| The tips presented here employ 'Maid-O-Metal' 36 ga. Tooling Aluminum. It is a soft aluminum foil that is heavy enough to retain its shape. If you can’t find ‘Maid-O-Metal’ or something like it in your area, disposable aluminum baking pans from the grocery store may be substituted. It is delicate enough to represent body panels for dragsters, and gives a very nice scale appearance. First up is creating rolled beads in panels. This is a simple trick that Marc Weller has used for a long time, the only... |
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...difference being that he uses a ballpoint pen! All you'll need for this one is a burnisher (the one I use is ball-ended, with a different size ball on each end (Inset, pic. 1), a straightedge and a pad of paper (Pic. 1). Simply draw the burnisher firmly along the straightedge to create the results seen in Pic. 2. | |
| The cutting mat shown in Pic. 3 is from the sewing department at Hobby Lobby. It is six inches square, and its most important feature for the next tip is that it has a pebbled surface. Performing the same procedure as in the first tip produces the convincing weld bead in Pic. 4. Pic. 5 shows both techniques together. |
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Finally, I'd like to share my method of creating rolled edges. This process involves the use of a rolling tool (mine's an old brass bushing, but the handle end of an X-acto knife works great, too) and a template made of .020" brass strip. You'll need to determine the width based on the shapes of your model's body panels. Once the shape of... |
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panels is determined (in this case a body panel), scribe the shape into
the brass strip, and remove the material, being careful to maintain the
proper shape. Clean up your cuts, and smooth the edges, and you should
have something that resembles the template shown in Pic. 6 (alongside
the roller and sheet). Align the top edge of the body panel with
the top edge of the template, and indent the area to... |
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...be rolled with your fingers (center right). This accomplishes two things; first, it aids you in seeing your work. Second, it helps to hold the sheet in place during the rolling process (right). It is important to thoroughly roll the relieved area, insuring a nice, sharp relief (Pic. 9). Now, the cowl mounts flush with the body panels (Pic. 10). | |
| These are just a few of the tricks I've picked up, just by messing around with different ideas. Don't ever be afraid to experiment. Scratchbuilding is not a black art. This stuff is FUN! The final photo shows the completed body at home on its Ramchargers' chassis. |
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Armco Barrier
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| In drag racing's earlier years, many tracks, if they had any kind of crash barriers at all used Armco guardrails, just like that alongside the highway. Armco has given way to safer means of containing out-of-control vehicles, but, if you'd like to duplicate some for a diorama project, or a simple display base, here’s a quick and simple way to make Armco guardrail for a diorama or a small display base to photograph your models. The forming buck (top left, top right) is made from a short length of 1X2 pine with three lengths of 1/8" dowel glued to one side (the number may be varied to create wider barrier rail) at approximately 1/8"spacing. Now, cut a rectangle of aluminum sheet (either the aforementioned Maid-O-Metal or cut it from a disposable baking sheet), and simply rub and burnish it down over the dowels. Be careful not to wrap the sheet under the dowels, or it won’t lift off without distorting the shape of the guardrail. The lower two photos above show the finished barrier. The photo below shows the barrier installed on posts attached to a base. It can be attached with short sections cut from straight pins, and the pins’ heads represent the heads of the carriage bolts that are normally used to attach Armco to its posts. This technique is not only easy, it also creates a very realistic looking guardrail...Dan Himmel |
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How-To
Tips&Tech
