The Trail Bird

[kmeaders@q.com]

That's cool and fun stuff. Amazing talent to just scratch build a Firebird body to fit an RC chassis.

[xken]

Now that looks like a really fun project! Keep posting and do a little explaining

Ken

[ScaleMotorcars]

I finally see how you do it. All these builds are powered by a dozen donuts....

[Old Busted Hotness]

The two hardest parts of the car are the nose and the roof. Looks like the nose is more or less under control, although not yet finished. So let's tackle the roof:



For strength, a single sheet of .060. As much as I love the leaky creaky T-tops (and frankly that would make the roof a lot easier to do) I decided to try a solid roof. Heated and bent the plastic to make a big hoop, and also went over the center panel with the butane torch in a big X to raise the center a little.



Installed. Still not enough of a curve so I made a couple pie cuts at the front corners and rear center to pinch it in a little. Lots more work needs to be done here but it's a pretty good start.



More heat & bend action to make the braces for the wheel spats.



The wheel spats make it a Trans Am, and we all know you ain't gonna get no lovin' driving a base model



Wheel arches: cut an arc from thin styrene and drag your thumbnail along the back to give it a little curve.



Glued in place and trimmed to fit.



The front clip now has its second layer on. Starting to get heavy.



Fans of rusted & busted should stay tuned

[Old Busted Hotness]

That's cool and fun stuff. Amazing talent to just scratch build a Firebird body to fit an RC chassis.

It's not amazing talent until it looks halfway decent. Right now it's just audacity

[Old Busted Hotness]

Front body mount



More or less final ride height. It'll come down a bit with more bodywork and the battery in. Kinda looks like a Deals Wheels model with the short WB.



A couple big pie cuts in the roof to bring the back down...



That's better :D The key to making something like this work is a good set of clamps; otherwise you're stuck sitting there holding the pieces together manually while the glue sets up. There's a good bit of tension on the parts as they try to spring back to their original shape, and you need to overcome that until the bond is complete.



Air extractors in the fenders. I thought these would be easy but they weren't. Having the Monogram 'bird was a big help.



Shaker poking up thru the hood



Lace curtains, just hit the back with a Dremel sanding drum. Don't stay too long in one place or the plastic will melt instead of grinding off material.



A little putty and sanding . Starting to think I can actually pull this off.

[Old Busted Hotness]

Now for another tricky bit, the rear spoiler.



Center section is pretty straightforward, just a couple of bent pieces of .040



Start of the end cap. This is the forward-slanting piece at the back just above the taillights.



Step two. This is a fairly straight arc, not much bend to it.



Step three, a layer of .020 with a few slits cut so it can make the bend. This is the tricky bit.



Then a layer of .005, which pretty much liquefies when the solvent hits it.



A little filler. Still needs some sanding but the basic shape is there.



The dreaded Styrene Thumb.

[hot ford coupe]

It's not an OBH creation unless it has the requisite bumps, dents, holes, dings and styrene thumb. Great as usual OBH.

[Old Busted Hotness]

I don't know about you guys, but I have a hard time believing that three days ago this was a pile of styrene sheets.



It's da troof :D

Decided to swap out one of the front tires. No way this guy can afford matching rubber.



Start of the interior



Spoiler came out halfway decent



Overall progress. Still a bit of filling and sanding to do before it's ready for paint but it's getting there.

[kmeaders@q.com]

Totally Amazing Work!!!!

[Old Busted Hotness]

Thanks!

Who wants paint?









Rally wheel made from a 10-spoke Pro-Line.

[Old Busted Hotness]

Headlights, pretty basic ones. There's a chance that I'll pop them out and do better buckets at some point.



Dash started



Steering wheel



Rust (was there ever any doubt?)



Gotta have some exposed Bondo :D

[ScaleMotorcars]

Did you hand paint the bird? Very nice...

[Old Busted Hotness]

Yeah, I had some colors already mixed from the Turbo build, so I figured I'd get some use out of them.



Start with the basic shape



Then I filled in the head. I could have waited to do this til I started painting the bananas.



Forgot to shoot the next step, painting the pinstripe . Here I've started on the bananas.



The hard part is making them all symmetrical. I think I did a better job on the driver's side than the passenger side, but it's not a terrible job.



I take that back. It IS a terrible job, but it's not a terrible result. Since I used water-based paint over the sprayed enamel hood, it's easy to wipe off any mistakes. Now it's got a coat of flat clear holding it all together.



This is what it's supposed to look like; you can see I've altered the proportions.