How I built Ira Dahm's Variation No.3 on a Moon Scope

Before I discovered E. L. Moore, Ira Dahm was the model maker I most followed [1]. He was a frequent contributor of custom car projects in Car Model magazine, and the first project I saw of his, Variation No. 3 on a Moon Scope in the December 1972 issue, was also the one I became obsessed with.

Back in '72 I didn't have access to AMT's Moon Scope kit, sheet styrene, Richard Carroll tires, or just about any of the things needed to build the project. But I did have cardboard and balsa! Using those I built the body and attached it to a slot car chassis. I seem to recall I brush painted it green. That model is long gone, but over the years I've thought about giving this project a try, and when I unearthed that old magazine during workshop reorganizing, I decided to shove reorg to the side for a bit and build it. 

Mr. Dahm has a great website that shows many of his early builds that appeared in Car Model along with a number made in this century. His Moon Scope Variations were four kit bashes based on AMT's Moon Scope kit that appeared in Car Model during '72 and '73:

Variation 1 - June '72

Variation 2 - August '72

Variation 3 - December '72

Variation 4 - March '73

I only own the magazines for #1, which I bought a couple of years ago, and #3, which I bought at the Painted Post smoke shop near my childhood home back in '72. 

The Moon Scope Variations were meant to be Mr. Dahm's fanciful spin on what electric powered vehicles might someday look like. There was a little runabout, a pickup, a van (Variation #3 that I'm building here), and a chopper. Our world would certainly be improved if these things were running around the roads these days, well it at least would be funkier :-)

Before we jump in, I'll just mention that my rendition of Variation No. 3 isn't an exact copy of Mr. Dahm's. For example I didn't use Richard Carroll tires, or make custom Car Model decals. The main thing for me was to see if I could build a credible body from sheet styrene as I've never done that before, and for me I think that's the most important part of this project. As we proceed I'll note where I've deviated from Mr. Dahm's instructions.

One other thing, I found this to be a challenging project, and I couldn't have built it as kid even if I had all the necessary materials and tools at my disposal. I didn't have the skills and patience back then. My skills and patience still need work, but if young me is reading this in a parallel universe, old me says, read this all the way through before you give it a go :-) And speaking of going, let's start!

Since getting back into model building earlier in the century, I've bought a few AMT Moon Scope kits and have used them in a variety of kitbashes. They're great donor kits, and I have a bag of leftover parts from previous builds, as well as 2 unopened kits, sitting around waiting for this project.

In what follows I'll assume you've bought the kit and have the instructions for basic assembly. Also, to give you a sense of what's in the article, and where I've made deviations, I've included a number of scanned snippets that I've cleaned up as best I can. Any text from the article is presented in Courier.

The first step in the article is to build the chassis: Cut a half circle in the rear cross member between the batteries. This cut is shown in white and the engine should fit easily into this groove.

Here's the back end of the chassis before cutting in the groove for the engine.

Here it is after using my Dremel to grind out the groove. Yes, it's a little distorted, and not near circular. The engine fits ok, and luckily once the engine is installed, and the chassis is fitted to the body, this little boo-boo can't be seen, so I tried not to worry.

Here's step 2: Remove the slender shaft from the engine and assemble it.

The first thing I did with the engine was remove the chrome by soaking its components in SuperClean. It was then glued together. You can see the slender shaft, which is the little cylindrical piece jointing the cylinders on either end of the engine. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture after I cut it out. You can probably remove the little shaft before gluing the engine together. In this photo the engine stills needs to be filed, sanded, and painted.

Step 3: Reduce the width of the front and rear axles as shown in step 2, Variation No. 1 Article (June 1972 issue of CM).

Use Permabond Contect Cement to glue axles back together. The Car Model / Richard Carroll tires will slip onto the Moon Scope wheels with no modifications. 

Paint the engine and the flat areas of the wheels with Testor's Flat White.

Next add the brake and electric lines and the frame is finished.

Here's the front axle after the chrome has been stripped away, but before reducing the width as per instructions.

Likewise, here's the rear axle.

Here's what the axles look like after width reduction. That little piece between the brake and the suspension has been cut out with a pair of sprue cutters.

After a little clean-up with a sanding stick, I glued the axles back together with some styrene tube and liquid glue.

A little twisting and shaping was needed later to straighten the axles before installation.

I didn't have any Richard Carroll tires, and didn't know where to get any these days - I guess there might be some for sale on eBay. Instead I used the hubcaps and tires from Revell's Beatnik Bandit II kit [2]. 

But, using the Bandit's tires meant the Moon Scope's wheels - which are rather large drums - had to be shortened to half their length with a razor saw.

And here's the chassis after all the components have been glued on and painted. The frame and suspension is painted with an acrylic steel colour from Testors.

I didn't add details like brake and electric lines as recommended in the instructions because these won't be seen once the body is attached.

I rather liked the look of this spidery little chassis and took a beauty shot before this view was gone forever once the body was attached.











Okay, so much for the preliminaries, let's get down to the business of body building.

Step 4. First off, the rear of the Moon Scope will be the front of Variation No. 3 and the front now forms the rear. Cut the rear of the Variation No. 3 off right in front of the rear shock supports and remove the excess plastic along the inside-bottom edge of the body. Next carefully remove the center shock supports with an X-Acto Razor Saw and save them for later use on the rear.

On the left is the lower portion of the Moon Scope's body that needs modification. On the right is the chassis.

Basically, the lower body is turned around so that what is the backend on the stock Moon Scope will be the front end on Variation No. 3.

This is the lower body after applying Mr. Dahm's instructions. What was the front end of the Moon Scope has been cut off, and the lower body moldings in the inside of the body walls have been ground off. 

Before discarding the old front end, the shock supports need to be sliced off because they will be glued to the new body.

Step 6. Cut two each of template No. 1 and No. 2 out of .060 Plastruct sheet plastic. Also, cut template 3 out of .060 sheet plastic. Cement these pieces in place as shown, (template No. 1 should overhang in the front slightly)

I started by scanning and printing the body templates from the magazine.

As the instructions recommend, I started with template #1 and rubber cemented it to a scrap of 0.060" sheet styrene. 060 is quite thick, and it takes some careful effort to cut out those sidewalls. 

To remove the window areas I drilled a hole in each inside corner close to the template lines, then scored the window lines with my knife, and then scored additional lines connecting all the holes on the front and back of the piece. From there I carefully flexed the scribed sections until breaks along the scribes developed, from which I could continue flexing until the pieces broke out. 

I discussed the above technique for cutting out windows in some detail back in this post about building E. L. Moore's Jones Chemical Co..

When I was cutting the templates I wasn't sure about whether I should cut along the outside edge of each line, along the line's inside edge, or through the middle of the line. I decided to cut along the outside edge of lines that defined the body panels, and along the inside edge of lines that defined windows. I'm not sure this was the correct choice, as the roof body panels didn't fit quite right. Although, filing and sanding fixed up my inaccuracies. I'll show all that in a later step.

After all that cutting the template was peeled off the styrene in preparation for cleaning up. 

There was a lot of sanding and filing to get things flat and smooth. There was also a little filling, but that was left until the whole body was smoothed out.

Template 2 is an addition to the lower body that was modified in the previous step. Even though it's also made from 0.060" sheet styrene, it's much easier to cut out than template 1.

Those circular cutouts on template 3 were tricky. Mr. Dahm refers to them as tail light cavities. I think if I were to build a superdetailed version of this model - say, with a complete interior - I'd make them windows. Either way though, the panel needs to be cut out for them.

I went down to the workshop and looked for the largest diameter and sharpest drill bit I had. I then marked the centres of the circles, placed the bit tip on the centre, and then hand twisted the bit into the plastic until the hole was cut out. This was a tricky and rather difficult job. No doubt there's a better way to do this - maybe with a low rpm drill press.

After cutting out all the pieces I taped them together to check the fit. It was a little rough, but not too bad. It was clear that the lower body unit was going to need to be squeezed a little to get the pieces to line up properly, but nothing too severe.

After checking the fit, I untaped the pieces and glued the sides to the back wall.

Once the above assembly was dry, I glued the lower body unit, along with the pieces cut from template 2, to the side / back wall unit.

Step 7. Cut templates 4 and 5 out of Denny Johnson's 0.40 sheet plastic and glue in place.

It's at this point various inaccuracies in my template cutting started to catch up with me. You can see the front window frame - template 4, which I cut from 0.040" sheet styrene - extends well beyond the roofline when I align the edges of the various window openings. No worries though, I trimmed the front window frame back, and was able to restore the correct roofline.

There's one other thing I should point out here. In Mr. Dahm's online recounting of the construction of Variation No. 3 he states, The rear Moonscope roof section was cut down to make the new windshield frame. That isn't how the article presents the construction of this section, although I notice in the construction of Variation No. 1, that's what's done. Maybe there was some difference in what was presented in the article and what was actually done? Regardless, the article's presentation is for a windshield frame cut from sheet styrene.

Step 8. Cut templates 6, 7, 8, and 9 out of .040 sheet plastic. Then cut the interior off at the points where the console ends. Next cement a piece of .015 sheet plastic on the inside of the body over the tail light holes. Now apply Testor's Putty to the inside of the body, the interior, and templates 6, 7, and 8 to simulate deep pile carpeting.

Wow! That's a lot of steps condensed into very little text. I'll try and unpack it a bit, but one thing I didn't do was use putty to simulate shag carpeting. I figured that step was too messy for me, and I figured that in the process of squirting putty around I'd probably get the pieces so messed up they wouldn't fit properly. Also, I didn't think all that carpeting would be visible in the model and wasn't worth the effort. But, that's just me :-)

For reference, here's what all the pieces looked like after they'd been cut out. Unlike the article's sequence, I laid out all the pieces and cut all them out before any assembly work. 

One change I might do if I built another one of these is cut all the body pieces from 0.040" styrene and not use 0.060" anywhere. 

At this step the instructions also recommend building the interior console. In this photo the item at the top is the Moon Scope's stock interior, and the lower item is the cut down interior that's used in Variation No. 3.

I used a razor saw to make the cut, and then cleaned things up with some sanding sticks.

Here's what the undersides of those two pieces look like. Again, the stock item is on the left, and that smaller piece on the right is the cut-down item used in the model

I think seeing it from the bottom like this gives a better sense of where to make the cut.

Using the cut-down interior bucket, the dash, steering wheel, and gear shift need to be added. This unit needs to be built and painted prior to installation, as it would be difficult to do all that after.

I used some Tamiya acrylic grey, chrome, and black paints on this item.

Step 9. Glue templates 6, 7, 8, and 9 in place. Template 9 is located between templates No. 2 and below template 3. After the cement dries, fit the body to the frame and use the shocks slipped into position on the rear axle to locate the center shock supports in the rear. Fasten these in place.

Again, steps 8 and 9 condense a lot of body construction into very few words. It took me sometime to puzzle out what I needed to do. Hopefully, the next few pictures sorts that out.

Here's the body after all the main panels have been glued in place, except for the floor and interior bucket. 

You can see the roof panels are rough and way off, but work with the Dremel and sanding sticks fixed all that up. I probably should have cut the templates on their inner line edges instead of the outers. Live and learn.

After an initial round of grinding with a sanding drum in the Dremel, sanding with sanding sticks, and a little filling with putty, the body is starting to look like it's supposed to.

But, look at this.

There's a gap between the windshield frame and the lower body. There's no template for a piece to fill this. I thought maybe I mis-used template 9 by gluing it to the back end, below the door wall, but that's where it's supposed to go. 

Maybe this is why Mr. Dahm said at his site that he used the back wall of the Moon Scope kit to make the front windshield frame. Anyway, I had to go freelance and cut a piece of 0.040" styrene to fill this gap.

That's what I did.

There's the gap filler panel installed, but before being filed and puttied.

Then the interior console was installed. 

It fit rather well, and it gave me confidence that although I may have mis-cut some of the body panels, overall the body was coming together ok and didn't have serious misalignments.

Template 8 is the interior floor, and in this view it's a little clearer on how it's installed. You need to glue the console and floor in at the same time. Again, the fit of the floor isn't too bad, and it gave me confidence that the body had about the right shape.

And what about the installation of the rear shock supports that were cut from the old front of the lower body unit? 

Argh, I don't have a photo of them being installed :-( But, you'll see them in some later photos.

After installing the interior, I placed the body on the chassis to check the fit, and begin the shock support placement. Things were looking ok.

Step 10. Apply putty to the seams and wet sand the body with 320 grade sandpaper. Then, using Testor's flat white as a primer, apply several coats and wet sand the body with 400 grade sandpaper until it's flawless.

For me, this was the most laborious and time-consuming of all the steps.

I did as directed, but there were many cycles of filling, wet sanding, and priming on-and-off over a two week period before the bodywork started to converge on something that was fairly smooth and acceptable. I agree it's far from perfect, and to be candid, I ran out of patience along the way. Although, in the end, I think I learned enough to try another project that needs a lot of custom bodywork.

Here's the body at some point, maybe 3/4 of the way through the process.

One thing to note, you can see that I did install the shock supports on the rear before starting this process.

Balled up inside the body is a knot of green painter's tape that I used to mask the console while spraying.

I debated what to do about those circular 'tail lights'. I thought maybe about paneling them with clear plastic to make them into windows. In the end I just glued in a piece of 0.010" styrene to cover them as per the article's instructions.

I should note that I used Tamiya's white, fine surface primer. It's a pricey product, but I think it's the best primer in a spray can that I can buy. 

When all that body shaping was done I had to take a beauty shot before spraying on the colour coats.

The article has a lengthy section on applying paint, panel opening striping, and making decals. I didn't do the striping as I felt it was beyond my abilities right now, and although I could have made some decals on the computer, I decided not too. Wimping out? I guess so. By this point I just wanted to move on.

The base colour coat is a Tamiya blue that I had in the workshop. Then some Krylon silver and darker blue was misted over the lower parts to give some variation to the colour.

After spraying, all that painter's tape was carefully removed from the interior. There was some overspray on the inside, so I brush painted the cabin with some white acrylic until everything was covered and uniform.

The stock Moon Scope seats were then painted to match the dashboard and glued in place. A pair of tweezers and some tricky manoeuvring was required. 

Windows were added to the windshield frame and to the little window opening behind and above the seats. 

Mr. Dahm's had clear plastic in all the windows, but I left the sides open. I thought, hey, I haven't indicated any doors to open, so people are going to have to climb in the side openings :-)

My windows are cut from some 0.010" clear styrene and glued in place with Micro Krystal Klear.

You can see in the photo that by this point I've also brush painted the shock supports with some Tamiya chrome paint.

The last big job was to set the body on the chassis and attach the shocks. 

The body I built rests on the axles, and in the real world that wouldn't be right. Maybe I built the body wrong, but I don't think I was that far out. Anyway, I glued the body to the chassis, and then went about attaching the shocks.

There was a lot fiddling, prodding, and judicious dabbing of thick, white glue to fill in some embarrassing gaps in the connections.

I should note I stripped the chrome from the shocks since I don't like the shine.

The front shocks were a little more tricky. They had to be shortened. Basically, I cut the top connector off, shortened the spring, and glued the top connector back on. The shortened shocks are in the lower left corner.

Those boxy things in the upper right are the head lights. They came from two Moon Scope kits, and, again, I striped the chrome before working on them. 

Those shorter shocks fit pretty good.

Ugh, there's a lot of dust on the windshield that I had to clean off with a damp brush. 

Once all four shocks were installed they were painted with Tamiya chrome, and then washed a bit with thinned flat black paint to highlight the spring's shadows.

The last thing was to paint and glue on the headlights.

Mr. Dahm notes that the side mirrors are cut from fancy Plastic Party Picks. These were toothpicks that had clover shapes on their heads which he used for side mirrors. I looked for them, but I guess they're lost in the mists of time. But, if I build another one of these, I'll try extra hard to find them :-)





And that is that.

If I had painted on the striping on the back it would be clear that the backend has opening doors, but as it stands, it's just a solid back end. 

Overall, I rather enjoyed this project. It's not perfect, but, Wow! I like looking at it, and even though there're many things I could improve, yeah, Wow! 

One thing that came through loud and clear on this project is that Ira Dahm is a master modeller, and I learned a lot from his inspired thinking.

Will I build another Moon Scope Variation? Watch this space :-)
---

Digressions

[1] I only stopped following Ira Dahm because the smoke shop I bought Car Model at suddenly stopped carrying the magazine and I never saw it again until the internet era.

[2] Revell's Beatnik Bandit II was used as the cockpit donor on my old Hot Rod Falcon kitbash, which saw an MPC Millennium Falcon kit converted to a 1/24 scale single-stage-to-orbit hotrod. 

You can get a better view of the cockpit when the bubble-top's removed.

Yes, you're right, no seatbelts, and what does that steering wheel do? Seatbelts? It's a hot rod baby :-)