1/16 Scale Army Vega Funny Car - Finished 10/14/2018

[Mooneyzs]

Charlie.... Thanks man. Hoping people would be able to recognize what they are when they see them. I am sure a couple of them will get covered up just due to the assembly of things but will be nice knowing they are there

Brad.. Yes i am still thinking of trying to make out if the printing plate I got from you like we were talking about. I did mess wth a small.piece to see if hey way we talked about to make the bead roll. I think i need to put.some soft wood downcause i just tried it on a magazine. I wanted to get a template made out of plastic so I knew where to drill the hole when i get the metal one made.

[tyrone]

Nice Idea and job on the dzus fasteners as well as everything elese. Chris...

[Mister Twister]

^{Man O' Man.....Fantastic work you're doing! I'm amazed more and more at the level of detail being put into builds these days! Good stuff!}

[Mooneyzs]

Tyrone... Thanks man. I just think the Dzus fasteners will be a nice touch.

Darryl... thanks man. I have to agree with you with the level of detail that can be achieved out there these days with all of the aftermarket items that we have to choose from. Just wish there was more 1/16th scale stuff

Well guys I am starting to work on this for the night and should have some updated pics in a bit, Gonna start with getting the rims drilled for the valve stems and then get on Dzus fastener tabs on the other side of the chassis. Then not sure what i wanna work on . Also gonna get the resin engine soaked in good ole Whestly's white wall cleaner.

[gasser59]

Brad.. Yes i am still thinking of trying to make out if the printing plate I got from you like we were talking about. I did mess with a small piece to see if hey way we talked about to make the bead roll. I think i need to put.some soft wood down 'cause i just tried it on a magazine. I wanted to get a template made out of plastic so I knew where to drill the hole when i get the metal one made.

I have a black piece of soft rubber about 20" x 16" on my desk that I work on. It is softer than the gridded cutting matt I have seen on your workstation pictures. I'll try that and see how that works. I'll try a number of different ways and let you know my results. Fingers crossed.

[Mooneyzs]

Brad... Thanks man. I will have to let you know how things go tomorrow with what I try. I appreciate you trying a few methods out.

[Mooneyzs]

Made a tad more progress tonight. I started out by drilling out my rims for RB Motion Valve Stems. Then I jumped back onto gluing the rest of the Dzus Fastener tabs onto the chassis. Happy with getting that done and gonna let it dry overnight again. Here are a few pics of the progress of tonight.

 

Here is the Rims and the Valve Stems:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the completed Rims with the Valve Stem just stuck in place. I am planning on Polishing the rims before I end up gluing the valve stems in place:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the rest of the Dzus Fasteners glued in place:

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Mooneyzs

[W-409]

This is truly amazing!!!! You are making really nice progress with it. Those wheels look very good, and valve stems are great. You scratchbuilt those side panels to that frame, I must think about doing the same thing to my own Vega, maybe that would be a good idea instead of using those from that kit... Let's see if I have enough money to buy some bolts, photoetch maybe. If I can, I might try building them from Styrene. But this topic is great to watch, keep on the good work.

[Mooneyzs]

Thanks Niko. I am hoping to make some great progress on this tomorrow. Those valve stems were that added touch to the rims. I am hoping to have those side panels done tomorrow too. I think I am gonna do a set out of styrene but am really wanting to go with some thin gage metal. So really the styrene ones will be the back up plan , granted they are going to end up being painted so I guess no one would really know . you know another way to replicate bolts is to use push pins from some sort of craft store. they kind of look like a button head screw a little.

[brett]

Chris, no offence intended but I think you're mental but in a good way . Phenomenal work man. This is going to look insanely good once done. I dont know if many people will even notice half of what you've done at the first look, its the second that will draw them in like bees to honey when they notice all the small detail.

[Mooneyzs]

Brett... No offence taken at all. I appreciate all of the kind words Sometimes I think I may be a little crazy doing some of the detail that I am . I can't tell you how much I can't wait to get some primer on some parts. I still have a few more brackets to make and glue to the chassis. I nee dto get the motor mount brackets done and I am thinking of redoing the kits steering linkage bracket as well. there is also going to be some clean up of the chassis I will still need to do by adding a little bondo and I have clean up work on the rear end mounts that I cut and moved to get the car to have a better stance in the back by lowering it. I just though of something else I need to make....some sort of a bracket for the master cylinder for the brakes which would mount it to the chassis.

[gasser59]

Hey Chris. Your progress looks really good and I'm excited to see how these Dzus fasteners are going to work out. I spent a bit of time trying out some bead rolling on the printing plate and I'm happy to report that this will work out great. The trick seems to be having the right material as the substrate under the printing plate. My black rubber matt worked out great. It has just the right amount of give to allow the tool to push the metal down. The trick seems to be keeping the same amount of pressure on the tool so the bead is the same through the length of the entire bead. I used a rounded edge tool on the backside but a ball point pen would work if it wasn't too fine of a point. The first one was done on my gridded cutting matt which is too hard. The second was on my rubber matt but with a wider tool and the third was with a narrower tool similar to a ball point pen. As you can see these were across the 'grain' in the sheet metal and with the grain would undoubtedly work better. What do you think?

Edited October 22, 2011 by gasser59

[Mooneyzs]

Hey Brad, Thanks man for trying a few methods out and showing me. I am going to try out a few things here to see if I have something that would work. I just remembered that I do have a small piece of harder rubber that I need to try out cause I know when I used a magazine as the backer it didn't work quite as well. I think you are right about keeping the right abmount of pressure on it too. I really do like how #3 looks gotta see what I can do to acheive that.

I need to grab me some coffee and get back on this build ... Gonna be a full day of working on this and maybe doing a few house chores in the mix lol

[Mooneyzs]

well just a little teaser for the moment. I decided to just make the part out of the printing plate after I tested a few more bead rolling techniques.... Figured i would be wasting my time making them out of plastic when I was wanting to use the printing plate. Anyway I got one made and am really happy with it other than I messed with it to much and made a small little bend in area that made it stand out to me. So I will be redoing this but now that I have done one. redoing this one and making the other side sould be a breeze now. This stuff is really nice to work with and I can't thank Brad enough for bringing some to me when I saw him at a local swap meet and for his advice on ideas on how to bead roll it. It worked perfect. here's a few pics.

 

I started out with the plastic template that I had made. Traced with with a pencil and then once i was done tracing it with a pencil with out moving it, actually holding it down. I grabbed my pin vice and transfer drilled the holes so they would be in the right location:

 

 

 

 

 

After I got it traced and drilled the holes I then cut it out with my xacto knife laying a ruler down on the material and running the knife along it to get a nice straight cut. After I had cut the material to shape I took one of my sanding sticks and sanded the little edge down and flipped the part over drew the lines where I wanted to run the bead roll and ended up using a ball point pen pressing down a small piece of rubber to form the bead roll and here is the results I got :

 

 

 

 

Alright time for me to get back at and make the other side and redo this one and the bottom piece as well.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Mooneyzs

[John Teresi]

Chris.......your work absolutely rock`s.........man,you are one talented guy.

[Mooneyzs]

Chris.......your work absolutely rock`s.........man,you are one talented guy.

Thanks John... means alot coming from a talented guy like yourself. your work has always impressed me.

i have finished up the left side now just have to bead roll the right. Will have pics shortly of the finished parts.

[tyrone]

Your doing some AWESOME work on this one Chris.....those are going to look KILLER....

[Mooneyzs]

Tyrone... Thanks buddy I am supper happy with how they have turned out and so glad I decided not try and do them in plastic. I decided to scrap the first one and redo it...lol uploading pics to Photobucket as we speak and will have some more pics up in a sec.

[Mooneyzs]

So I just got done redoing the side panels. Very Pleased with the out come. I won't waste anymore time and here are the pics....

 

 

I went back and started from the beginning again. Drawing out the pattern on the printing plate and transfer drilling the holes:

 

 

 

 

 

Next was to cut them out using a ruler as a guide and taking my xacto knife and making multiple passes on cutting it. Once I was done cutting it out I then took my standing stick and sanded the burrs off the edges and then scuffed the plate with Scotch-Brite:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the finished product after I finished scuffing the plates up. I then drew with my pencil the lines I was going to follow with my ball point pen to create the bead rolls. The curves were created by laying one of my drafting circle templates used as a guide:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the back side of the panels, you can still see some of the blue ink from the pen on the plate got most of it off with rubbing alcohol:

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Mooneyzs

[tyrone]

they look nice man,,,great job...

Edited October 23, 2011 by tyrone

[Mooneyzs]

Here is an upclose pic of one of the plates so you can see that the bead was formed:

And last but not least of this update I had to set it on the chassis and set the bolts in place which are representing the Dzus Fasteners:

I have to thank Brad (Gasser59) again for giving me some of the printing plate material and the suggestions on how him and I talked about to create the bead in the material. Thanks again Brad. Alright I am off to work more on this. not sure what I will work on at the moment. I think I may try and fab up the plate piece that goes underneath the driver area and I am thinking I am going to redo my fuel hold down strap with some of this printing plate.

[Randy D]

Hi Chris, Those rims are killer and great work on the panels!!!

Randy

[gasser59]

Man those are killer. I just KNEW you'ld love this stuff. It's so easy to work with and if you screw up,like I do any number of times, just start with a new piece. There's more bead rolling that goes on these, right?

[Mister Twister]

I'm just amazed by the detail work...The bead rolls are super!

[Mooneyzs]

Thanks Randy... Gotta give Jim aka... Micro Nitro Credit for those and RB Motion for the valve stems. It feels good having these panels Done, other than paint.