After many hours creating and perfecting the masters it was finaly time to create the silicone molds. I started out by creating the mold for the tiny and fragile grill and I was pretty happy to see it came out perfect. Casting resin in a freshly made silicone mold usualy gives you a poor result because the mold needs to be worn in. Saying that the first try gave me a near perfect result with a very thin layer of flash behind the grill bars that can easily be removed with sanding paper. In the picture above you also see the right style mirrors coming from the Chevy Monte Carlo Earo coupe kit

  

The plan was to include seperate chrome strips/ trim around the LS clip but I decided this was a little bit too much hassle so I glued thin styrene strips on the master and it looks pretty accurate. I bought me some Smooth-on C325 which has an amber color and added two drops of So-strong black color pigment to cast the grill in black so that later on I can add a layer of Kosutte ginsan chrome powder to it to check how it looks in chrome.
 
 

I could have merged the headlight casings in the clip and cast it in one time but seperate casings work more convenient because it's easier to apply black paint on the outer edges and chrome foil on the refelectors. The masters for the clear head and rear light lenses are almost finished and a mold that holds 12 pieces each will be created next week. 12 pieces in one time is not only convienent but also necessary since the crystal clear resin has very short shelf life after opening.
 
 

After I placed and cut all the tiny pieces of styrene between the horizontal bars I glued small strips on top to give the vertical bars a cleaner look. I created a small silicone mold and casted the grill using Smooth-on 300 urethane resin. Using a pressure pot is a must to make sure all the tiny details will be preserved. The resin copy looks great and it's a the big plus that the result is not a solid resin grill that you find in standard model kits but you can really see thru it.
I decided to not just place the grill element inside the clip but to create a frame around it. This means I need to get rid of the frame that I already created on the clip to make room for the new grill.

 

Here's the LS grill in mid stage it still needs to be cleaned and perfected but it looks really good. The inset pic is a magnified photo of a photo etched Monte Carlo emblem that I bought from Scaledreams. This emblem will be placed in the middle of the grill just like the original version. Make sure to check out the Scaledreams website they offer lot's of great products for your model cars and the service and shipping handling is excellent.

Creating the 1/25 scale Aoshima copy wire wheels it became clear that casting the small tires using black urethane rubber is a difficult and time consuming process. The urethane rubber needs to cure for over 16 hours and pouring the honey thick material inside the small silicone mold was annoying. I decided to create a new silicone mold with the true 5.20 tire placed on the rim and casted in white urethane resin. This material cures in about 10 minutes so I can produce a lot more copies in a shorter amount of time. The complete wheel will be chromed and the customer can paint the tire with satin black. A white wall can either be painted on or you can use white sticky vinyl.

 

In the first post you could read that I created ine master of the 1/25 knock off and using a small silicone mold I created 4 more copies. These copies were cleaned and glued on a styrene bar to create a mold containing 4 knock offs.
The resin copies came out great and a new silicone mold will be created to produce more copies in one time.

    

 I followed the same procedure for the 1/12 scale knock offs and gave the masters sharper lines. This time around I didn't use any mold release because removing that stuff is very hard however I recently bought a newer kind of mold release that can easilly be removed with water and soap. More updates soon!
 

 
Now that I've created the 1/12 and 1/25 scale wire wheels I really needed some cool looking knock offs to go along with it. The Zenith straight 2 wing style knock off I find to the best looking and both are not available in any scale so that means: scratchbuilding!

 

For the 1/12 scaled knock off I used styrene tubing and a thick flat strip. A scaled  printed copy of the real thing helped me to determine the dimensions. Putty, sanding and more putty and sanding was needed to get to the final result. 
I created one small silicone mold and casted several resin copies cleaned em up so that I can hook up 8 copies and create the final mold.
Because of the small size it was pretty hard to create a clean looking 1/25 version. I used the centre of a Pegasus knock off and styrene for the wings. The casted lower A-arms are for my 1/25 RC cruisers.

 
 

The '87 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Luxery Sport (LS) is a pretty popular lowrider model and on my trip to Japan I came across quite a few as well. Where the SS version is more the muscle car the LS features a more elegant looking front clip and has other luxery aspects.

 
Chedda, Desert Dreams Car Club, CA.

Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS vs SS


'80's Monte Carlo SS
 
Monogram/ Revell offers the '86 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS kit for quite some time now but no LS version was ever made as a model kit. That leaves the creative scratch builder to create his own LS front clip by converting the stock one that comes with the kit using knifes, sanding paper and putty. So I decided to create my own clip which proved to be harder and more time consuming than I thought. 



The stock SS clip has a smoother looking shape where the LS clip is a little bit more pointed and edged. Also the lights are completely different basically the whole shape is different from the LS clip. After many hours of cutting, glueing styrene strips, putty and sanding I finally created something that comes pretty close to the real thing but it's still not finished. The thin chrome bumper strips come seperate to give the clip an overall clean look.
The grill proved to be the hardest part since the closest I found was the AMT American hot rod '57 Chevy grill but even that one I was not satisfied with. The only option was to create the grill myself using a scaled down printed photo of an LS clip and a whole bunch of thin styrene strips.

 

I used brass strips en square tubing to divide the tiny styrene pieces evenly on the styrene sheet. It took time and lot's of patience to get to right result. The excess parts where cut and the part needs to dry overnight before it can be sanded and prepared for molding. I will use a 80% cured resin copy to give the grill the right shape. Finally that's going to be the master for the rest of the copies. Finding the right headlights is another adventure. More on this project soon!

 

Mario Montano's '90's Cadillac Fleetwood lowrider

 
For years it has been a wish of mine to create a 1/25 radio controled ' '96 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham model also know as the big body Cadillac.
Years ago I bought an original All American Resin limo model cut it in half to create a regular four door version but patience ran dry and I never got the nerves to finish it. This model finally ended up in the US and after an unfortunate series of events the remains where send to my friend Kris Diaz in Colorado.

 

Years later my homie DJ-Roy got his hands on a original resin four door Cadillac Fleetwood model also created by All American Resin. This model is in very good condition and send to me so that I could remaster this model from the bottom up creating the best resin casted Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham model out there.
Although AAR did a very good job on the custom created 1/25 model it still has many flaws that need to be corrected. To my knowledge AAR used a 1/25 Caprice model and modified it to create the Cadillac Fleetwood model so some elements like the wheelbase, fenders and overall shape are slightly off but it still looks very good. Like me many favor the vinyl top Fleetwood Brougham over the standard version so I started out by making the rear window smaller studying many photo's and finally using styrene strips and putty.

 

The original version comes with the trunk lid closed and I choose to open it so that later on people can hinge it and load the trunk with hydro junk visible for the eye. I used a very thin photo etched saw blade that I bought in Japan to do the job.

 

Both the inside of the trunk lid and complete body I grinded and shaved because it was way to thick. The front of the model need quite some modfication same goes for the fenders that needed some putty to get the right shape going.
One of the fenders was damaged probably during the casting process so I used special black superglue to fix it.


 

All parts are closely inspected and corrected like the bumpers and grill where the chrome was removed to get the best detail possible when creating new silicone molds. The dashboard I redid a couple of times because I was not satisfied with the outcome. When all the parts are perfected silicone molds will be created and I will produce a small series of resin copies.

 

Finally more photos of my visit to the Tokyo lowrider kick off show on March 21.

Jevries Tokyo lowrider show 2010 Flickr

  
 

Here's the link to the complete documentary on photographer Volo!

Volo: The Cars The Culture & The Camera - Documentary (Run Time 18:41)

 
 

Yesterday I read the sad news that Lowrider magazine Japan is finished and that #98 is their last issue. I love that magazine it had the best photography and layout I've ever seen in a lowrider magazine. I really hope that in the future this magazine can make a return.
 

 
  


 

Just came back from Japan and once again had a blast! The Tokyo lowrider show was really cool with lot's of incredible rides on display. I met again with Yosshi from Continental Kings who showed me his teams latest creations.
Superclean OG '64 Impala with lot's of mods like the laser engraved mirrors featuring Continental King's logo. 

 
  
 


More pics will follow!!