OK, so it took about a week (with a few days off due to weather – too cold – and a little bit of head scratching) but I finally have the airbrush station I’ve been wanting for quite awhile. As it sits right now, it’ll get me through adding color to my model kits, but I’ll most likely need to expand the ‘booth’ area for bigger projects and actual ‘artwork,’ if I ever get some inspiration.
So, here’s how we came out. I finished up the benches, punching a hole through the wall for the exhaust vent, and running of the wiring the other day, and today was all about cutting out the corner platform for the portable hobby spray booth, mounting it up, and installing a retractable electrical extension cord in the garage (which will get used for more than just powering the workstation).
The vent hose was the biggest hassle to install, since it’s fairly rigid compared to normal dryer vent hoses.Don’t know what to put over here… I’m sure that’ll change soon. I’m amazed at how bright the El Cheapo Harbor Freight overhead LED lights are – the included bench lights… not so much (waste of power outlets on the ‘strip more than anything).Looks like this should be fun, and there’s plenty of room for expansion, as necessary.Here’s how big the booth is, just for scale purposes. It even has its own lights, which will help during the painting process.
I actually finished up the workbenches, hung the lights, ran the power cables where they needed to go, and pretty much gotten everything done yesterday afternoon, but it was almost dark and I’d forgotten to take pictures.
Today, I had to run to Lowe’s to get a 24″x24″ piece of wood for the corner piece/airbrush booth perch, a louvered exterior dryer vent (for the exhaust hose), a 4″ hole saw (which needed a new drill, since my old one’s batteries died), and some sheet rock screws. I also went by Harbor Freight to score a small dedicated work bench tool kit (so I don’t wind up carting a bunch of my regular tools out there and leaving them), and also to get the 40′ retractable extension cord to mount up in the garage so I can have some light.
The weather called for mid-60s, but they lied – it never got above 39… which made cutting the exhaust vent hole and installing the vent bezel pretty much all I got done today before it started getting dark again (not really ‘dark’ dark… just dark enough to not be able to see inside of the shed – hence, the need for power and overhead lights). If it warms up a bit more over the weekend (looking like the best chance for that is Monday) then I’ll get the final things finished up and hopefully get some pics of the finished product.
So, a few years ago I built this cool shed on the side of my driveway, hoping it would eventually become a small shop in which I could permanently set up my airbrushing gear. Then, we basically made my mom get rid of her storage unit ($70/month bill she no longer had the money to pay), and her final leftovers wound in it while she was ‘going through the last bits.’ Well, as usual, she abandoned that since it was hot, in a place that she didn’t have to worry about it being destroyed or gone missing, and was boring so she didn’t want to do that anymore. That was sometime in late summer of 2016, and we’ve been waiting for her to finish ‘going through’ her crap ever since.
Last Friday, I decided I’d had enough of that and got busy on completing my small shop area. We boxed up the junk she’d covered our plastic table in, and basically shoved it aside so I could get the area I need cleaned out, organized, and ready for a transformation into functionality.
Saturday, I went to Harbor Freight and picked up 2 metal work benches, an airbrush compressor kit, some overhead shop lights, a 4′ power strip, and a few extension cords. Then I spent the weekend afternoons putting together the benches (as much as I could before it got too dark to continue) and got things somewhat situated in the shop area.
Here are the pics I took before working on it a bit more this afternoon.
The plan is for a corner piece for an airbrush booth to occupy (pretty much where the floor fan is currently), and to have plenty of light, along with an exhaust vent for the booth, and get it set up with some tunes and/or a small computer for reference/tunes. I’m also setting up a retractable electric cord in the garage to string out and plug-in the bench/lights so I’ll have some power available. Eventually, I’ll get an electrician to get some dedicated power at least close enough to plug-in the building as I need to without having to run the extension cord from the garage (although, I’m pretty sure there’s something in the builder’s code about not actually being legal to wire up a plastic building).
Wow, so it’s been almost 2 months since I last posted any progress. Been all sorts of busy, and just hadn’t gotten back to it in awhile. I picked up some embossing powder and decided to make some ‘carpet’ for the Mustang. Yeah… that turned out like crap. I picked up the ‘extra thick’ embossing powder, thinking that the bigger bottle of clear would be what I needed for many years of scale model carpet goodness. Nope – it looks like I’ve effectively spread tan gravel on the floor of the kit. Whatever… it’ll be inside and nobody will be looking that close, anyway.
I played around a little bit today and worked on the center console and dashboard. I just need to touch up a couple of tan spots on both and maybe print some gauge faces (haven’t decided yet). The kit came with front wheels that could be steered (or posed, rather), but didn’t have a tie rod connecting the two. So, I busted out the trusty pin vise and drilled some holes through the ‘spindles’ and made some tie rod ends out of a paper clip along with an old school tie rod to span the gap between the two. I’ll dress it up to look like the rack & pinion which is also missing on the chassis.
I’ve kind of hit that place where I need to prep the body for paint, along with the interior door panels/inner wheel wells/front aprons (each side is one piece) and firewall, since it’s all body color on the car.
I decided this past weekend to play with the Tamiya weathering master kits to age the underside a bit after seeing a phenomenal build underway of an ’85 SVO Mustang. I didn’t go nuts with it, but I think it made a little bit of difference using some rust, soot, silver, and gun metal. Also drilled some holes in the firewall for the heater hoses after carving off the molded ones.
Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to get some color on the body parts and interior so I can press on with those. Also need to score some embossing powder to make some proper sheepskin seat covers.
OK, so after taking it all apart a couple of times, I finally found a suitable substitute for a distributor, and also this really cool old pin vise set that belonged to my Grandpa I’ve been carrying around for 25 years or so. I used a 68 gauge bit to drill some holes for the spark plug wires, scratched up some linkage arms for the carb and transmission, installed the TV cable (from AOD to carb) along with an automatic shifter cable. I used a Molotow chrome pen (1mm) to dot the bolt heads on everything, and even scratched up an alternator bracket… and none of this will likely ever be seen again once I get all the rest of the engine components installed.
I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and spent WAY too much money. Among the many things I brought home were a nice fine-tooth saw & miter box… which came in handy today when I noticed (and realized) that the transmission cast with the 2.3L 4-cylinder was a T-5 manual… not the AOD my Mustang had with its 2.3L. I thought I’d seen an automatic in the kit, and the floor of the car only has a brake & gas pedal… no clutch… and the 5.0L V-8 was indeed cast with the AOD automatic. Cool – so, now I get to use my new saw and miter box.
First – separate the AOD from the 5.0, and the T-5 from the 2.3:
Meanwhile, with the glue and steel paint on the AOD dry, I’ve almost got it to rolling chassis (still need some details underneath like shocks, and paint the backsides of the wheels, and whatnot – but the suspension’s on for the most part):
The floor of the interior is supposed to represent the tan carpet that was in the real car. This kit’s a little odd in that it doesn’t have a proper interior ‘tub’ like most car kits do. Oh well, it’ll look right when it’s all done.
And finally, here we are with the 2.3 mated up to the AOD, as it was in the real car:
Still lots of work to do: gotta wire & plumb the engine, finish up the underside with the rest of the driveline, get the body ready for paint, and get busy on the interior. Most of the work so far has been painting all the little bits, which has become more of a process since after having actually [re]built some cars in my time, now I’m on a quest to get it all ‘right.’
As I’m stuck here at home today with a bad case of the stomach grumblies, I decided to dig out the Mustang Turbo Cobra kit and see what I’m up against. The previous owner had removed a ton of pieces from the sprues, but fortunately it looks like everything’s there. This kit is a proper ’79-’82 Mustang, so it’s a bit more anatomically correct to be a tribute to my first car, an ’82 Mustang GL hatchback.
I started building the 2.3L 4-cylinder (since that’s what came with mine). I’ll put the optional 5.0 V8 together later for a future project.
I already have a model of my first Mustang, but it was built in ’88 or ’89, not even the right kit, and was done in a hurry and quite haphazardly. That kit was an ’84 Silver Anniversary kit I found at Firestone of Alamogordo (of all places), and I found some wheels from some other kit that were kind of close (if 6-lug 15x10s with 12 holes on BFG T/As can be considered “close” to 5-lug 14x7s with 10 holes on Goodyear Eagle GTs, that is). I’d also taken some liberties and added a sunroof and trunk spoiler, which neither came to be since I traded the car in on an ’85 Nissan 4×4 before I got that far. I also didn’t have any rear window louvers on the kit, however the new kit has some so I won’t have to scratch-build them.
I just hope I can find that color again – one of the few things I got right! 😉
So, here we go – here’s my car:
And here’s the kit with my build from back in the day next to the pile of pieces of the new kit:
The biggest thing I’m anxious to correct is the engine compartment – I SO messed up on that first kit. I mean, who paints a radiator hose silver, anyway? LOL!
