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2K views 18 replies 13 participants last post by  Mr. Wheeler 
#1 · (Edited)
I've been lurking here for months and have been hesitant to join because my experiences with message boards have usually been negative.

But it looks like I'm going to have no choice but to pick some brains here so I signed up.

About me......

I have a 98 Camaro (V6) that I bought from a tow yard in January for $900. It was a gamble but it seams to be paying off as the only MAJOR issues we found are a few missing lug nuts, bald tires, need for fluid change, need for cooling fan relays, high idle (solved by installing new relays) bad battery and slow start. So far, everything above has been solved except for the fluid change and slow start. I plan to take it in for smog check in a week or 2 or basically whenever my friend fixes the slow start issue and swaps the fluids.



I bought it with the intention of customizing the interior and exterior. Nothing under the hood. Mainly stuff like upholstery, paint job, custom bumper, custom fenders, scoops, wheel change etc. I have a bunch of synthetic leather, fiberglass and fiberglass resin for the project and am going to be ordering some carbon fiber here as soon as the car is on the road.

I'm a life long craftsman, use to be pretty well known in the scale modeling community, and am both knowledgeable and experienced in making ship models (almost all kinds), town and landscape dioramas, displays, small arms (both guns and blades), misc. home interior, molding, hand tools and even inventing. My chief useful talents are artistic touch, creativity and problem solving.

I joined to hopefully acquire information from you folks on the finer details of my project and perhaps; in doing so, give back to the community by providing you with ideas.

Anyway, that's about it.
 
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#6 ·
Welcome
 
#7 ·
Welcome to the group.
 
#14 · (Edited)
Welcome mate .
I'm half way through this.... and I am having horrendous problems trying the make the rope ladder knots look realistic. At the moment every time I try to do one it ends up looking to big. Got any tips ? View attachment 27909 View attachment 27910
From the looks of it I would say maybe use a slightly thinner string. Sail ship models I almost always do from scratch so I tend to shop around for whatever fits best.

Clumped ropes (strings) are a pain to straighten out on small ship models by stretching them against other parts, the hull and masts in this case. I straighten stuff like that individually. I would use a piece of card stock paper to make a spacer and straighten them out. First by folding it, cutting it to the length needed, then wrapping it in duck tape, lightly coat the spacer with petroleum jelly (Vaseline) and lightly coat the ropes with epoxy. If you try this, make sure to test it first on disposable parts before you try it on your model because once done, there's no going back. The epoxy will hold the ropes straight and the petroleum jelly will act as a release agent, allowing the spacer to be easily removed.

After they dry, you may want to paint them and/or cote them with flat lacquer. If you want realism, make sure NOT to be thorough with the flat lacquering. You want it to look used and abused.

One thing you may want to use in stead of epoxy is plastic model glue. If done right it looks a little better then epoxy but it's very tricky to pull off correctly and I am not sure I will be capable of explaining exactly how to do it.

BTW.

My specialty was 20th century warships. Mainly WW II through 1990s. I got out of model making around 2006 due to a traumatic experience and am just now slowly getting back in to it. Few pictures of any of my models survive. But here are a few surviving pics of one of them.





 
#16 · (Edited)
Wow ! That's amazing to say the least, what a legacy of your skills. It's an amazing model, looks pretty big too !. I saw a Lego one while we were in NYC last year on the Intrepid, and a nice pair at the Arizona war memorial in Hawaii . I've never done anything like this before except simple plastic model kits and wanted to have a go, and it's a rewarding challenge I have to say ,but the ladders had me stumped . I was going to try super glue as it soaks into the threads but an epoxy sounds much better, I will try this and let you know how it goes.. Smile Naval architecture Building Event Metal
Watercraft Boat Vehicle Naval architecture Wood
Boat Watercraft Naval architecture Vehicle Maritime museum

Glad to hear you're able to ease back into something you love and are clearly ,seriously skilled at..
 
#17 · (Edited)
Wow ! That's amazing to say the least, what a legacy of your skills. It's an amazing model, looks pretty big too !. I saw a Lego one while we were in NYC last year on the Intrepid, and a nice pair at the Arizona war memorial in Hawaii . I've never done anything like this before except simple plastic model kits and wanted to have a go, and it's a rewarding challenge I have to say ,but the ladders had me stumped . I was going to try super glue as it soaks into the threads but an epoxy sounds much better, I will try this and let you know how it goes.. View attachment 27918 View attachment 27919 View attachment 27920
Glad to hear you're able to ease back into something you love and are clearly ,seriously skilled at..
Just make sure to test everything on disposable materials before you apply it to the real thing. You can mess up on yor experiments or find out it doesn't do for you what you wanted. And even in person I have no way of telling which method is going to float your boat the best. You can tinker around in experimentation until you figure out what you want, then apply it to the real project. If you try it on the real project, you're either stuck with whatever you did or will probably have to break down and redo allot of your project. Basically, don't do anything with the real project until you know exactly what you're doing.

That aircraft carrier was a 1/120 scale model. It was the same ship with the same air wing used in the movie, "The Final Countdown". It was just under 10 feet long and the aircraft were close to the size of those little model kits you use to be able to get at Longs and grocery stores for $5-$7. It took 5 years to build entirely from scratch (aircraft and all), was detailed down to knobs on the doors and had nearly 1/3 of a million pieces. To give perspective, ropes included most of those sail ship models like the one you're doing have between 200 and 700 pieces, a little over 1000 in some cases. I left it with a relative during a move and she left it outside during a spring rain storm. I tried to salvage the island and a few of the aircraft but the rest of the model was destroyed. 5 years of 80% of all my free time down the drain just like that. That BTW was the traumatic event that caused me to leave model making.

I recently made a model of Neuschwanstein castle but it was not a serious model (quality suffered) and it was deliberately out of scale so that it could fit on someone's counter. I have pictures of it but I am not sure they're worth uploading. Like I said, it was not a serious model and just sort of thrown together from the hip. Although it was not a serious model, hardly what I'd call a model at all, it DID somewhat re-energize my interest in scale model making.

Right now I am working on a model of the Cutty Sark but it's a 100% scratch build desktop model.

BTW. I use to know the guy (online) who built that aircraft carrier in the picture you shared. That if I recall correctly is a 1/100 scale model. In other words, it's slightly larger scale then my aircraft carrier and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/2 the size overall. Length wise, they should both be pretty close, but mine was obviously fatter. I believe the detail level of the 2 was also pretty close. I think he said he made it using 1/100 scale fighter model airplanes and photo etched railings, guns, people etc.
 
#18 ·
Welcome. That aircraft carrier model is quite impressive. You've got a lot of talent. I hope we can help you with your car questions in a positive way. My dad builds architectural scale models for a living, so I have some idea of what type of skills it takes to be a good model builder, and you've got em. :rock:
 
#19 ·
COOL! Architecture models are the kind that; to the untrained eye, look pretty straightforward but in reality take a great deal of skill, planning and careful work. Even your neighbors house can be quite a project but when you start getting in to malls, hotels and office buildings it enters a world that takes a certain kind of person to work.

It'll probably be a year before I even get started but I have some miniatures coming up for a digital movie I'm making off a book I'm in the process of writing. Not all are worked out but the main ones I know I'm going to have to make are Hunedoara castle as it was in the 1400s, the church of Hagia Sofia and parts of Constantinople.

I've already sort of mapped out Hunedoara. To give perspective on the hidden challenges in architecture model making, despite it's more simple initial appearance, Hunedoara castle is going to be a more difficult build then any of the dozen or so Neuschwanstein models I've built.
 
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