Maybe it's because of back-to-school season (I know it is for me), but this week has been extraordinarily quiet on the customizing front. I know Carnage717 is gearing up for some hot Lesney custom action, and mycarneverruns87 has clearly been busy prepping multiple projects, and I am close to finishing up a project or two, in addition to the 5 cars I finished stripping this weekend, so there are brighter days ahead for sure.
El_Uly got my gears turning for a wingless Mastretta when he showed me his clipped version, which so far already looks great. Some touchup paint and it'll be HOTTT!!
Carcrasher88 brought up the idea of coming up with a series of NASCAR style cars with liveries for LaLD, Oppo, and Jalopnik. If anyone has ideas for each livery, please leave them below in the comments! I know I'm definitely trying to come up with something, but I also know there are many much more talented people out there on LaLD than myself, so please let us know your ideas!
Finally, since we do have a little bit of time left, let's revisit some techniques. I wanted to open up the floor for everyone's experience with things like drilling rivets, and doing axles, since these are the most common elements of even the simplest custom jobs.
You guys already know my method for doing custom axles, but I know Carnage717 uses the hammer. Any others that I don't know about? I saw one interesting one using beads, but the process is similar to what I do, but less clean, in my opinion. This guy uses brass tubes and glues the old axles inside with some JB Weld, but that just seems unnecessarily complicated.
As for drilling, the method is pretty much the same for everyone, but there are some differences in bit size. I usually go for a 9/64th to drill out the rivets, after a pilot hole with a bit that is about the size of the interior "dimple" on the rivet. It helps a lot to keep things straight and true. I've heard people using smaller bits (1/16th) to drill a pilot, but that seems too small for me!
So, what are your methods? Let me know below!
Hopefully we will ramp up our customs production a little more this coming week (I'm looking at you, Carnage and MCNR!), and in the mean time, enjoy your week and let us know any questions or comments on customs, inspiration, methods, et cetera.