Painting the town....... Tuesday, LOL
Posted by Dr Diecast at 5/27/2008 8:04 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
So here we are Monday morning.... oops, its Tuesday..... but it feels like Monday, LOL. Anyway..... it was an uneventful weekend. No meeting Kim... no finding the love of my life at any of the local bars, no next wife found in the produce isle at Walmart so...... its back to toy cars and the world that is.
Friday I was working on the Torana and I then realized that my printer needed a new cartridge so making the seat decals was out and I needed to find something else to play with. So I went back to working the wheels for the Black 34 with the multi color laser stripes. Not sure if ya'll remember or not but its got weird 3 spoke wheels. While the body mods and paint work were done the wheels are a whole new problem. See they just don't make 3 spoke wheels in the diecast world. So I spend the better part of the afternoon Friday trying to come up with a solution. While I think I did there will be a few more hours of modding time before I have anything that's going to look close but hey least I have it figured out.
I was also preparing a replacement T-Bird for paint. See the Inca Gold 57 Bird I painted I had a problem with..... well.... as in I, I mean me. I just wasn't thrilled with it so I decided to reshoot the color but on a different body. See you cant strip these Birds as they have multiple plastic items you cannot remove. Plastic strip will work but not on the metal body and what works on that melts the plastic parts so ....... I hand sand the body to prep is for paint.
Ok...... skip ahead.... I decide to use a body from a car my customer is planning on having made into a, in progress, restored car. See this car has some broken parts on it but the body is fine. So this was one of the first issue cars from Ertl under there Precision 100 series. These were highly detailed 57 T-Birds. They have gone on to do a few more repaint versions and some in a lesser packaging but what I noticed is the difference in assembly between the early first run cars and the later run ones.
First off.... the Thunderbird emblems (plastic) on the hood and trunk are much smaller then the ones they build now. Yep Pete (customer) go look.... its noticeable.
Secondly...... while taking the car apart I noticed how little things like hoses and cables are no longer fitted and glued in the right places. Heater hoses that ran thru the fender are now glued at the fender. Batter cables that were run to the engine are now laying loose down the side of the inner fender well. This all saves time im sure and when making 1000-3000 cars its ALOT of time. The other thing I noticed was how much less glue was used on the later versions. Also on the chassis of these cars there are little black caps that cover the screw hole recesses and again, on the first ones these were glued in on the later ones they are pressed in . Both suck to get out but one sucks less, LOL.
Below I'm posting some pictures of a car I'm working on for a customer. This car is pretty cool and truly a custom piece. Back years ago this car was made as a gasser with a jacked up front end.... cut out wheel wells and was all race. As you see it now its much different. Many little and some major things went into getting it to this stage. While viewing this please understand this is NOT finished but in a stage of assembly so show a couple features I have instilled.
First off...... the body was modded to have stock rear wheel wells. I then cut the front fenders from the body and secured the hood, filled the body seam that had chrome trim running thru it and will be adding 36 Ford headlights. The body had the rest of the body seams filled from the chrome trim and then I cut off the door hinges and reworked them to create suicide doors. This was a much more involved project then it looks. I then took the deck lid and cut an opening to make a recessed license plate holder, filled the taillight holes and cut in hew ones to house the recessed lights that are actually rear 1/4 marker lights from a C-5 Corvette.
Once this was done I reworked a Mustang Gasser chassis to fit under the body and then modded a new version of the Willys interior bucket to fit this car. Once I fabbed up the brace for the tilt front end I came up with this.
It will be fitted with the early style Hemi as you see but of course finished. Then painted Candy Apple Red (actually was a painted 2 times already but not to my liking) and fitted with Cragar wheels both front and back with a Black custom interior.
OK....... well I think that's enough for now so.......
I'm out !
Friday I was working on the Torana and I then realized that my printer needed a new cartridge so making the seat decals was out and I needed to find something else to play with. So I went back to working the wheels for the Black 34 with the multi color laser stripes. Not sure if ya'll remember or not but its got weird 3 spoke wheels. While the body mods and paint work were done the wheels are a whole new problem. See they just don't make 3 spoke wheels in the diecast world. So I spend the better part of the afternoon Friday trying to come up with a solution. While I think I did there will be a few more hours of modding time before I have anything that's going to look close but hey least I have it figured out.
I was also preparing a replacement T-Bird for paint. See the Inca Gold 57 Bird I painted I had a problem with..... well.... as in I, I mean me. I just wasn't thrilled with it so I decided to reshoot the color but on a different body. See you cant strip these Birds as they have multiple plastic items you cannot remove. Plastic strip will work but not on the metal body and what works on that melts the plastic parts so ....... I hand sand the body to prep is for paint.
Ok...... skip ahead.... I decide to use a body from a car my customer is planning on having made into a, in progress, restored car. See this car has some broken parts on it but the body is fine. So this was one of the first issue cars from Ertl under there Precision 100 series. These were highly detailed 57 T-Birds. They have gone on to do a few more repaint versions and some in a lesser packaging but what I noticed is the difference in assembly between the early first run cars and the later run ones.
First off.... the Thunderbird emblems (plastic) on the hood and trunk are much smaller then the ones they build now. Yep Pete (customer) go look.... its noticeable.
Secondly...... while taking the car apart I noticed how little things like hoses and cables are no longer fitted and glued in the right places. Heater hoses that ran thru the fender are now glued at the fender. Batter cables that were run to the engine are now laying loose down the side of the inner fender well. This all saves time im sure and when making 1000-3000 cars its ALOT of time. The other thing I noticed was how much less glue was used on the later versions. Also on the chassis of these cars there are little black caps that cover the screw hole recesses and again, on the first ones these were glued in on the later ones they are pressed in . Both suck to get out but one sucks less, LOL.
Below I'm posting some pictures of a car I'm working on for a customer. This car is pretty cool and truly a custom piece. Back years ago this car was made as a gasser with a jacked up front end.... cut out wheel wells and was all race. As you see it now its much different. Many little and some major things went into getting it to this stage. While viewing this please understand this is NOT finished but in a stage of assembly so show a couple features I have instilled.
First off...... the body was modded to have stock rear wheel wells. I then cut the front fenders from the body and secured the hood, filled the body seam that had chrome trim running thru it and will be adding 36 Ford headlights. The body had the rest of the body seams filled from the chrome trim and then I cut off the door hinges and reworked them to create suicide doors. This was a much more involved project then it looks. I then took the deck lid and cut an opening to make a recessed license plate holder, filled the taillight holes and cut in hew ones to house the recessed lights that are actually rear 1/4 marker lights from a C-5 Corvette.
Once this was done I reworked a Mustang Gasser chassis to fit under the body and then modded a new version of the Willys interior bucket to fit this car. Once I fabbed up the brace for the tilt front end I came up with this.
It will be fitted with the early style Hemi as you see but of course finished. Then painted Candy Apple Red (actually was a painted 2 times already but not to my liking) and fitted with Cragar wheels both front and back with a Black custom interior.
OK....... well I think that's enough for now so.......
I'm out !
Car is looking great thanks for the photos. Joe
Reply to this
John, I actually was aware of the emblem size difference that was small on the very first release and the rest are the larger size maybe more to scale. Also on the last three releases the inside door handles are mounted facing back making it awkward to open the door. Here is a recap on the releases of these 1:18 scale T-Birds.
1st. Release #32889 / May, 2002 / Stardust Blue / Precision / Open Run
2nd. Release #32889A / January 2003 / Dusk Rose / Precision / Open Run
3rd. Release #32889M / January 2003 / Flame Red / Precision / 2500pcs.
4th. Release #33939 / March 2005 / Thunderbird Bronze / Authentics / Open Run
5th. Release #39488 / May 2007 / Torch Red / Authentics / 1085pcs.
6th. Release #39488 / May 2007 / Torch Red (chase car) / Authentics / 217pcs.
7th. Release #29644 / May 2007 / Raven Black / Authentics-Matco / 1200pcs.
As far as Auto World releasing any more colors is somewhat unlikely as the last two releases were not a big hit. Infact Matco Tools sold their inventories to wholesalers who are selling them on e-Bay for 30.00 less then they originally went for.
Reply to this
John, that Willy's is amazing.
Reply to this