Lindberg Vintage Dirt Modified

[OldNYJim]

I picked up an unstarted Lindberg Dirt Modified kit from eBay last week and it arrived this weekend - I couldn't wait to get the shrink off the box and check it out - I've never seen one of these old oval cars before in scale

 

They have about 50 parts and there's two kits in the box - the bodies on these things are TINY - I'm building the white car from the box there.  I guess it's meant to represent a 60s dirt track car based on a 32 or 33 Ford maybe?

The chassis goes together really quickly and is nicely moulded with minimal flash - a quick run over with a nail file was all it needed to get this thing pretty close.

 

The body is two parts, with the top half of the roof and part of the rear pillars as a seperate piece - it'll need a little filler to get the seams perfect but it shouldn't take too much work:

I'm not too sure on colors yet for the paint, but something appropriate for the era, with some simple numbers and lettering like they would've run in back in the day.

Edited November 11, 2022 by CabDriver

[OldNYJim]

Weirdly, my kit was missing both sets of wheels - but not the two part tyres, seperate rims or the backing plates for the wheels.  Not sure if they're a seperate sprue that wasn't included or if they fell off or what...but I decided to make some 36 Ford artillery style wheels using my little vinyl cutting sticker machine.

Here's what I DID get:

Here's the type of wheel I wanted to emulate - these seemed to be a popular choice on a lot of these old jalopies from the research I've done:

I found a photo of one of these wheels taken square-on, and edited it so I could cut just this part:

 

Then laid a few out in the cutter's software so I can cut them from super thin styrene sheet.  The cutter doesnt like to cut anything too thick, but I had some really thin sheet here that will run through it with no problems

The cutter cuts the material nice and cleanly, but you need to tape the back of the plastic to stop the pieces falling out and jamming it up or damaging the pieces

And I was left with this little collection of parts.  Most of the negatives bits aren't useful right now, but I'll save them anyway:

Assembly was pretty simple - just attach the star shaped pieces to the circular pieces like so...

...attach the rims from the kit with some styrene cement...

...and repeat three more times!

Not sure what to do for the studs yet - they're DEFINTELY too small to cut on the machine but I may be able to find some aftermarket metal micro bolts that will work

More progress as I make it!

Edited November 11, 2022 by CabDriver

[curb]

That's kool... What is the Cutter you are using?  How does it know the design to cut?  You can purchase Miniature Hex bolts and nuts or just use Hex Rod.

I have one of those kits to build..

 

[oldcarfan]

Does the cutter come with a design program? What you are doing is really good!

[OldNYJim]

Thanks guys!

Curb - I have a Silhouette Cameo cutter, like this one:  https://www.amazon.com/Silhouette-Cameo-Electronic-Cutting-Tool/dp/B005Y1CPSU


You have to either design what you need it to cut (shapes, letters, numbers, etc) in the software that comes with it or design it in something else and drag it into the software so it knows what shape you want.  In this case I used a photo of the wheel, cut round it on the computer to get the right shape and then told the cutter to cut it that way and to the size I needed.  It takes some getting used to, but its a cool little machine for doing little jobs like this.

Gary - it does indeed!  It's more suited to printing, say, a vinyl sticker with text but I managed to get it to make what I wanted this time.  You can only cut pretty thin material on mine though, so it's a little limited for most stuff aside from simple little parts like this...

 

[OldNYJim]

PS: thanks for the tips on nuts and bolts Curb - hex rod is a good idea!

[curb]

Guess I'll have to scratch up the part and then cast in resin..LOL

 

[cobraman]

Cool idea on the wheels.

[Harry P.]

So exactly how does the cutter cut out shapes? Is it a pointed blade that follows the contours of each piece and cuts them out one by one?

[OldNYJim]

Curb - you can buy a lot of resin for the cost of the cutter!  If I didn't have one already I wouldn't buy one for modelling...it'll be useful later in this build so I can print some paint masks for the numbers though, and I've done flame masks etc before on it.

Harry - exactly that!  It works like a normal desktop printer, but it has a tiny little exacto-looking blade that slices the material that you put in it.  It chugs back and forth, up and down and eventually pops out the sheet of material.  It can take some fiddling to set the blade depth - you can adjust it for cutting thicker or thinner materials.  It's a nice toy but not a modelling essential by any means.  Came in handy for these wheels though, I managed to get just what I wanted in an hour or so, and I've got an extra set here to use on the other kit in the box!

 

[OldNYJim]

To give you a better ideal - this is a screenshot of the software. The grid represents the piece of material (with the grid markings on there to help work out where exactly on the material you want it to cut) and the red lines are where the machine should cut.  Anywhere that there's a red line, the machine's blade will lower and cut through the sheet. 

 

[Earl Marischal]

I have this exact kit to build in my stash. Looking forward o it

steve

[OldNYJim]

On 7/4/2016 at 1:27 PM, Earl Marischal said:

I have this exact kit to build in my stash. Looking forward o it

steve

Theyre a fun little kit Steve!

I made some progress this morning - got the engine in paint yesterday

 

Then gave it a healthy wash of some artist oil paint mixed with a little thinner - left it nice and thick and gloopy then washed most of it right back off

 

 

Got a little color on the body and chassis parts - went with a pastel blue for the tin

 

And finally cut come simple brake drums, the backs anyway, from some thin styrene sheet - nothing too complex but a little visual detail for the front end given that the wheels are exposed

 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by CabDriver

[Ace-Garageguy]

Man, this is really cool. I missed it earlier, but I've wondered for a long time what was in the box. The wheels and backing plates you've made look great.

It also looks like I told you wrong about that engine being an Olds. Seeing it from the rear, I see it doesn't have the characteristic Olds block extension.

All the Olds engines I mentioned have this rear end.  

Verdict: It's a generic V8, kinda like a lot of engines but none in particular.

Still, from what I can see, it's going to look great when you get it finished.

[James2]

Takes a bit of imagination to make these kits more realistic. And it looks like you got your creative MoJo flowing. 

[David G.]

Great work on the wheels! 

David G.

[ChrisBcritter]

Nice to see an old Lindberg getting some serious detail!

Seems like that cutter would be excellent for making stick-on vinyl whitewalls, as well as paint masks - have you done that?

Edited July 18, 2016 by ChrisBcritter

[OldNYJim]

On 7/17/2016 at 7:38 PM, ChrisBcritter said:

Nice to see an old Lindberg getting some serious detail!

Seems like that cutter would be excellent for making stick-on vinyl whitewalls, as well as paint masks - have you done that?

That was a very timely query Chris - I just got done making the numbers for the side of the car last night!

I cut a vinyl stencil for each side of the car:

 

Et voila!

 

 

This thing is really handy for masks  - and like you say, it can do vinyl sidewalls or flames or pretty much anything you can imagine

Edited November 11, 2022 by CabDriver

[afx]

Great project.

[Dave Van]

These kits never looked so good!!!!!

[OldNYJim]

Thanks guys!

I was going to build this entirely out of box, wheels aside, but the lack of a hose to the radiator was bugging me - so I fabbed one from some evergreen rod bent over a flame

 

 

I wanted to give the effect of some water staining on the rad so I cut a rough stencil from some vinyl and airbrushed a little brown and orange through it on the front and back to make it look a little rusty, or as though some dirt had stuck to a water leak there somewhere

 

 

I'm not going for a heavily weathered look on this - most old pics I see of these cars show them relatively clean and not caked in filth - but there's gonna be a little grime and oil around the harder to hose down places I'd think...

Edited November 11, 2022 by CabDriver

[dodgefever]

Nice job so far. I wouldn't have given this kit a second look, but it has potential.  The engine looks like a lazy copy of the Pontiac from the AMT '36 Ford.  Far from exact, but I'd say more Pontiac than anything else.

[Rider]

Super build, I dig  the plotter work.

[OldNYJim]

Got a little more done - got some lug nuts made from hex rod for the wheels:

Thanks for the idea Curb!

I couldn't resist making a distributor for it - I lathed this from some brass rod and glued some wires in place before painting it:

 

I wanted to make a little cushion for the seat, so I got some thick styrene sheet, cut a rectangle, sanded it to shape and used a lighter to heat the underside so it sagged a little.

 

The paper is decoupage paper from a craft store - I pasted it onto the 'cushion' with some Elmer's glue and added some thread around the edge to give some piping like you often see on sofa cushions

 

More soon, I have a few days off work!

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by CabDriver

[afx]

Seat cushion looks great.