Milk Run

1938 US Army troops deployed around a off road milk truck.

This is a milk truck modified into a Monster Truck.

It is a Hot Wheels vehicle that I got recently, It is a re-issue, I got one just like it but in different colors a while back.

My plan is to take it apart, replace the black plastic undercarriage and tires and wheels.

They will become something more Army looking.

The undercarriage is actually pretty cool on it's own and I might make it into some kind of vehicle separate from the milk van.

It actually scales nicely with this Strelets early WWII US Army figure.

Deployed in forest this radio truck disguised as a milk van deploys a squad with a radio.

The radio is very large and the batteries are both heavy and don't last long, having a truck to carry them around is very helpful.
 

Removing Paint

These days many Hot Wheels cars have often highly detailed markings on them.

This Jaguar has racing markings on the sides.

It also has very cool markings on the front.  But I don't want to use this as a race car.

So how do I remove these markings easily?

These markings are called tampos and are printed onto the side of the vehicle.  Just a swipe or two with a dry erase marker and they are gone.

The carrier chemical in the marker dissolves the tampo and the felt part of the marker wipes it away.

It takes longer to explain than it does to perform.  Now the car is clean of markings and can be used as a regular car.  If it plan to strip the paint off and do a re-paint in a new color, I always take the tampo off first because it is just one more layer to remove and taking it off first speeds the paint removal process.
 

Kiss Kiss Room Planning and Progress

One of my photo guidelines so I can try and stay on target with what I am trying to build.  Test fitting various items.

Here the dance floor is square, the entrance gate has been added and they ticket booth and rest rooms are test fitted.

This is my plan for the seating.  As you can see there are many erasures and changes on the lower half of the diagram.  I decided I wanted more space between sections for staff and others to walk around.

Paper templates for the concrete pads.  I put down a piece of paper and drew these, then laid them over the plastic, using a dab of stick glue to hold the paper in place, I ran a thick marker over the edges of the paper creating a template on the plastic to show where to cut.

My plan for the ticket booth, and restroom area.  Still working on this sub-assembly.

Kiss Kiss and Neighbors Visit

Each section of the club will be mounted on a sheet of plastic.  It represents a concrete pad, since tables and chairs don't always do well in sand.  Here I have placed the tables and chairs for one of the sections and you can see the pencil lines that delineate where I will make the cuts for the edge of the base.  Tables and chairs are not glued on yet.  I also printed this photo so that I know who goes where in the seating.  I almost randomly selected the number of people who will sit at each table.  A couple have only one person and a few have four.  Most have only two, on the assumption a couple came alone or their friends are out dancing.  By photographing and printing this photo I can use it to reference where everyone belongs.

The same space after the tables and chairs have been painted.  The color scheme is lipstick, pink, red, purple and orange.  My wife and my daughter independently selected those colors when asked to name four common lipstick colors.  I changed the tables from rectangular to square.  The rectangular were too big.  I wanted more space for people to walk around between tables.  The figures come partially and poorly painted so this is not their final color.

 A little closer view.

Neighbor kid in the yard while I was working on this project.

Mom stopped by to bring him home.

Here are my four seating sections for the Kiss Kiss Club.  Each section will be painted as concrete.

Oblique view, figure still have not received their actual paint jobs yet.  Each section will be removable so I can switch the club around for other scenarios.
 

Mass Chair Production

More work done on the chairs for the Kiss Kiss club.  The lower half of the photo shows chairs that have been bent into shape.

My notes on how to put the chairs together.  The circles are the wire, it is important to bend the wire inside the other wires so you have a square box.

I have started gluing the chair seats and back into place.  I dab of Goo contact cement holds the seat and back on quickly.  The seat and back were not precision cut and will be trimmed to fit each specific chair later in the process.

Mass chair production in effect.

Once the seats have dried for 24 hours, I then run some gap filling super glue by Loctite Super Glue Ultragel Control in the black and blue bottle around the wire and seats to fill in any gaps and strengthen the bond.  I then trim off any excess seat or back with my sprue cutter.  Finally, I use a sanding stick to sand down the seat and back, and also the wire points where the wire was cut into shape.  I am not going for perfect, but for inexpensive, durable, and easy to make.  They seem to look good in mass.
 

Kiss Kiss Club Bar and Bandstand

Here is a mock up of the Kiss Kiss Club so far.  Dance floor in the center, not yet cut into a square, the bandstand with band, the tables set up and the bar center bottom.  The white stuff on the dance floor is the label which is not completely removed yet.

A low angle view showing the view from the front entrance area.  The ground cover will be mostly sand with some concrete pads for the tables and chairs.

Bar with the bandstand in the background.

Close up of the poster.  My daughter is an artist with great experience and skill.  She made this after looking at a very grainy still from the movie Thunderball.

Table with four chairs.  My intention is to give each table four chairs.  I will glue the empty chairs in place.  If there is a person in the chair, then the chair will not be glued down so that I can remove the people and change up the demographic, or the number of guests as needed.  I am making extra empty chairs to fill in when people are removed.

The plan is to have about half of the chairs filled with people and a similar number of people as guests who are walking around or dancing.  The bandstand, dance floor, bar, and restrooms will be glued to the base.  The band will be separate so the bandstand can be empty or have a different group entertaining the crowd.
 

Kiss Kiss Dance Floor and Chairs

Long table with a 1/72nd scale figure seated at on one of the chairs I made.

You can see the wire for the chairs before bending.  The wire is 1/4 inch mesh squares, half the size of the wire mesh for the tables.

I used 1/4 inch angle pieces from Evergreen Plastic to make the actual seats and seat backs, resting on the wire form.

I cut these shapes out of the wire and since I needed 88 of them I laid them out on my cutting board to keep track of how many I had.  I also laid out the plastic parts, but ran out of plastic and had not purchased any more until after this photo was taken.

Dollar Tree has these and other little pieces of acrylic board in their craft section.

I intend to square it off and use it for the dance floor for the Kiss Kiss Club.
 

Making Tables

I took some wire screen with 1/2 inch holes and cut out a small piece.  Then I clipped it into this shape and bent four of the pieces of wire downward with needlenose pliers.

Use a heavy duty wire cutter, a sprue cutter may actually break, I have broken two over the years.

Close up for the long table framework.

Bend the long wires down to make the short table..

This is the template for the long table.  

Sheet plastic will make the table top.

Put the sheet plastic between the horizontal pieces for a narrow long table or on top for a long and wide table.

Long narrow table with a chair.