new hobby | new opportunities

 

New year, new beginning.

In fact just empty words because the new beginning were back in 2024 when I grabbed my first big scale RC.  It was a Traxxas Big Foot, an RC car that looks like the RC s from my childhood. It delivers fun continuously and more than this, it offers the opportunity to think. You see what it does, you think what its need to do or what you want to do. After this exercise you’ll modify and tune the thing. This is called “upgrading”. And this is the entrance in the rabbit hole of the RC’s. Because it means money expensed and somehow an addiction. Even I do not consider having a hobby meaning you are addicted.

    But honestly, the pleasure of playing RC’s was born back in 2023 when I had my very first RC car : Traxxas TRX4M Land Rover Defender. Now it is the most modified from my collection but not necessarily the best performer. What I am share of is that is the most realistic in the entire collection (in spite of the lack of the interior reproduction).

    So, already I can talk about the two fields of the hobby I am involved in : the micro crawlers and the bashing cars (off road or on roads, we’ll see this later on)

    After the Big Foot I wanted speed and durability and it was the Rustler which I modded for street bashing and speed runs. A lot of technical accessories and esteticaly ones. The Rusty, The Beast, as a friend call it, is now my RC car that I never sell. It will remain in collection no matter what.

    And for the and of the 2024, needing a fancy RC for car lots playing, I added a hot rod to the collection. This is for street playing. Destination : drift car - parts are already on my workbench waiting for mounting on the modest. An power upgrade is not excluded but first I have to find its limits as stock power package.

    Alongside of collecting diecast cars (not so many acquisitions in 2024) those are the milestones of my new hobby along the one already presented on this blog. The passion for scale models remains and I am proud of my scale model collection. I will always enrich with the greatest models I consider.

    About the differences between the RC cars and the scale models we will talk later. In my opinion it is an interesting subject and there are a way to mix them but, at least for instance, I do not agree this mix because of the…. (I’ll explain later because it’s interesting  and I plan to read an entire article on this subject).

    New year, new beginning, promises and so on, better me… bla bla bla. I am sure nothing will change, the same hobbys and the same hunger of satisfying the passion of the scale models no matter what kind of.

    Creating custom scale models allowed you to be creative to feed your abilities of manufacturing tiny things in you tiny world of yourself. Sometimes this helps me passing by difficult moments, but this is another story… and sad stories are not ment to be here.

    So, no promisses for the beginning of the year, let’s see what time brings to us and face no matter what it will be.

Lock-down works | Ford T | Woody Wagon

Hello friends,

Here it is the continuation of my works in lock-down time. Two month of efficient work on m models.

The second ICM plastic kit of Ford T turns in a what-if model. I used in addition of the base kit another model - European Cart by MiniArt at the 1/35 scale (the rear wood structure of my model).

The building of the ford base was straight forward due to the previous experience I had with the T Ford black. I let you enjoy the ride.

Chevrolet C30 | Z- ed

In 1960 Chevrolet introduces a new body design for their light pick-ups. The new design has had many “premieres”. First of all, a ladder frame which allows to the cabin to sit lower. Independent front suspension. The 1960, 1961 and 1963 has used a torsion bar but in 1963 was introduced a coil spring for the front suspension. This type of suspension give a car-like ride in a truck. Also we have to mention that 1960 meant the milestone for the changing of the designation system. They passed from “100, 3200 and 3600 to 10, 20 and 30 respectively for ½, ¾ or 1 tone of load.

Engines included the base GMC 305 cu in V6 135 hp till 283 cu in V8 185hp, but also a 6 straight 261 cu in 150hp.

The model I present has as starting base the Chevy C30 Apache from James Bond Car series at 1/43.

The chassis has been “Z”-ed just after the cabin and the rear axle was replaced by a truck one. All those heights has been calculated to have a ground clearance… in-existent.

The Flat bed is scratch built, the gas barrels are from a Tamiya 1/48th lit and the support for this barrels is also scratch built.

The tail lights are custom made from transparent sprues, turned and polished in order to give them back the crystal clear look.

Hoping you like it more than me, let’s enjoy the ride.

IFA W 5o | rake stance

IFA - Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau ('Industrial Association for Vehicle Construction'), was a union of companies for vehicle construction in East Germany (Deutsche Demokratische Republik - DDR).

All East German manufacturers were part of IFA! Interesting, isn't it?

But I don't intend to evoke the IFA facts. We will talk about the stance! An spectacular stance is the rake. Is not appropriate for modern cars in my opinion, but it fits as a glove on the old timers, or hot-rods or something like this.

What does it means a Raked Stance? The definition is very simple: the front is lower than the rear of the car. But, even it sound so simple, it is not easy to achieve a good and real Rake. Why? Because a correct rake it means that the rocker panel/side skirt is not parallel with the ground. And it still not enough! The eye of an "connaiseur" will judge the distance between the top of the rim lip and the top of the wheel arch. So, wile the side skirt is lower on the front side but the distance between the rim and fender (as defined previously) is bigger on the front comparing with rear, we will not see the car being raked.

Being short and clear: to archive a real and clean rake the car must be lower in front than in the rear and the front wheels must go deeper in the fenders than the rear ones, when we are looking at the car from side.

This time I get an IFA W5o from Atlas Collection of DDR Trucks and I raked it. Other modifications are the weathering, decals (german flag from an afterrmaket ITALERI Kit), interior detailing and other little thing.

But I wroete enaugh. Please, enjoy the ride.

ford A | custom pick-up

The hot rod culture gets the inspiration from various sides of the today's life. There is a current to lay down on some custom cars the patterns of some WWII planes.

One of my favourite planes, otherwise, I have one on work table in progress, is the Mustang. Especially the P51 versions. It has an aluminium finishing and some red or yellow or dark olive green colour decoration. The pattern I love much is silver / red. There was a lot of styles but I like very much the variant below:

image copyright ©: http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/

So, why don’t try to make a custom like this?

As I told previously I have on my work table a Mustang P51D at 1|48^th scale. It is obviously the the scale for my custom must be 1|43^rd for having beautiful photos with the two machines (I don’t know when, but surely there will be some…). The base is an Fortd A from DeAgostini Romania at 1|43^rd. The original model looks like this:

image copyright ©: http://www.modelissimo.de/

more photos you can find on http://www.modelissimo.de/?Ident=1378626337&Sprache=1

The modifications I’ve done was to shorten the body and to make a wooden bed in the rear of  the vehicle. Also I putted to this car some truck wheels. The rear tires are bigger than the front ones amplifying the rake look of the car.The decals are from a Bell Helicopter @ 1|48^th scale. All over the paint work I laid down two layers of flat varnish.

Please enjoy the ride:

photos by custom | scale | car  on flickr.

GAZ AAA

In 1926 the Ford Motor Company begins to work on a replacement of the old Fort T after 18 years of production. Also it was planned a replacement of the TT (truck version of Ford T) with a AA version of the modern Ford A. The production of this body is placed between 1928 and 1931. First of A Fords was produce on October 20^th 1927 but the sells begins on December the same year.The AA was produced in parallel with the A and followd the same changes and improvements.

Ford licensed the manufacture of Ford A and AA in the Soviet Union. The name of the car was GAZ A or GAZ AA (GAZ is the abbreviation of Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod). The GAZ AA was built in USSR from 1932 to 1950. It had a cargo capacity of 1500 kg. The AAA has two rear axles instead of one on AA.

The model is the military variant produced by UM at the scale 1/48^th (I do not recommend to try smaller than this) and a set of photo-etched parts is included in the kit. The quality is not at the top but the amount of parts is amazing, helping to build a well detailed model (…finally)

I chose to transform it in a custom flat bed.

The removable bonnet is one of the "updates" I made to the UM kit

The frame is very well detailed and the rear train also :

For having an idea of the dimension of this tiny flat bad truck I took a photo along of a fountain pen:

Photo tip : natural light and custom WB