I finally had some time to work on the pool. After being left to dry for about a week or so after painting, I went ahead and added some chrome to the body and an initial row of concrete blocks - a Micro Mark brick paper - to the bottom. The 'Pool' sign was drafted out on my computer and printed on a piece of photo paper. A dab of rubber cement was used to bond it to the sign board. Now with the basic pieces in place I'm moving on to detailing.
The temperature popped up to around 0 a few days ago, so I used the opportunity to do some quick spray painting outside on a few projects I have on the go. Zero Celsius is far from ideal spray painting conditions – most spray can instructions say not to paint below around 10 degrees or so – but I got some satisfactory results, so in the end things worked out.
Basically, what I did was get everything ready to go in the basement, then went outside for just a few minutes to spray the paint, I then left the painted piece to outgas a bit in the garage, where is wasn’t quite as cold as outside, and then finally brought the piece back inside for proper drying. I don’t know if this would work on pieces that need smooth painted surfaces like automobile bodies due to the different temperatures of the air, paint, spray can, the piece being painted and so on, but for the buildings I’m working on, it was ok.
[Those holes in the pickup box are for future LEDs to light-up the water. I'll add some clear plastic inserts behind them to keep the 'water' from leaking out.]
I first base coated the body with a uniform application of a deep, ultramarine blue. Once dry, I then dusted it with a spray of turquoise. The turquoise is applied until the overall colour of the piece shifts from deep blue to turquoise, but allowing the deep blue base to still be seen as mingling in from below. It takes a little practice to get the mix just right, but holding the can of turquoise a few inches farther from the piece than you normally would helps. When that was dry, the roof was sprayed white – again just enough to shift the overall appearance to white without obliterating the blues below. Well, that was the plan; I wasn’t so lucky on this step and accidentally completely coated the roof in white paint with a single pass of the spray, so when it was dry, I went back and dusted it again with turquoise to restore the look I was after. I was rather happy with the end result of all this spraying and I’m thinking of buying another one of these kits and building the car straight from the box, but spray painting it in this style.
Once I’ve added a few details to the body, I think it’ll be ready to be attached to its base for final assembly.
I’ve fitted the pickup bed, liberated the package tray from the interior bucket and glued it into what was previously the rear window, added some styrene I-beam to the base to boost the pool to a suitable height, and glued in a styrene sheet to fill the opening formed by the package tray and the door pillars. Also, a bit of filler was used to smooth out some joints that didn’t fit too well.
[I bought this kit a few years ago in the bargain bin at a nearby hobby shop. I like to look through sale items just to see if there is anything interesting, and cheap! I don't necessarily plan to use the items for their intended purpose, but more that they have interesting parts I might use in the future. This was one of those. It also has a great modern-style store front that I'll use someday, I'm just not too sure when that day will come and what the project will be.]
However, the most interesting job was adding the sign. It’s an item from an old Life-Like HO scale Kentucky Fried Chicken store kit. The sign’s support posts supplied in the kit were discarded, and some new ones were cut from 1/8 inch diameter styrene tubing. These new ones allowed me to tilt the sign to a more extreme angle than those in the kit and adjust the height to something that seemed right for this structure.
I usually spray paint car models and I want to do it on this project to get an ok finish on the body. Problem is I always spray outside and never in the house. With cold January weather here, I’m looking forward to the annual mid-winter thaw so I can squeeze in a little painting on some projects that are stacking up on the workbench, otherwise they’ll have to be parked until spring.
I’ve been thinking about this build – along with several others I hope to finally get started – for quite a while. Instead of my usual pre-build fretting over how I think all the building steps should proceed, I just decided to jump in and start cutting. Although that seems reckless, it often helps me get over mental log jams. Simply making a start can often clarify things.
The donor kit is an AMT/Ertl 1959 El Camino. I chose this particular vintage of El Camino because the roof is shaped something like a cap that sits over the cab instead of being seamlessly integrated into the body as on later models. To me, this made it a little more building like. I also like the fins
The pick-up bed, rear cab pillars and roof were cut away from the body using a cutting wheel in my dremel tool, followed by several iterations with the grinding drum and various sanding sticks. To get a square and even edge along the bottom, a sheet of sand paper was placed on the workbench, and the piece was sanded as a whole until it looked right.
I’ve been thinking this project might also be a good candidate for LED lighting. Small ones could be used in the tail-lights, and the bottom of the pool could be fitted with lights that point up into the ‘water’.