The 2013 Automotive Group Build

Tony this kit is made by DTR in Iowa they make repops of old dirt car kits. This kit is a Monogram copy righted 1967. They are worth checking out if you like the vintage dirt cars and they do have good prices and a great selection of cars too. Their site is www.dirtracecars.com

As for the chassis in the back ground its a late 70s Maxwell sprint car chassis in 1/24 scale. I have been drawing the older ones because I dont like just building gamblers all the time and to build an older car they just dont look right soooo. I drew this one a while back and a friend had it 3D printed.

Thanks for the info Randy, you learn something new on these forums every day.  I thought it looked Monogramish, but had never heard of it.

Here is the latest on the Ferrari F186. The colour is Tamiya TS Italian Red. It looks nothing like the pink hue that my digital camera has come up with. It's a classic Ferrari red, which is correct for this car.

Cheers

Tony

Ewheeler Nova is looking sharp!

Tony I first saw the color before I read that the camera was making it look pink and thought wow if you're racing a pink car you better be fast! Looking good!

Ferrari actually changed the red they used on their F1 cars in 1996, to a fluoro pink that is quite similar to the colour seen in my photos. I can remember being quite stunned by it when seeing it for the first time at practice for the Australian Grand Prix in 1996, the first race of the season and the first race in Melbourne. They retained this colour through 11 years to the end of the 2006 season. They weren't that fast until Michael Schumacher started his run of five world championships in a row, in 2000. THen they changed it to a darker metallic red for a couple of years before returning it to something similar to the original colour, which is my preference. I made a note of it for this year when I attended practice for this year's race a few days ago.

Anyway, the decals are on the body, now I'll let them dry thoroughly before some clear coats and polishing. In the meantime, I've been working on the radiators and the remainder pieces of the front suspension. I'll keep going with the rear wing, which is an ugly, lumpy piece of white metal at the moment, and rear suspension with engine after that. The annoying pink colour is still present in the photos, I might take the next set outdoors and see if I can improve the lighting.
The decals had some fibrous material stuck to them from the (wax?) paper protecting sheet that was originally over them. In my experience, this has always come of easily as soon as they are wetted, but in this case it was difficult to remove and required some determined rubbing. Where I could, I used alternative decals from the spares box. There are still a couple of patches of it that I will need to have another go at.


Cheers
Tony

Tony: Ahhhh....that explains a lot!   Looks good so far.

Looks like we have almost every genera of cars out there. Awesome builds going on!

Thanks Trey.

Formula car is lookin' mighty sharp Tony. :)

I'm a late joiner to this GB, and I have a monster in mind for my entry: a heavily modified civilian 8-wheeled rock crawler/mud buggy based on the old German WWII Sd.Kfz 234 series of AFV's.

I'll be using a Dragon 1/35 kit for the lower hull and some parts, but I'll have to mod the suspension, create a scratched interior and a ton of roll bars and nerf bars.

Also, and here's the most important part---  I have no idea what I'm doing!  Stay tuned....

I took a break from the Nova to start on the VW. Here it is in primer. I have a few areas to smooth out that showed up after the primer went on.

Hi Dre,

There are no such things as late joiners in this GB. Welcome to the show and I've updated the build roster. It sounds like this might be entertaining.

EWheeler  -  i like your bug. There is some chance you might  encourage me to do one later on.

No progress on the Ferrari F186, been a bit slack these last few days :(

Cheers

Tony

I've got to do some shopping for more tube stock and other styrene this weekend before I can start cutting sprues and making a mess.

This is the kit that is getting the 'treatment'.....

I have some leftover ideas from another conversion that I'm going to use on this build- I'll either rebuild the kit wheels into wider offroad tires, or I'll source some AM tires to use.   I'll also beef up the suspension components for a more rugged look.

this is the heart of the project.. (parts from another 234 build)

Shimmed kit tires from another build, but I can do the same thing here but to a more aggressive degree

I'll also use this method to beef up the leaf springs if I decide to use them instead of another idea..

although I think I may go with a coil-over shock tower at each wheel...   time for scratchbuilding fun!

Again, these photos are of parts for something else, but used to illustrate some of the ideas and directions I'll be going off in.

Okay I think I have the trailer ready to be assembled. I used sheet styrene and it had to put on in 3 different pieces. That was a lot of sanding. the piece in the forground is the floor/bottom of the trailer. It's 25 1/2 inches long which converts to 53' in 1/25 scale.

There you go! This should be interesting!

It does look interesting, doesn't it. Good work too on the trailer Greentracker. That does look like a big job.

I've got the clear coats on my Ferrari F186, and I'm happy with them for once. It should polish up quite nice I think. It looks just the same as the last photos though, so I haven't bothered to take more.

I've also continued tidying up the white metal and resin parts of the the rear wing, engine and rear suspension.

I'll be offline until mid April now, hopefully we'll see lots of progress in the next couple of weeks with your projects.

Cheers

Tony

So..   I spent a good part of Easter Sunday making the 8 wheels for my monster.

First, I traced the outer diameter and the inner hub diameter onto thick stock for cutting purposes, 2 pieces per tire.   Because of the sandwich-type construction of these tires, I had to remove the center of each slab for hub clearance, otherwise I'd have done it much more simply.

then I tediously drilled out the center sections so they could be removed- I wish there was an easier method than this!   After I got all that sorted, I just glued the slabs to the tire halves and began work on the hubs themselves.   (I did keep all the little starburst shapes from the centers- those will become sunflowers at a later date!!)

Since widening the tires affects the location of the mounting hubs and tire offset, I had to make some corrections to the hubs.   A small length of flexible rod glued into place is the fix here... these are hidden inside so there's no worries on the sloppy appearance.

After everything had some time to cure, I went back with a Dremel power tool and used a coarse grit sanding drum to grind off all the excess white plastic, flatten the tire's profile and generally rough them up.   A follow-on sanding with a finer grit sandpaper and then a wash with MEK to soften and blend grind/cut marks was all thook to finish that part off.   At some point in here I cut grooves into the tires- that was boring.

I went on to add a 1/16" strip of thin plastic stock to the rim to act as a protective measure and that's that for the wheels (and a Sunday afternoon).   I need to biuld 2 more to hang as spares.

Stay tuned for the next unscheduled installment.

Wow Dre thats intense!

Just wait, Trey...  it will get much worse from here on out.   

I'll start work on the lower hull tonight and hopefully reach a decision regarding the shocks, their mounts and a host of other issues before too long.   

Spent last night cleaning up all the various suspension parts and removing and cleaning some now-unnecessary mounts for the old leaf springs from the lower hull parts.   Also put together  the spare tire for mounting on the roll cage.   Stayed up too late last night and came to work too early this am...

Gotta start thinking of the engine and transmission...   can anyone pitch me some ideas on where to find a detailed 1/35 engine (resin would be awesome).   Gas, diesel, hybrid...  I'm totally open to ideas right now.

Dre maybe a broad search on evil bay? I'm geussing something in a big rig kit would work but thats pricey for a donor engine option. Good luck searching

A big rig diesel is too much motor for this..  not too mention just too big for the rig I'm making.

There was a resin engine set made years ago for these 234's, but it is long out of production and damn near impossible to find...  

Hey. I'd like to join in on the build. I'm not at home right now so I can't show any pictures but I'd like to enter with a 1/24 1953 Hudson Hornet that's about maybe... 10%-15% complete. I forgot what company it's made by. And possibly a 196-someodd Ford Fairlane *I think* 500 in *I think* 1/25. Again, I forgot the company it's made by. And again, this is probably 10%-20% complete. 

MikeyBugs- hang loose as our GB leader is going to be away from the boards for a short while.....

You got it dude... But what do you mean by that?

Dre: CMK makes a V-12 that goes in the 234-series - check the usual places for it (ie. Squadron, Sprue Bros, etc.)

pyrman64- Thanks, I know about that resin set and it's just the right thing, but ..  it's hard to find in stock and I'd rather use it for a 'real' 234 build if I had one.   I may wind up pulling the lump from a diecast agricultural tractor to use, as I'm leaning towards a diesel unit of some sort...  I really won't know the right thing until I see it.

MikeyBugs95- what I mean is that taxtp might be out of contact for a while, so do not to be discouraged by a lack of timely response by our GB leader.    So...  hang loose and hang out with us?

Dre, PM me if interested, I have some Verlinden resin sets that may work.  Not an armor type, so the "may" is definitely operative.

Ah. Ok. And sorry, I don't drink. I'm just 17.

Roger that.

Mikey, he'll buy ya a root beer!

Lol. That I'm ok with... I like root beer....