No idea where in the forum to put this so here will do I guess. After seeing a video about restoring/modifying Hotwheels cars on Facebook, Brock (my little man) and myself now have a new hobby. Cos I really need yet another bloody hobby right? Anyways after watching a few more videos on youtube we were hooked. Off to Brock's stash of Hotwheels cars to find one. We wanted something simple to start with so we picked this beat up '57 Chev to have a crack at. Excuse the crap pic. By the end of this little trip she'll be a nice shade of blue (as picked by Brock) with a lighter blue interior and some nice wheels. And as a shit stir, I'm gonna enter it in expo next year
The rivets were drilled to separate the body from the base with the axles and wheels removed as well.
The paint was then removed with paint stripper. Apparently acetone will do just as good a job with less mess so I'll try that next time round.
So now it was time to break out the wet and dry, Dremel and sanding pads to smooth out the casting. I have got it looking better than in the pic. I could have done more smoothing but as this is the first 1, we're just trying things to start with.
Here she is after a couple of coats of Tamiya white primer. As you can see in the first pic, the stock wheels sucked so it was time for a wheel change which required a donor car. I'll be buying quite a few cars mainly to rob the wheels from them. I also lowered it as it was sitting too high in the back. This needed the moulded in leaf springs on the base to be removed. You'll also notice that I drilled out the side pipes cos I can't help myself. Much better.
Onto the interior. It lacked a steering wheel and my OCD just couldn't let that slide. The donor car was relieved of it's steering wheel as well and fitted. After this pic it was given a coat of Tamiya white primer. At this stage the front and back windscreens were polished with Micromesh sanding pads and have had a coat of One Go applied making them look 1000 times better. I did refrain from putting seat belts in this time but I think the next car will get a set.
So that's it so far. I'm gonna head out to the shed in a tic and shoot some blue onto the body before heading off to watch Brock's swimming lesson. That way when he comes over, he'll hopefully see a nice shiny blue car. The base has got a coat of primer on it to be following by Alclad gloss black. I'm then gonna mask up the bumpers and side pipes and hit em with Alclad chrome. This shit is bloody addictive