FredRPG

I just picked up a group on eBay a few weeks ago. I admit I have a problem when it comes to this era of over the top boy racers.

Nice job on that Gremlin. I must admit I've always liked this series even as quirky as the styling is. There's also a Mustang II in the group, probably one of the better IMSA styled cars of the era.

Does anybody else read Mooneyzs posts in Hulk Hogans voice? ? John, thanks for taking the time to share your builds, I really enjoy following along.

I've had good results with Papilio brand paper. Good quality ink and printer are important and how you seal the ink. Don't think you'll find inkjet water slide paper as thin as printed decals, especially since you need to clear coat them before applying.

Don't think it's a promo, looks like one of the Monogram 450SL. Just thought that might help if you need to hunt up any parts.

Well BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. I have one of the revell couriers that I was going to kit bash with an old Datsun/Nissan 4x4 and I never noticed the top was chopped. Nice work you have going here, looking forward to the rest. Really i I can't use the word c r a p ?

I see what you were going for Brian. With a rig like that, guaranteed you'd be a popular guy at a hill climb, mud bog or any other kind of "come break your truck" kind of event. f.

Outstanding build, but I don't fully understand it. As a work truck it makes perfect sense and your attention to detail really brings it alive. It's just for a weekend warrior I don't get why you would want a welding rig instead of room for camping, fishing gear, canoe, etc. Not knocking it by any means, more looking for an education not an explanation, if that makes sense. However you slice it, it's an impressive job, I'm gonna have to go check out the rest of your build posts. Thanks for sharing it. f.

Working with the for sale signs is an interesting idea, much less expensive than hobby store sheets for sure. How is it to work with, the same as styrene sheet, or does it work differently? Really nice work, by the way.

Nice build, I really like the color scheme..

Don't forget older fan belts were just as thick as they were wide and the cross section was tapered towards the inside. These were on any car that had a standard deep groove pulley, unlike the modern grooved pulley with flat grooved belts.

Very nice job on the weathering. The contrast between the crusty race inspired exterior and the plush luxury interior is weird, but I really like it. F.

Very nice. The 5 gal water jug caught my eye, did you make it?

Beautifully done..

Really nice build, you did a great job and that smell everyone remembers from the old vws was the horsehair seat stuffing. After it gets wet a few times it smells even better?

Hey Bernard, your printers method of two files and two passes makes perfect sense if the printer only has the cmyk ribbons, I wasn't sure if they had a spot for a fifth ribbon. Normally I would steer people away from publisher but if that's what works it sounds like all you have to so is save your file as what publisher interprets best. My guess would be tif or a high resolution jpg. Create your decal image then duplicate and create a black only version that is your white underlay. If you take care to make sure it is only 100% black in the image and not a mixed black your printer should be able to import into publisher and do his trick. Just as a side bar, the early version of alps printer I used actually had a rolls of the thermal transfer and if you printed in just a small area it would still run through a full letter size sheet, there was so much waste on that thing. We had metallic transfer that would stick to laser printer toner, so it was through the laser printer twice then the thermal printer for color. Trying to align everything was next to impossible, I think I ended up with a $100 sheet of decals that were too thick to use.

Hi, 35+ years as a designer here, probably almost 25 of those using both illustrator and Photoshop. I think what you are running into is a problem with the alps printer and not the guy running it. I haven't used an alps since the late 90s but I don't think they've changed much since then. Some printers like these that will print white or spot colors require layers set up in a certain way. For example it will only see the white in a bitmap file as clear, no matter how you save it, tif, eps, psd, or whatever. When I set up a file in Photoshop with a spot color like white or metallic, that color is set up on a completely different layer from the image colors (cmyk), marked and saved as such. Only printers set up to read these layers separately will print them that way, all others will flatten the file and only print the cmyk plates. Illustrator works differently, you can set specific spot colors, overprints and such easily and print spot colors without the cmyk breakdown much easier. I believe alps printers have not been updated in many years and can only interpret spot layers from older eps from vector programs. Short version, you may be SOL without vector files for these older printers. If you have any questions about illustrator or photoshop, feel free to ask. F.

Thanks Dan.

Don't some builders make their own using sewing needles?

When I saw your name on the post I was ready to see some rust, way to fake me out.. Really clean build, very nice. (At least one of the Hornets is rusty though, right?)

I agree nice build. I'm curious about the sci-fi like backdrop you use in your pictures, what is it?

There are a couple on shapeways, search for 1/24 roof rack. I know I saw a vw bus rack there but can't remember if it is only in 1/18 scale.

I can't say enough good things about how you captured the look and feel of the Hot Wheels, even down to the smaller wheels on the Deora. It and the Thunderbird are my favorites, both then and now. Can't wait to see how you'll handle the Fleetwood.

You did, it's just backwards on the instructions as well. I've had a couple of VWs with the folders, your drawing is the right way around - flat section to the front (this is the part that the lever clamps down to seal) and folds go up over towards the back. By the way your concept rendering is just as outstanding as your build, again really nice work.

I just popped over here from your 911/speedster build and I must say nice job. At first read I thought a three cab would be weird but you balanced it out nicely. You might have already noticed but you have the sunroof on backwards, the flaps fold to the back or else they'd catch wing and rip the roof off ?