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Post by Mr409 on Nov 5, 2019 16:33:09 GMT -5
I've been trying to find one of these Long John Dragster kits for a while, but that seemed to be impossible here in Finland. While visiting Pegasus Hobbies in Montclair, CA, I saw a couple of these kits on the stash. Needless to say I had to have one... When I arrived in Finland, I decided to start working on it right away. I have not finished anything this year, so my plan is to have this one finished before the year ends. It's a simple kit with not too many parts, so it might be possible. The plan is to build it pretty much out of the box, but I've already been planning of buying another one and building one with major modifications to create a full detail version of this kit some day... This will be pretty much out of the box type build though. I started working on the body. It's made of two pieces, top and bottom. The original idea on Monogram factory was to paint everything first and assemble the body halves together after that. However, the fitment between those body halves is not the best and it would take a lot of work to get them fit perfectly to each other. Because of that, I wanted to get rid of the seam before painting. Of course this will cause some difficulties in the final assembly, but after some planning I think I'm able to do this... First the body halves were brush painted flat black from inside. This is because there is no way I could do that after the body is glued together as one piece. Then I glued the seat bottom which also has driver's legs molded in it to the body bottom. Mold lines were cleaned up from the front suspension and that was glued on place as well. Some careful detail painting to follow when the body is painted and it's time for final assembly! After those parts, the body halves were glued together and I'm ready to start the bodywork with sanding and some filler...
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Post by randfink on Nov 5, 2019 16:38:09 GMT -5
Cool! This kit is high on my list of "must build." I'll be watching your progress and taking notes.
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Post by mod3llover on Nov 5, 2019 17:19:05 GMT -5
I have never seen one of these built before. So I will be watching for sure!!
David S.
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Post by mod3llover on Nov 5, 2019 17:30:11 GMT -5
Looks like the driver used to be a Magicians assistant!?! Because someone sawed him in half! LOL!!
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Post by Bernard Kron on Nov 5, 2019 19:48:39 GMT -5
This is a somewhat unexpected project to see you start. With your immaculate build style this should look mighty fine!
The "Long John" is actually a blend of two cars, the J.E. Riley & Son Contractors Special which won the very first NHRA Nationals in 1955 In Kansas City, Missouri. That year it had no roll bar and ran a Ford flathead V8. The following year it had been converted to Hemi power and it's this version that probably inspired the Long John.
The car has been restored to it's '55 Nationals form and you probably encountered it if you visited the NHRA Museum:
This is how it looked at the Nationals in 1956:
The other car which inspired the Long John, most obviously its red and white livery, is the car built by Romeo Palamides and run by him, camshaft and speed equipment manufacturer Richard Hubbard, and Jack Friedland, running as the Hubbard Racing Cams Special. In its original form it most closely resembles the Long John. It was featured in both Hot Rod (as a cover car) and Car Craft (as The World's Most Beautiful Slingshot). By the time it made it to Car Craft it had evolved into an enclosed streamliner with a plexiglass bubble and a tall tail over its roll bar.
The Palamides car in an interim form already showing the Hilborn Injector tubes which can be found in the AMT Double Dragster kit:
November 1956 HRM Cover, very Long John in appearance:
Note the sprung rear suspension and, most importantly, the magnesium alloy rear wheels. Palamides was known for his fine craftsmanship and design sense. He contracted machinist Jim Ellison and engineer Tom Griffith to assist him in developing these ultra-light yet strong drag wheels. They caught the eye of HRM readers and the demand for them caused them to create American Racing Wheels.
The Car Craft Streamliner cover:
I've always wanted to use the Long John to build a full detail replica of the J.ER. Riley car. I actually started on it earlier this year, but the version I have is designed to take a battery and electric motor and removing the interior structure was more than I wanted to tackle at the time. I still want to do it, though.
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Post by Mr409 on Nov 6, 2019 4:54:51 GMT -5
Thanks Guys for the comments! Randy, I hope this will be a succesful attempt at building this kit with the body halves glued together before painting. It looks like all the parts are possible to either paint or assemble on place afterwards, but as always, you never know until you get there... David, Haha, the top part of the driver is also cut vertically in two pieces! Bernard, That's a good history, thanks! I knew this kit had something to do with that J.E. Riley & Son Dragster but there is some interesting information that I didn't know of as well. We saw both of those cars while being in SoCal actually, the Riley & Son car was indeed in NHRA Museum, and the Romeo Palamides' car was seen in Justice Brothers' Museum. When drooling over the Palamides' Dragster in the museum, I was actually thinking if that car had something in common with this model kit as it had some similar styling... Both of the cars were restored really nicely. This kit has been a long time on my "Must Have" list, so now when I finally have one I had to get started with it immediately.
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Post by Mr409 on Nov 8, 2019 9:58:48 GMT -5
The body had two larger holes on the underside. They look like they could be made for screws holding the body halves together, as the motorized version of this kit probably had screws in there. There is no need for those holes on my build, and if I left the holes in there, I would end up having paint overspray everywhere in the interior. So I filled the holes with round pieces of styrene that I cut to the correct size. I also did some bodywork, after first time sanding the seam between the body halves smooth, I applied a coat of liquid glue on top of the seam. Hopefully it will make the joint a little stronger, and it also melts the plastic just enough that after sanding the seam smooths out pretty good. It doesn't eliminate the need for filler completely, but now I don't need that much putty to smooth out the seam. However, the body has lots of sink marks here and there, so next step will be putty and sanding...
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Post by Mr409 on Nov 14, 2019 11:42:50 GMT -5
The body had pretty many sink marks all over it, so several spots were in need of putty. Everything looked pretty good already after sanding down the first coat of putty, but a couple of spots needed some more filling. After sanding the body smooth again, it looked pretty good. The body looked so smooth already that I thought I'd give it a light coat of spray filler to fill up all minimal flaws here and there easily. Of course before that, I had to mask off all holes on the body where paint would go to the "interior". The small holes for valve covers were easily hidden from outside. The small holes in rear axle area were a bit more difficult and the driver's seat area was already pretty hard to do. But I think it'll work. The spray filler itself didn't go as I planned. Looks like the spray bottle had lost the pressure and it would not spray anything out of it. Looks like I need to go pick up another can tomorrow so I can continue.
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Post by lo51merc on Nov 15, 2019 10:52:00 GMT -5
I've started marking the date on the underside of the spray cans with a Sharpie marker.
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Post by Mr409 on Dec 2, 2019 7:57:18 GMT -5
Thanks Gary, that is a good idea. Never thought of that before, but I guess I might start doing it from now on. I've sprayed two coats of spray filler to the body. After the first one I did some sanding and now with the second coat on, it looks already pretty good. The only problem is that the spray filler seems to have a hard time covering the red plastic, so I think next I'll have to spray a coat of primer to make it one color, which will also help when trying to figure out if it's getting ready for paint or not. I also built a simple "paint stand" for this Dragster to make the painting at least a little easier.
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Post by Mr. Metallic on Dec 2, 2019 8:49:35 GMT -5
Looking good Niko.
I would suggest, rather than more primer, so spray with silver to unify the color on the body and hide the red plastic.
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Post by randfink on Dec 2, 2019 10:49:11 GMT -5
really anxious to see how this turns out, because I've been thinking about building one of these myself.
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Post by Mr409 on Dec 2, 2019 10:59:10 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice Craig, I'll have to see if I still have some silver spray paint left. If I do, I'll try that! The primer I've been using has never had any problems with covering colored plastics. But the spray filler seems to have some issues with the red plastic. Anyway, I think I'll give the silver paint a shot. Thanks! Thanks Randy! I've been wanting to build one of these for a long time. Unfortunately I couldn't find a project thread where a builder removed the seam between the body panels. Maybe it would have helped, but I think this will work.
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Post by Mr409 on Dec 17, 2019 13:38:23 GMT -5
The body started to look pretty smooth so I thought it's pretty much ready for paint. So I sprayed a coat of silver to make sure to cover all of that red plastic and it worked very well. After light sanding, I headed to paint booth again. The color is Tamiya TS 95 Pure Metallic Red which is a pretty good shade to go with the kit supplied white decals. Unfortunately, the first try to paint this thing didn't go according the plan, as something happened and the paint cracked from here and there. Today I sanded the body smooth again really carefully, to make sure I don't go through the paint. And back to the paint booth, this time I sprayed a very thin coat of paint to the body, just to make it the same shade of red all over. There is some minor orange peel, but it's not bad. I think it'll look pretty good after the decals and a couple of clear coats.
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Post by randfink on Dec 17, 2019 13:52:45 GMT -5
Love that color!
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