115 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

Is this the MAR article.......it's cool

Build A Pro Motor

[TSR]

That's the one! I took the pictures and made the little sketches (in minutes because of time constraints). So it was my mistake and Jairus was doing it right to begin with!
So solly! (japanese accent)

[Jairus]

Rick, yes I am building this as close as possible to the magazine car as I can. Thus the twist pins (really hard on the rational mind to put them back in you know?) instead of screws.
Also, the incongruity of having a light colored can in the motor buildup (part IV) while a black color can motor was installed in part V, always bothered me. The first car I built had a black can with a black end bell. This car and subsequent cars will have a Magenta can with a purple end bell and a matching purple Jet Flag.

[Jairus]

Well, if it's that good Bill, maybe I should build more than one?

[Jairus]

Classic rock playing, cold beer and a hot iron on the work bench.
Just got through soldering on the pin tubes on another Gilbert chassis and realized why Lee put the pin tubes behind the pan hinge wires on both front and back! It's easier that way!!!!
You don't need to switch tools from hand to hand or swing the jig around to do the second pin tube on the same side! Damn, that's a great idea and it only took me three of these to figure it out!

[Jairus]

And then there were three!
(Got to be the quickest I have ever built a chassis!)

[Jairus]

The Wheels

The Car Model article specifies the use of “Associated” wheels front and rear, 5/8” front and 13/16” rear. Unfortunately I only have one set of Associated wheels so it becomes necessary to modify what IS available. This set of Riggen Tiger rear wheels are very close to the “Telescoping” rears.


A quick look at the wheels shows that although the wheels are very similar, the Associated wheel has a beveled face while the Riggen face is flat with a chamfered edge on the inside. The axle hole/tube is longer on the Riggen wheel but only slightly so and therefore not worth the risk to modify.


This view shows the wheels sans the vintage rubber.


After modification the Riggen wheel now has a beveled face and only a direct comparison with an actual Associated wheel would reveal the difference. Pretty neat huh?
How did I do it you ask? Well, not owning a lathe I chucked up the rim in my dremmel and while spinning at slow speed applied a small modeling file to grind down the face. Then re-surfaced with 220grit, 320grit, 600grit and polished with steel wool. Tada!


All glued, trued and ready to go! I went with 7/8” rears simply because my vintage Ferret jig wheels only had a setting for 7/8” and not 13/16”! Besides, they are soooooo close it would take someone with a ruler to tell the difference.

[TSR]

Hi Jairus,
The Shinoda decals are on their way.
I have news for you about these wheels: Riggen never made these, they are old RehCo wheels, later sold by REH under the name "Riggen" because they own the brand.
It was simply another version (copy) of the Associated telescopic wheels...
But they are eminently suitable for what you are doing.

[edworth]

The Wheels
...How did I do it you ask? Well, not owning a lathe I chucked up the rim in my dremmel and while spinning at slow speed applied a small modeling file to grind down the face. Then re-surfaced with 220grit, 320grit, 600grit and polished with steel wool. Tada!...

That's the ticket. The lathe is great tool, but knowing how to do something, really 'doing without' ... is far more important. The same spirit (and talent) shown by Rick when he scratchbuilt his own Gurney NASCAR frame, cause he was short the bucks to buy one. Keep it up.

[tonyp]

Very nice.... That chassis was a classic design for the era and worked extremely well.

[Jairus]

Update, Body cut

I cut one of the beautiful True Scale Ferrari 312 P bodies this morning. The detailing and crispness on this piece is nothing short of fantastic. However, I noticed that the left side of the body is slightly shorter than the right. The right side has a tiny bit of leeway when cutting but the left side needs to be cut right at the fold line or you will NOT have enough rear wheel clearance. The mold would really benefit if raised a 1/16 of an inch... at least on the left side.
At any rate, looks like it's ready for paint!!

[MarcusPHagen]

Nice build, Jairus! Thanks for the pics.

[dc-65x]

Update, Body cut

At any rate, looks like it's ready for paint!!!

Ah, the crowning glory is about to be applied to this fantastic build. Please show us the driver too as your artistry with a brush is truly inspiring. I can't wait until we can do one of these icons together. I've photocopied every page of the Car Model series and I'm in the process of reading every word and highlighting the critical details. I've also dug deep into "my drawers" (the drawers I store my vintage parts in!) to find the Korrect parts. But, I've got a "Starship" journey to take first.

There are a lot of builders who could duplicate the Gilbert car up to this point. When you start to paint the body AND DRIVER you will be leaving at least 99.9% (if not 100%) of us behind

Thanks for sharing your build. I'm enjoying it very much.

[Jairus]

THE PAINT
Gee thanks Rick for that great introduction to the painting part of this build! Hope I can live up to it...
Since I’ve decided to show the steps… Let’s start at ground zero this time. When I do hand lettering I usually sketch out the lettering or print it out off Microsoft Word or Photoshop just so I don’t make any mistakes. Very easy to do when you are concentrating on making the letters look good…
The layout before you are photos of one of Sundance bodies (I think he did more than one because the Museum has one and I know of one other so… 1 + 1 = 2… Doh!
At any rate the image is correctly sized 1:1 with the Kirby body. If you click on the link SUNDANCE LAYOUT , it will open up my Fotki account, right click and save to your desk top and print! Cool huh! (Hopefully it will end up actual size)



Here are the tools of the trade: One-Shot enamel paint, a new fine-tip brush, the body, the printout, some lacquer thinner for brush cleaning, and a cup of fresh French Roast! The brush is a “Royal” #1 but finer tips will be needed later on. These brushes are fairly cheap at $2.99 which is great because they only last through a few cars (probably because I use lacquer thinner for cleaning).





The printout needs to be cut out first and then is taped into the inside of the body. This is my pattern for the hand lettering.



Crack open the red paint and apply carefully…



And then the black! Now set it aside for drying.

[Jairus]

Props and helpers
Another thing to add to the tools aspect is props. I like to use stuff for props to rest my hands against which steadies the tip of the brush. In this case I love 8-track cassettes! They stack and stay put, plus I can listen to them from time to time. I probably have close to 500 tapes collected including a bunch that are real crap, and YES, I have a player and still use them! Another prop is a business card to wipe the brush tip on. It prepares the tip prior to touching it to the body. For instance if I dab it on the card it billows the brush fibers and loads the tip for large fill areas.
If I roll the tip horizontally against the card, in the pool of paint, it sharpens the tip forcing the paint back up into the bristles and thus a finer tip.

[endbelldrive]

Another prop is a business card to wipe the brush tip on. It prepares the tip prior to touching it to the body. For instance if I dab it on the card it billows the brush fibers and loads the tip for large fill areas.
If I roll the tip horizontally against the card, in the pool of paint, it sharpens the tip forcing the paint back up into the bristles and thus a finer tip.

That's really important for all you aspiring hand letterers out there. Aligning the bristles and having the paint loaded properly allow for even and consistent brush strokes.

Hey Jairus, looking good! By da way, I've been out of action for the last three weeks because both of my Dremels are burned out. I've got a 1/6 HP fancy schmantzy professional quality Foredom flexishaft rotary tool on order.

[Jairus]

Hey, Bob! Good to hear from you and I can relate. My Dremel is real close to death... changed the brushes and cleaned up the comm but it gets hot real fast and just dosen't seem to have the power it used to. I am in the market...

Back to the paint...
Applied some white next. No huge pressure here as corrections can be made later by the application of the black outline around the white and correction in red. Now once again, set it aside for drying time.



Don't forget to paint the number on the top!

[Ron Hershman]

Neat stuff indeed..... another tip when using lettering enamel....... have some turpentine in a small cup or lid handy. You can dip the brush into the paint then dip the brush into the turps and this will thin the enamel a bit and provide lots of control when hand lettering.

I learned this from a "master" sign painter/pin striper.

The turps also can be used to clean the brushes, while it lubricates them making them last a long time.

[Jairus]

The Driver

While the body is drying, now is a good time to concentrate on the driver figure. The figure is taped up to keep overspray off the rest of the interior. Note the use of acrylic paint? I like it because the flattening agents stay suspended for longer periods than do enamels. If I let a flat enamel sit for a week then simply shaking it up will not work adequately, you must open the lid and stir it with a stick or end of a paint brush to get all the paint up where shaking will actually mix it up again.



Yeah, I didn't mask it off all around... but that can be cleaned up with flat black later...



This tip I have kept a secret for a long time... The use of a technical pen! Yeah baby! I love these pens as they hold permanent ink, a nice fine tip and sell for $8 bucks, which is cheap compared to $30 for a real Rapidograph technical pen! This tool I use to outline the seat belts, cut a clean line around the figure, and draw the zipper line down the drivers blouse.



A little more detail painting and we are done! Well, enough for this project as most of the detail is hidden under the body so why bother painting the gauge bezels if nobody can see it?

[Jairus]

More paint

Painted the black outline around the script this morning and... set it aside for complete drying. Maybe we can mask and shoot some color this evening!

[Jairus]

Shooting some color

The first step in painting any body is preparation and in this case it means roughing up the inside of the body with steel wool. You could also use a Brillo pad or sandpaper. Then use the compressor to blow out all dust and particles.

Tip: The proportional photo we used when hand lettering can be used again. I reversed the image in Photoshop and then re-printed. That image is taped to the outside of the body for masking reference. If you don't have a way of reversing the image, the pic can be taped to the body upside down and then hold the body up to the light while cutting...

And another thing... cutting mask! Some painters cut the mask on a cutting board or piece of glass and then apply it to the body. This works great but really hard to get positioned correctly so I still cut the mask on the body. This is only a problem if you are painting a .060 body generally...

Next is the masking. I like this painters blue tape. It is a 3M product and purchased at the local graphic arts store. Careful, the blue tape you get at the household paint or hardware store is different. The graphic tape has a lighter tack so will not pull paint off the body and it conforms to curves inside the body better (at twice the price I have to add). However, try not stretching the tape during application because it will then tend to lift in the body curves thus letting overspray underneath. This is called a bleed. Not that much of a big deal on this wild piece but still go over the tape with a burnishing tool before shooting just to make sure.
Here I have the "waterfall" taped up. Since we will be pulling the tape off in stages, I tape it up backwards so that I finish up painting the waterfall last.



Now the white bubble field is taped up.



Black is shot in the hard edge shadow and then the hard edge mask is pulled and the black fade around the white bubble field is shot.





Airbrush is cleaned and then the Metallic Blue is shot. All metallic paints are translucent so it is necessary to back up the blue metallic with something more opaque like Blue Streak or Indy Silver.



To be continued...

[Jairus]

The Special Effects

The next part goes pretty quick but there are a lot of steps, and a lot of color changes so keep the lacquer thinner ready.
The bubbles are the same metallic Blue but you have to let the bottle sit for a couple of hours so the metallic can settle to the bottom. Then load up a bit of blue in the cup and GO



The bubbles are painted by holding the brush in one place and loading up the paint on the surface then toggling the trigger forward but keeping the air depressed. This is a double action airbrush so if you are not familiar with the "lingo" then no chance of you copying this part of the paint, as it requires a double action internal mix airbrush.
Anyway, the air pushes out the "puddle" of paint into a nice ring if you did it right. Do not work in the same area but move up and down the body giving the latest "bubble" a chance to dry before attempting to paint another one next to it.



Next step is cut a bit of lace small enough to fit in the body and spray a light coating of adhesive and apply it to the inside of the body.





Now a coating of white is applied and then the lace is removed.

[Jairus]

Now, lightly spray a little fog of black over the area and then clean the brush AGAIN!



Now, more white. Make sure it is fairly opaque because the next color is orange and we do NOT want that showing through
.






Now the waterfall mask is removed and the number seven and signature masked for last.



To be continued...

You're probably wondering why I only post five pictures; well it is because some forums only allow a certain number of pictures posted to keep the pages reduced to a realistic downloadable size. So there!

[Jairus]

The Waterfall

The last part of this paint is the identifiable swoosh that has been named “The waterfall”. At any rate, we start this part by cutting a business card into a mask with an X-Aacto blade.





An orange edge fade is applied, and then we make use of the business card mask...



The Orange... has left the building...



Now the yellow, Daytona Yellow to be specific, is applied and we are done for today! Tomorrow we will work on the numbers… if all goes well. Time to relax with a glass of spiced rum on the rocks!



To be continued....