Got to spend some quality time with Dad...Finally Finished

[HomeRacingWorld]

Battle Birds! Good stuff.

[dge467]

Looking forward to your builds! I got a extra one that I want to chop up!

[ourwayband]

Great story!!
Good for you David!
Have some great fun with your dad.
My dad has been gone for some years now.
Before he passed I was really into O gauge trains.
Every time he came over he loved to watch the steamers run,
look over the layout,
and here the ol' steam whistle..
Thanks for the memories!

Rusty

[dreinecke]

...and 11 months later we are finally working on these again LOL! With the move, putting the track back to running status and just life in general it has been tough getting back to these.

A few updates since the last time: I'd rolled the rear pans before moving and had taken care of the rear mounting posts. Simple styrene blocks were epoxied into the rear - the original Carrera front mounts work perfectly for the PCS32 chassis we are using. We did shorten those a little to get the "rake" we were looking for.

Dad came over yesterday to play, but first I had him help me with an electrical project at the house ;) I did at least pay him in food and an adult beverage...

We got set out to get the chassis' assembled and wired. We are using MT-1 motors, SCC wheels, Slot.it gears and axles and SCC bushings, PGT tires, SCC braid and SCC silicone wire.

With the majority of that work done, I showed dad how to use the tire truer and turned him loose on that to get the rear tires trued up in the back. We still have fronts to do, but we wanted to test these out. I also got to try out my new wheel reamer from SCC and it worked perfectly - no more stuck axle assemblies for me. He also thinned out the wheel wells a bit to shove the PGT tires under them that we wanted to use.



We spent some time running them as-is after that and had a great time. The plan is to put the now chopped interiors back together and get the bodies prepped for paint the next time.







We pulled out the few T/A cars I have and ran for quite a while. He came back up to speed quickly with the changes to the layout and we were swapping paint in no time flat.

[HomeRacingWorld]

Great to see this. Looking good sir.

[ccobra]

Makes me so jealous. My Dad can't do anything like that anymore but I bet he wishes e could. The biggest problem is he is in Indiana and I'm in California, bummer but I am a whimp when it comes to the cold weather.
Enjoy your tie with your Dad, like I need to remind anyone. At least my son comes over occasionally with his little son and we manage to trade paint after turning the voltage down on the young ones lane.

[Alaskaracer]

TBirds are looking good!

[dreinecke]

Dad came over to our house in January 2013 and brought the T-Birds over to play on the track. About 5 minutes in he said he hated the way they drove and look. We spent some time looking at racing T-Birds online and got some ideas of what to make them look like. I ordered a bunch of parts to make them run better and was excited that he actually wanted to paint one since I think the last model I’d painted with him was when I was about 7 in Germany. Sadly, I can remember it was a T-38 and we did a camouflage paint job on it like one we’d seen at an airshow.

Anyway, it took well over a year for us to get to play again. Dad had his sciatic nerve issues, we moved, and I had to rebuild the track. So in November of 2014, we built the new chassis, did the bodywork and drove them like that for an afternoon. We had a great time.

Dad and Sue left for Texas shortly thereafter and we planned on painting them this past Spring.

I’d hoped to get dad over for a few hours to finish these, and sadly it just never happened.

In memory of him, I’ve finished the T-Birds. I painted and finished his just like he wanted to do: black and sinister. He did a good job of building the chassis all that time ago and it runs very well. I did do a few things to the car to remember him by though: his helmet is yellow like his C5 Corvette. I also used the #15 to remember the year of his passing. Lastly, his license plate reads “JJR”. I'd like to think he’d say the car turned out ok.

I finished my T-Bird almost identical except for the color – I used a bronze color that I liked and I added a license plate to mine that reads “FCANCER”.

Both Birds were exercised this evening and I raised a glass to remember him.

I think that pretty much says it all.













Dad at the finish line - appropriate I think:

[scatman]

Great tribute to your dad, and some great work on the cars as always.

[MrAdept]

Gorgeous cars!

Mark

[strangebrew]

...NICE................

[nhdungeonracer]

Nice work Dave.

No doubt your dad would be proud of what you've done here :text-bravo:

[Gameover]

very nice DOC! and yes FCANCER.

[HomeRacingWorld]

Well done Doc. Just well done.

[dreinecke]

Thanks guys, that means a lot coming from this group of talented builders.