READER'S RIDES
This is a category I created for misc. goodies sent in by you, my loyal readers (really, both of you!). I have created this area to post pics of work sent in by regular ol' snail mail, works in progress, etc. I will use my e-camera to photograph any pics mailed to me and then place them here. If you're interested in mailing pics to me, email me for my snail-mail addy. Don't be shy, send in those pics!
08-05-07
Don sent me photos of several great models he's been working on to go with the pictures he has previously sent. He's been busy!! First up, he finally completed his Li'l Herbie restoration and does it ever look nice!
Next is a Van that he painted to look like the Van in the background of the box art:
Next is a Tirebird that started life as a pretty severe glue bomb, Don did a full resto on it including having some new decals made for it:
And here is a Funster Racer Don just completed:
04-14-07
A couple more pics from Don, he truly saved this Bug Bomb from the landfill! Check out his description of what he went through to bring this beauty back from the brink:
"Here are some pics of another deals wheels restoration that I hope you will be able to add to your site. I got this as a gluebomb. It was built, then painted over everything with some sort of clear green paint . There was so much glue used that the roof caved in from it. The kid put the tailights on upside down and the trunk lock in backwards. The license plate was there, but broken in three pieces. The rear split window blew apart while I struggled to get the glass out, but after a lot of filling and sanding of the body I had it all painted. While fitting the tach I dropped the body and it shattered like an egg !- back to the drawing board ,more filler, more paint. After a few more months I finally finished it. All the glass is windshield glass from the parts box cut and traced from the originals, and the mirror is a floor shifter from the parts box .The exhuast tip is from an intake tube from a junk mclapper I had lying around. Now revell can reissue this kit!"
Incredible story! Here are the pics:
11-05-06
Here are a few pics I received from Don Culley, a Gomad Nomad and progress on his Li'l Herbie restoration. Here are some comments from Don:
Here are some pics of my finished gomad nomad, and one of the lil herbies progress. The nomad I won off of ebay, and was in pretty rough shape. Most of the chrome was missing,the body had glue fingerprints all over it, and the whole front end was gone. The tailgate was heavily glue smeared from the poorly installed and now missing surfboard.The good part was that the windshield was still good, and the driver still had his sunglasses. I managed to locate all of the parts from fellow builders. because the body had so much glue on it, I couldn't leave the body unpainted, so after a ton of wet sanding, I painted it in a lime pearl metallic over gloss white. the side mouldings were done with bare metal foil.I decided to put the drivers sunglasses on his forehead to match the box art. The surfboard came from the remains of my original van kit.
The other pic is the lil herbie. As you can see, the roof and drivers door have been repaired, and its now in primer. I'm still deciding how I want to rechrome the bumpers.What do you think so far ?
I think they look great Don!!
04-17-07
Mike McDaniel has been a long-time reader of the site, I think going back nearly 10 years! He just sent in pics of several of his great built-ups:
11-05-06
Ralph also sent some pics through of his latest, another nice Gomad Nomad!!
12-29-05
Ralph is building faster than ever, I can't keep up with him!! He has sent in four cool new builds, some of them rare and hard-to-find kits. Included are the Funster Chevy, Baja Humbug, Bug Bomb and McLapper. Nice work Ralph!
08-22-05
Ralph didn't let his last submission (see below) stop him from building more Deal's Wheels! He's been at it again- he sent me the below pics of his great looking Ferd, Spitsfire and yet another Swine Hunt (yes, he now has two!) Nice work!! At this rate Ralph will need his own page!
06-05-05
The next 5 pics are courtesy of Ralph, who has obviously been busy building some nice Deal's Wheels models! Great detailing and check out his unique camo technique on the Swine and Messa! Cool!
01-10-04
At long last another model to add to the Reader's Rides section! Thanks go out to Alfredo Guillen in Mexico for sending pics of his fine Van model. I was particularly impressed with the finish he created for the tires and asked him about it, here's his response: "For the flat rubber finish on tires I used semi-gloss black acrilic paint from Tamiya. Just a slight coat and voila!!!" Great job Al!!
03-10-01
Deal's Wheels aren't just for Americans! DW kits were also released in Europe as well as Japan. A gentleman by the name of Harley hailing from England has been kind enough to send some pics of his great collection. He also sent me some good descriptions of his work which I included below each photo. Please forgive the poor quality of the pics, I don't have a scanner so I had to take digital pics of Harley's photos.
Here is an overall shot of several of Harley's little wonders. Very nice builds! Now for Harley's descriptions:
" The Gomad Nomad is a bit of an oddity. When I got it the previous owner had cut off the back of the body in an attempt to make a pick up. I put it all back together again but I'm now wondering whether a Deals Wheels Caminomad wouldn't be such a bad idea ater all. That's the beauty of these kits, once you've built them there's no reason to keep stripping them and rebuilding until you get it right."
"The Swine Hunt is another box stock job and features a non too successful attempt to merge military and metallic paint finishes, The photos are really kind to it."
"The Super Spurt is pretty much box stock but I left off the exhaust extensions as I don't think they do anything for the kit. The reason the motor has a satin black finish is because I had just finished a 1/25 scale rod using that look which I thought was pretty sharp, and the chrome was so pitted and messy so as to be unusable."
"The race scene has the Good Stuff Willys pick up against the Zzzz28 (this one's a reissue). I gave the Willys a set of pipes from an old Revell gasser and added the "good ol' boy" braking system (Fred Flintstone would be proud I'm sure). As an aside, if you look at the interior of the Willys' body, it's quite clear they used the old AMT kit as a base. The Zzzz28 gets thinner front tyres from the parts box, some decals from an unknown Z28 kit, a crash helmet for the driver and an even more bizarre braking system (inspired by a diorama the Good Stuff guys built to display their range). Sadly the paint on the Zzzz28 is on the way out so it might be time for an overhaul."
"The VW Van is self explanatory. This diorama placed first at a show last year simply because this had happened to one of the judges! The figure used the head from the kit and the rest is Sculpy and filler. The mechanical debris came from the parts box again. Possibly the most interesting thing is that these photos record that rarest of things: a sunny day in an English winter!"
"The Baja Humbug is straight out of the box and still remains one of my favourite Deals Wheels."
"The paint on the Stink Ray is my one and only attempt at a "swirladelic"finish. Basically you prime the body (I think the Stink Ray was white) and drop it into a container filled with water. I kept the body underwater by taping a coat hanger to the interior so I could hold it down, obviously you don't want the coat hanger anywhere near the exterior so some careful bending was needed.
Then the fun part.
You just simply spray whatever colours you want onto the surface of the water (they've got to be enamels in my experience, lacquers get everywhere and acrylics dissolve into the water) and give it a gentle stir to get the swirls looking good. In the Stink Ray's case it was a load of old Testor's colours that didn't have enough left in the tins to do a complete job. Then you very slowly pull the car up through the paint and a film gets left behind.
I got one or two bubbles in the paint but if you wait until the paint begins to dry (probably a lot sooner in Texas than over here!) you can pop then with a pin or scalpel and they fall back onto the surface. I got a slightly dull finish when the paint dried which was possibly down to the water content so it got a few coats of clear which were then polished out.
I think it's going to be a "one and only" attempt because it went right first time and I don't want to tempt fate by trying another. Certainly, some of my building buddies have had less than successful end results. Just lucky I guess."
Thanks for the cool photos and descriptions Harley!