lid.... the 59 has just the smallest filler between the two areas. This also means I have to cut the deck lid seam in the appropriate place now too.
Along with these couple of projects I also poured more convertible boots for 6,70 Chevelle convertibles im doing for another diecast dealer. So....... what seems like not so much was really a lot of little things again.
OK..... Im out !
First off.... I did get the Red 69 Camaro and White 70 GTO dry assembled as you see by the pictures here. The GTO became a PITA when I had to add A/C. Not only was there none for this car available but I had to make a couple parts from scratch then do the whole trail and error method to see if the hood would then close once fitted. I spend no less then 2 1/2 hours Tuesday afternoon cutting, sanding, gluing and trial fitting the parts needed to make it look correct. This finally done the car looks great IMHO and the customer upon seeing the pictures thought it was a picture of his real car sitting in the driveway. Thats always cool to hear in this business. Though.... he didn't have a ram air car so I have to change out the air cleaner and on a funny note, I told him in the email I sent the pictures in that HIS plates will be on the car when shipped. He left a message about the car and at the end said..... oh yeah... you made the wrong license plates, thats not my plate, LOL. Ugh... people, LOL.
The Camaro was a little easier except the owner (not who im doing the car for) has a 502 in it I believe and the car looks stock including the 396 badging on the fender. So fitting the much nicer GMP after market engine in the car was a little project in its self. Now however I also need to fit a chrome air cleaner and the underhood tolerance is such this I think this is going to be another trial and error method since the top of the carb had to be trimmed a hair to get the hood to close even at this point, guess we will see. I also kept calling this car Bolero Red and its so not.... LOL..... its Garnet Red. I believe Bolero was a 67-68 only color if I remember right but hey... its painted the right color and thats all that matters. I could call it Candy Apple Blue..... as long as it matches, LOL.
So you guys know the vinyl tops are shot in a satin finish though they look shiny. These will be dulled somewhat so its not as shiny. I changed my satin color as its normally not this glossy looking. I guess this is what the dragster customer meant by gloss Black that was not as glossy, LOL.
Among other things I was working on are the 67 Dart that I finally got the rear bumper done on. I also made new taillight lenses and think I have the deck lid trim piece laid out on the computer for printing so that will finish up the back end. I also spent sometime hammering out the fender trim. For those who never followed this basically the 67 Darts have an upper body line stainless steel trim piece that ran from the front of the front fender to the rear of the car. Well I had done the one side to see if it would work and was doing the other yesterday. This requires my hammering flat a standard paper clip..... yep paper clip...... then getting it as straight as possible to glue to the body and making any bends where they need to be made. I will try to find a picture of this so you can see how it looks finished.... at least on one side, LOL. I was also working on the grill and headlight area but that still needs some work. I have to use a picture of a 67 dart grill for duplication and getting a nice clean eye level view picture of one has been a tough job.
I also worked on the 59 Impala some as I had to do some filler work where the rear window meets the deck lid. I say deck lid as it really does come close to meeting there. Its not like most cars where you have a filler panel between the rear window and the deck lid.... the 59 has just the smallest filler between the two areas. This also means I have to cut the deck lid seam in the appropriate place now too.
Along with these couple of projects I also poured more convertible boots for 6,70 Chevelle convertibles im doing for another diecast dealer. So....... what seems like not so much was really a lot of little things again.
OK..... Im out !
7/28..... The long weeks journey
So a week ago I posted some stuff on here and thought I would be back to posting daily but have been busy with little boring things to the point that I just didn't get back to it. I did however have a few people email me asked to post even the little crap I have to do so they can get a feel for that too. Well.... here we go.... this is in no certain order but this, and im sure more that I forgot, is what I have been working on in the last week.
First off I had to do some box reworking to get Pete's Red T-Bird to fit in the styrofoam sleeve so the modified car could ship back to him without breaking. This encompassed the trimming of the styrofoam in little bits and pieces then trial fitting the car for secure fit. Stupid little shit but time consuming and had to be done.
OK.... now to the rest of the stuff...
Strip and prep a 70 Challenger body for paint. This included stripping the chassis of everything for the repaint then overspray. I also had to fill the deck lid holes and since this is going to be a convertible I had to cut the roof and finish sand those areas.
I continued to do the rework on the 3 spoke wheel, this time with correct clay and thats just about ready to be mold cast again.
I decided to create a Foose type wheel that my one customer has on his Roush Mustang. This is the car I was searching for wheels for earlier this year and thought I got something close but after a month he bitched about them and sent the car back. Since there is nothing remotely close I decided that I would make something really close then have them for other peoples projects (Doug you will be forced to buy these for something, LMAO). Well this is a wheel I should charge about $200.00 to create and I probably already have 5-6 hours invested with another 5-6 to go. Since I cant go back and charge him Im chalking it up to learning, LOL. I will post more about the wheel in the future with pictures of what it started as and where its at now.
I had two more Roush Blackjacks to do for customers.... both got broken down and one is about done. The Blackjack includes a solid color interior instead of 2 tone as the stock Roush are. Then I add some gear shift handle detail, dash detail, underhood detail. Which..... I see that different Blackjacks have different underhood detail. Then I have to do some outer body badging and satin Black hood and deck lid stripes. One is almost completed the other has a few things left. They will both be finished this week.
On top of the Foose wheels I also had to do some other minor work on the same guys Roush. I replaced the rear roof vents with clear plastic styrene cut to fit then sprayed black on the inside to reflect dark window tint. Well he didn't like that either so I had to cut more pieces and now have to re tint them. I also was asked to create a little map decal for the in dash DVD type player I made for him. Ugh.... and to think he saw pictures of this car and approved it and now im dumping 10-20 hours in to it for nuttin..... oh well, such is life.
Next up is the 66 Shelby GT 350 convertible I'm doing. Not done in diecast as of yet this is a combination of a Precision 100, 64 1/2 Mustang and a 66 Shelby Collectibles Mustang. So..... I break down both cars... have to use the Shelby hood on the 64, along with the engine, trans, rear end, grill and some of the interior parts. Well... so I thought. See the 66 dash is 5/8 of an inch wider then the 64 body...... yet the Shelby hood is a 1/16th of an inch narrower. UGH !!!! I hate this parts swapping sometimes. Oh wait it gets better as you read on down below LOL. So the engine is nice and since its a 4spd and thats what I need that should cross over ok. The grill I can do by reworking the 64 body and I have already removed the Shelby side scoops and glued them to the 64. I did however forget that the 64 Mustangs are as hard to take apart as the 57 T-Birds. But hey....... thats ok.
I have to create a 95 Cobra R..... yeah.... they don't make this one either. This starts with a 94 Saleen.... then I have to cut up and add the front and rear bumpers off a 94 Joueff (piece of shit diecast car) along with..... cutting the taillight housings out of the metal body and re fitting them to the Auto Art Saleen body, simple ? HA !!!!! I also have to either section the center of the Joueff hood or rework that hood all together to use the AA hood hinges. Can't do a hood swap and not have a working hood. Well.... the Joueff body is all marked as to where the cuts need to be done but..... the front and rear bumpers are wider then the AA body so I will probably have to slice them down the middle to remove enough metal so they will fit correctly. Guess we will see when I get to that point.
Next up.... the 67 Mustang Bonneville Salt Flat racer. This car was built using a Ford Indy car engine and was a FIA speed record holder. This starts with a Johnny Lightning (owned by RC2/Ertl at the time) and once broken down I realize that the whole chassis and inner fender wells are chrome plated. This is because the JL line of small scale cars are like this so they carried that thought over to the 1/18 scale ones and it was a stupid ass idea, LMAO. Well..... I started removing everything from the body for some mods including filling the wiper arm holes, the door handle holes and cutting the hood for hood pins. Chassis wise I of course had to strip the whole thing since we are not using a chrome chassis. I will have to talk with Doug further about how he wants this chassis done.
I took a AA Saleen Mustang apart thats getting a lot of little work done to it. First off is the deck spoiler. The car we are duplicating has a stepped deck spoiler. This is what they put on the 94 Saleen SR model. Along with this he (Doug) wants some engine detail done. Something I don't normally do but have in this case. This included painted the coil box.... finding a distributor (I used to have them made from spun aluminum), drilling and mounting that... the drilling out the engine block on both sides to mount the plug wires which are run in the correct firing order. There will also be some minor under hood decal work and then its off to the interior. This car gets a roll bar, no rear seat and custom racing seats painted Yellow along with the dash mounting gage cluster, oh yeah and that deck spoiler I have yet to find or create, LOL.
With this latest batch of cars from Doug I also got the parts car convertible I needed the boot off of in order to create a master for the numerous late model (99-04) Mustangs he plans on doing. I thought I had created a mold of this boot but for the life of me cannot find it. The boot, while close to correct needs various small modifications to work universally on the Mustang body. This is now done and its waiting for mold process.
I did get the inner Grey painted on the dragster body as I might have mentioned but then while reattaching the bodies mounting tabs I found out I had missed something in the long list of items the owner wanted done. See based on the pricing I thought I was JUST painting the body. Come to find out he wanted both the front and rear wings painted. Front to match the color of the body and rear a glossy, but not too glossy, LOL, Black. The rear one is done but I have to shoot the front one so that can leave. Everything else is done... ugh. Oh well... I will paint it with the next batch.
One of the projects I really wanted to do was a station wagon type conversion. Doug decided he wanted the Shelby 63 Falcon Panel Wagon done and while I haven't even written a contract for it I started breaking everything down and getting it ready for cutting. This involves the roof section of a 55 Chevy panel... that's mounted to the windshield frame of the Falcon will make it close but.... after some measuring I will be making some cuts in the top and the rear door. This will however be do able, LOL. The Falcon.... while a cheap car in diecast standards is a very well done car with only the air cleaner out of scale IMHO. The cheapo car even has all photoetched emblems, Im impressed. Anyway.. this was fun and time consuming from taking the Falcon apart to just sizing everything up. Another first coming to a customer near you.... ok , well maybe not..... how about a customer on this planet, LOL.
I did also take apart another 57 T Bird. This one is getting painted Coral Sand and will be shot with the Pink one for Pete. Ugh...... more T-Birds, LMAO.
OK ..... still with me ??? By the way, this is a very condensed version of the time spent on this little pieces of diecast art.
Here are a couple other cars I got to work on. I striped down, primed and painted 3 cars. The 70 GTO in White, 69 Chevelle in Black and a 69 Camaro in Bolero Red. Once these were dry I laid out and shot the vinyl tops on 2 of them as you see in the picture. I was going to work at getting all the decals and stripes done but decided I had done enough in the last week and decided to chill. I will however get those things done today along with the stripes on the 71 Challenger I have and hopefully get them clear coated today. Here is a shot of the 3 bodies in color. Man I love my vinyl tops..... they fricken rock ! Too bad you can't see them better in this picture though.
For the record... with shipping some 10 cars over the last week I had 10 emtly bins in the shop and I hate that so I switched to breakdown mode to keep the shop looking full. For those with projects in house already it's back to your stuff this week.
Ok , Im out !
First off I had to do some box reworking to get Pete's Red T-Bird to fit in the styrofoam sleeve so the modified car could ship back to him without breaking. This encompassed the trimming of the styrofoam in little bits and pieces then trial fitting the car for secure fit. Stupid little shit but time consuming and had to be done.
OK.... now to the rest of the stuff...
Strip and prep a 70 Challenger body for paint. This included stripping the chassis of everything for the repaint then overspray. I also had to fill the deck lid holes and since this is going to be a convertible I had to cut the roof and finish sand those areas.
I continued to do the rework on the 3 spoke wheel, this time with correct clay and thats just about ready to be mold cast again.
I decided to create a Foose type wheel that my one customer has on his Roush Mustang. This is the car I was searching for wheels for earlier this year and thought I got something close but after a month he bitched about them and sent the car back. Since there is nothing remotely close I decided that I would make something really close then have them for other peoples projects (Doug you will be forced to buy these for something, LMAO). Well this is a wheel I should charge about $200.00 to create and I probably already have 5-6 hours invested with another 5-6 to go. Since I cant go back and charge him Im chalking it up to learning, LOL. I will post more about the wheel in the future with pictures of what it started as and where its at now.
I had two more Roush Blackjacks to do for customers.... both got broken down and one is about done. The Blackjack includes a solid color interior instead of 2 tone as the stock Roush are. Then I add some gear shift handle detail, dash detail, underhood detail. Which..... I see that different Blackjacks have different underhood detail. Then I have to do some outer body badging and satin Black hood and deck lid stripes. One is almost completed the other has a few things left. They will both be finished this week.
On top of the Foose wheels I also had to do some other minor work on the same guys Roush. I replaced the rear roof vents with clear plastic styrene cut to fit then sprayed black on the inside to reflect dark window tint. Well he didn't like that either so I had to cut more pieces and now have to re tint them. I also was asked to create a little map decal for the in dash DVD type player I made for him. Ugh.... and to think he saw pictures of this car and approved it and now im dumping 10-20 hours in to it for nuttin..... oh well, such is life.
Next up is the 66 Shelby GT 350 convertible I'm doing. Not done in diecast as of yet this is a combination of a Precision 100, 64 1/2 Mustang and a 66 Shelby Collectibles Mustang. So..... I break down both cars... have to use the Shelby hood on the 64, along with the engine, trans, rear end, grill and some of the interior parts. Well... so I thought. See the 66 dash is 5/8 of an inch wider then the 64 body...... yet the Shelby hood is a 1/16th of an inch narrower. UGH !!!! I hate this parts swapping sometimes. Oh wait it gets better as you read on down below LOL. So the engine is nice and since its a 4spd and thats what I need that should cross over ok. The grill I can do by reworking the 64 body and I have already removed the Shelby side scoops and glued them to the 64. I did however forget that the 64 Mustangs are as hard to take apart as the 57 T-Birds. But hey....... thats ok.
I have to create a 95 Cobra R..... yeah.... they don't make this one either. This starts with a 94 Saleen.... then I have to cut up and add the front and rear bumpers off a 94 Joueff (piece of shit diecast car) along with..... cutting the taillight housings out of the metal body and re fitting them to the Auto Art Saleen body, simple ? HA !!!!! I also have to either section the center of the Joueff hood or rework that hood all together to use the AA hood hinges. Can't do a hood swap and not have a working hood. Well.... the Joueff body is all marked as to where the cuts need to be done but..... the front and rear bumpers are wider then the AA body so I will probably have to slice them down the middle to remove enough metal so they will fit correctly. Guess we will see when I get to that point.
Next up.... the 67 Mustang Bonneville Salt Flat racer. This car was built using a Ford Indy car engine and was a FIA speed record holder. This starts with a Johnny Lightning (owned by RC2/Ertl at the time) and once broken down I realize that the whole chassis and inner fender wells are chrome plated. This is because the JL line of small scale cars are like this so they carried that thought over to the 1/18 scale ones and it was a stupid ass idea, LMAO. Well..... I started removing everything from the body for some mods including filling the wiper arm holes, the door handle holes and cutting the hood for hood pins. Chassis wise I of course had to strip the whole thing since we are not using a chrome chassis. I will have to talk with Doug further about how he wants this chassis done.
I took a AA Saleen Mustang apart thats getting a lot of little work done to it. First off is the deck spoiler. The car we are duplicating has a stepped deck spoiler. This is what they put on the 94 Saleen SR model. Along with this he (Doug) wants some engine detail done. Something I don't normally do but have in this case. This included painted the coil box.... finding a distributor (I used to have them made from spun aluminum), drilling and mounting that... the drilling out the engine block on both sides to mount the plug wires which are run in the correct firing order. There will also be some minor under hood decal work and then its off to the interior. This car gets a roll bar, no rear seat and custom racing seats painted Yellow along with the dash mounting gage cluster, oh yeah and that deck spoiler I have yet to find or create, LOL.
With this latest batch of cars from Doug I also got the parts car convertible I needed the boot off of in order to create a master for the numerous late model (99-04) Mustangs he plans on doing. I thought I had created a mold of this boot but for the life of me cannot find it. The boot, while close to correct needs various small modifications to work universally on the Mustang body. This is now done and its waiting for mold process.
I did get the inner Grey painted on the dragster body as I might have mentioned but then while reattaching the bodies mounting tabs I found out I had missed something in the long list of items the owner wanted done. See based on the pricing I thought I was JUST painting the body. Come to find out he wanted both the front and rear wings painted. Front to match the color of the body and rear a glossy, but not too glossy, LOL, Black. The rear one is done but I have to shoot the front one so that can leave. Everything else is done... ugh. Oh well... I will paint it with the next batch.
One of the projects I really wanted to do was a station wagon type conversion. Doug decided he wanted the Shelby 63 Falcon Panel Wagon done and while I haven't even written a contract for it I started breaking everything down and getting it ready for cutting. This involves the roof section of a 55 Chevy panel... that's mounted to the windshield frame of the Falcon will make it close but.... after some measuring I will be making some cuts in the top and the rear door. This will however be do able, LOL. The Falcon.... while a cheap car in diecast standards is a very well done car with only the air cleaner out of scale IMHO. The cheapo car even has all photoetched emblems, Im impressed. Anyway.. this was fun and time consuming from taking the Falcon apart to just sizing everything up. Another first coming to a customer near you.... ok , well maybe not..... how about a customer on this planet, LOL.
I did also take apart another 57 T Bird. This one is getting painted Coral Sand and will be shot with the Pink one for Pete. Ugh...... more T-Birds, LMAO.
OK ..... still with me ??? By the way, this is a very condensed version of the time spent on this little pieces of diecast art.
Here are a couple other cars I got to work on. I striped down, primed and painted 3 cars. The 70 GTO in White, 69 Chevelle in Black and a 69 Camaro in Bolero Red. Once these were dry I laid out and shot the vinyl tops on 2 of them as you see in the picture. I was going to work at getting all the decals and stripes done but decided I had done enough in the last week and decided to chill. I will however get those things done today along with the stripes on the 71 Challenger I have and hopefully get them clear coated today. Here is a shot of the 3 bodies in color. Man I love my vinyl tops..... they fricken rock ! Too bad you can't see them better in this picture though.
For the record... with shipping some 10 cars over the last week I had 10 emtly bins in the shop and I hate that so I switched to breakdown mode to keep the shop looking full. For those with projects in house already it's back to your stuff this week.
Ok , Im out !
7/22 Bye Bye Birdie
Well..... its finally time to let the birds fly back too Canada, LOL.
As you see these are all ready to go....and im ready for them to leave, LOL.
Below is the 71 Monte Carlo that was part of the multiple Chevelle projects I did. As I stated its been cloudy here so I had to shoot this inside...... the results are as you see..... boring, LOL.
OK, thats it............ I'm Out !
As you see these are all ready to go....and im ready for them to leave, LOL.
Below is the 71 Monte Carlo that was part of the multiple Chevelle projects I did. As I stated its been cloudy here so I had to shoot this inside...... the results are as you see..... boring, LOL.
OK, thats it............ I'm Out !
7/21 OK...... im back !!
Well....... its been a few days since I posted anything and as I have said its due to my being very busy. Not with intense in depth projects but the little things that take so much time.
First off.... as some know the website was a down for a couple days. I decided to move my domain host to my website host and its a 5 day turn around in which the domain name had expired with the original host..... long story short it was down for about 2 days but shes all back to normal now.
Over the last few days I have worked on finishing the t-birds for shipping. As I stated when you looked at the pictures of the 5 there was a lot more detail work to do. In some cases 2-3 hours per car. See while the disassembly, prep and paintwork takes time the assembly is the most time consuming. I have told the birds owner that I will in the future be charging more to paint these. They are just so so time consuming over your standard issue high end piece.
I also found time to do the finish detail work on the Black 34 with the triple strip and used some modeling putty to smooth and fill the little imperfections in the wheel.... remember its the 3 spoke I made from scratch (almost). Well I got the wheel ready and mounted in the mold box and poured the silicone and 4 hours later...... found out that the modeling clay is not compatible with the silicone mold compound. The mold is no good and the wheel needs to be re detailed as the clay never dried and where it was on the wheel never dried in the mold.. so that was a waste of time. Hey, I learned right ? Guess thats all that counts.
I also got the inside of the dragster body painted with a shiny Grey like primer finish so all I need to do is some light detail work and that can leave.
I did get those cars boxed and shipped....... so I thought. I do not do a daily pickup anymore with UPS since they charge you $17.00 a week if you don't ship anything and if you don't ship enough product to meet there minimum. So I called them to come pick up the boxes and set them on the covered porch area where I always keep them for pickup. Well I apparently put them out AFTER they stopped by... so since they were not there (apparently I wasn't home either since they normally ring the door bell) the boxes sat there. Since I never use my front door and you can't see it from the path on the street I travel I didn't find out they were still sitting there until Thursday I think...... maybe even Friday when the postal carrier stopped by to drop off an express mail package. Ugh..... now im sure they will charge me the $6.00 I think it is for a scheduled pickup even though they didn't get picked up.
OK......... thats about it...... im sure there is more I just cant remember. Oh yeah... pictures of the finished birds tomorrow. We had a weird stretch of cloudy days here over the last 3 in sunny AZ, lol, so I couldn't shoot pictures the way I wanted.
So........ Im out !
First off.... as some know the website was a down for a couple days. I decided to move my domain host to my website host and its a 5 day turn around in which the domain name had expired with the original host..... long story short it was down for about 2 days but shes all back to normal now.
Over the last few days I have worked on finishing the t-birds for shipping. As I stated when you looked at the pictures of the 5 there was a lot more detail work to do. In some cases 2-3 hours per car. See while the disassembly, prep and paintwork takes time the assembly is the most time consuming. I have told the birds owner that I will in the future be charging more to paint these. They are just so so time consuming over your standard issue high end piece.
I also found time to do the finish detail work on the Black 34 with the triple strip and used some modeling putty to smooth and fill the little imperfections in the wheel.... remember its the 3 spoke I made from scratch (almost). Well I got the wheel ready and mounted in the mold box and poured the silicone and 4 hours later...... found out that the modeling clay is not compatible with the silicone mold compound. The mold is no good and the wheel needs to be re detailed as the clay never dried and where it was on the wheel never dried in the mold.. so that was a waste of time. Hey, I learned right ? Guess thats all that counts.
I also got the inside of the dragster body painted with a shiny Grey like primer finish so all I need to do is some light detail work and that can leave.
I did get those cars boxed and shipped....... so I thought. I do not do a daily pickup anymore with UPS since they charge you $17.00 a week if you don't ship anything and if you don't ship enough product to meet there minimum. So I called them to come pick up the boxes and set them on the covered porch area where I always keep them for pickup. Well I apparently put them out AFTER they stopped by... so since they were not there (apparently I wasn't home either since they normally ring the door bell) the boxes sat there. Since I never use my front door and you can't see it from the path on the street I travel I didn't find out they were still sitting there until Thursday I think...... maybe even Friday when the postal carrier stopped by to drop off an express mail package. Ugh..... now im sure they will charge me the $6.00 I think it is for a scheduled pickup even though they didn't get picked up.
OK......... thats about it...... im sure there is more I just cant remember. Oh yeah... pictures of the finished birds tomorrow. We had a weird stretch of cloudy days here over the last 3 in sunny AZ, lol, so I couldn't shoot pictures the way I wanted.
So........ Im out !
Finally some info 7/15
Ok ok ok ok ......... I know I have been lax on updating the blog daily but honestly I have been busy and with my want, need and desire to get as many projects completed by the end of the month that I have to prioritize and the blog is not really on that list.
I spent Friday and Sunday polishing out the last of the Birds.... I spent yesterday assembling a couple birds and here is s shot of Pete's Flock O Birds, LOL. By the way I hate putting these together...... ugh!
Note a couple things....... the easiest to see is the non hubcap wheels. See all the wheels, along with the spares, along with the trunk hinge covers and fuel filler tube cover have to be painted yet..... I was out of thinner so that still will get dealt with today. Anyway...... here is a shot of the cars...... Pete....... they are almost in shipping form, lol.
Now along with these I was also trying to get the Black 34 with the multi color side stripes assembled except for the wheels. This car started life as a 34 with a blower sticking out of the hood...... if you remember I made the hood flat..... so now this motor doesn't work. Taken the blower off and replacing it wont work since the valve covers are wrong too. So whats a guy to do ? Well I head to the parts bin...... but.... since I didn't charge him for any engine work I will not be going over the top on this.
3 hours later, LOL, ....... he has a make shift small block with a air cleaner, valve covers and alternator that resembles his under the hood. Along with just that, I had to fab up the headers, basically cut, trim, heat and fit some to fit this motor in this car... then re aligien the exhaust to fit it.
Oh yeah, speaking of motors........ Friday I assembled the 71 Monte Carlo for the 67 Chevelle projects owner and the engine that comes in that car is a piece of shit. Red block...... crappy flat valve covers..... cheap ass sticker on the black plastic air cleaner and last but not least..... blue...... yes blue spark plug wires that are the thickness of heater hoses. This along with them being about 3/4 of an inch too long make it so toy like. So as a nice gesture I ripped that POS out and replaced it with a nicely detailed Exact Detail big block. Took a little finagling to get it to fit right but what an improvement. I also didn't get paid for this but........ I have done 3 other cars for this customer.... am shipping his 3, Chevelles and 1 Monte Carlo today and he has 3, 69 Camaros ready to come to me for something.... I still dont know what but was told they are coming as soon as these 4 cars get back. So....thats 7 projects and 3 more coming.... I think giving him a free engine is a nice gesture.
OK....... well im done rambling and need to get back to it.
I'm out !
I spent Friday and Sunday polishing out the last of the Birds.... I spent yesterday assembling a couple birds and here is s shot of Pete's Flock O Birds, LOL. By the way I hate putting these together...... ugh!
Note a couple things....... the easiest to see is the non hubcap wheels. See all the wheels, along with the spares, along with the trunk hinge covers and fuel filler tube cover have to be painted yet..... I was out of thinner so that still will get dealt with today. Anyway...... here is a shot of the cars...... Pete....... they are almost in shipping form, lol.
Now along with these I was also trying to get the Black 34 with the multi color side stripes assembled except for the wheels. This car started life as a 34 with a blower sticking out of the hood...... if you remember I made the hood flat..... so now this motor doesn't work. Taken the blower off and replacing it wont work since the valve covers are wrong too. So whats a guy to do ? Well I head to the parts bin...... but.... since I didn't charge him for any engine work I will not be going over the top on this.
3 hours later, LOL, ....... he has a make shift small block with a air cleaner, valve covers and alternator that resembles his under the hood. Along with just that, I had to fab up the headers, basically cut, trim, heat and fit some to fit this motor in this car... then re aligien the exhaust to fit it.
Oh yeah, speaking of motors........ Friday I assembled the 71 Monte Carlo for the 67 Chevelle projects owner and the engine that comes in that car is a piece of shit. Red block...... crappy flat valve covers..... cheap ass sticker on the black plastic air cleaner and last but not least..... blue...... yes blue spark plug wires that are the thickness of heater hoses. This along with them being about 3/4 of an inch too long make it so toy like. So as a nice gesture I ripped that POS out and replaced it with a nicely detailed Exact Detail big block. Took a little finagling to get it to fit right but what an improvement. I also didn't get paid for this but........ I have done 3 other cars for this customer.... am shipping his 3, Chevelles and 1 Monte Carlo today and he has 3, 69 Camaros ready to come to me for something.... I still dont know what but was told they are coming as soon as these 4 cars get back. So....thats 7 projects and 3 more coming.... I think giving him a free engine is a nice gesture.
OK....... well im done rambling and need to get back to it.
I'm out !