AMT '57 Chrysler 300c: Redo/Tweak

If you aren't aware of the paint artist Gary Seeds, he's similar in style, tho his preference is low riders. He does custom paint on real vehicles and cycles for a living. Thanks for your skills at this site!

Great imagination, again, Curt.

Very nice of you all to be following along, thanks for the comments they are encouraging. harron, Gary is a very skilled builder and painter, his replica models of well known show cars are insane, something to strive for most definitely.

Another small update. Hoping to make some more progress tonight.




Wheels done.




Wheels mounted in tire's

The wheels look amazing Curt. 

I agree with Gary Curt.

Are you going to apply a blackwash to the wheels?

Thanks fellas. Most likely I will add a wash to them Al.

I wanted to share something with you all.

In my constant quest to learn new methods and always wanting to trying new things there have been many failed ventures. This was a bit of a brain fade moment with the choice of colour, along with trying a new method of adhereing the lace stencilling fabric to the body.

In the end the colour was totally wrong (I had the image in my mind flipped) and the method was a total fail. Alas, I have learn a new method for clearing up paint mix ups.

Not wanting to strip the entire shell again I chose to remove the masking tape and try cleaning up this mess with Iso alcohol, Q-tips, and some very very gentle scraping with a #12 blade.

I am very pleased with the results.

Once this is complete you will have been none the wise had I not shared this with you. With the next few colours and all the poly U clear that is going to be laid down this will be nothing more the a memory.

Before


After

A master at work.

Thanks D, although I am far from a master, more like a master of disaster,

Mastering Disaster is a skill which evolves in no way that can be quantified in a text as it is unique to every individual who makes mistakes. Just getting caught up (and missing lots of posts, sorry guys) so I apologize for not commenting sooner. Having said that ...

Love the work on the body as it evolves! The gear templates and the decal work (I'm assuming it's decals, forgive me if I ma mistaken) on the stripe are just fantastic. The repair/mod on the 'error' portion turned out great as well.

As for curves, one thing you might want to look into is cutting templates from appropriate adhesive backed flexible material. In the past I have cut intricate designs from sheets of masking material, or failing that cut templates from thin plastic and used Nitto 2 sided adhesive. I recommend the Nitto stuff because it acts like medium strength tape backing and can be rolled off the surface with finger pressure, no solvents required, and is less persistent than spray on adhesive, even the dry stuff.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes next

Thanks Kats for the suggestions and words of encouragement.

I am using the masking tape to acheive pin strip boarders not the actual "panels" you'll see once I am done. The challenge is the maske is only .4mm or .015 wide, I may try and cut some from vinyl. I have done it before from Tamiya masking tape by stuffing two #10 blades into a knife.

After Kats post I decided to give my idea another go with some 3m vinyl pinstripping tape.

Here are the results, this stuff turned out thinner then the masking tape I bought off line. My stuff is .3mm/.011 wide. I am going to take the blades to work Monday and grind them down on the surface grinder, should be able to get the width down to .2mm/.007 wide, which is actually 3/16 of an inch in 1:1 much better then the 3/8 of the .4mm/.010 once scaled out to 1:1.

Anyway here is my results.

I don't know how you do it Curt!

Great result.

Thanks Buck and Shay.

Still working out the details on how to manipulate this stuff. This project is a warm up for a true low rider I am going to be starting sometime over the next couple months. So not wanting to spend too much time I am laying the tape down as best I can. The 3m vinyl tape has much better flexibility then the crepe Tamiya type .4mm tape. I think on my next go for the drivers side I may work under a halogen light to help bring the temp of everything up allowing the tape to relax and turn much tighter radius.

One of my cutting ideas that seemed to work was to pre stretch the 3m to it's max then lay in on the glass. My thought was it would be thinner. The real challenge is my working with my sausage fingers.

One of the biggest challenges with cutting tape is holing the straight edge in place, taping it takes care of that issue.

As always thanks for the interest and comments, all are welcome and I implore any constructive critisisum and ideas you may want to add.

Anyway this is where this project is for tonight.

I have used this tape for years Curt, and be careful with the heat, it is very easy to stretch, which will narrow the stripe.

A masterclass in using masking tape Curt, just brilliant!!

Nice work Curt.

I have one of those cutters too...... just never used it. LOL

Sam, thanks for the heads up, but I stretch it before I cut it.

Gary, .


Thanks Al, I had no idea you could actually buy a knife with a double blade.
I am taking the blades into the shop this morning to grind them down on the surface grinder in hopes on making them thinner in order to be able to cut narrower tape.

Oh btw, I got the instruction, .

So this morning I put the blades on the surface grinder, grinding them thinner. I was able to grind them  thin enough to cut strips  about .225mm wide. It is much narrower then the pics show.

I am pretty stoked to see how thin I can make these once I get comfortable using the surface grinder.

Here is a pic of the tape cut with unmodified blades and modified blades.

Unground blades


Ground blades (thinned)

Some things just don't want to work out, and I am ok with that, I always get things sorted in the end. I simply couldn't come up with a design flow that worked and made me happy. Not wanting to strip the entire shell AGAIN I did some prestripping with ISO alcohol, then I decided to do one side at a time with Easy-Off. This has been a real challenge, I think it's the colours. I am having real trouble visualizing the layout in my mind.

That's a shame Curt but I know you'll get there buddy.

This is the twin blade knife I mentioned. However, form memory I thinks the gap between the blades is around .75mm.

Twin blade knife

Skid wrote:That's a shame Curt but I know you'll get there buddy.

This is the twin blade knife I mentioned. However, form memory I thinks the gap between the blades is around .75mm.

Twin blade knife

Thanks Al.

I remember that one, yes WAY too wide.