Hot Wheels and Matchbox Customizing Thread

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I just went from cautious uncertainty to utter and complete excitement about restoring this car after I decided to. :D
 
If you have a Dremel, get this:

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best tip for repolishing all that bare zamac. True story. Just wear protection glasses, the tiny metal strips hit really hard when they're expelled from the bit!
 
Nope, I do not have one of those. But I will be sure to pick one up soon though.

Oh yeah, I will. When I'm using the cut-off wheels I can never seem to get my arms out of the way and always get blasted by the shavings up and down them. :yuck:
 
I wear long thick gloves when dealing with shavings so I don't have to brush them off my arms and pose the chance of splintering myself in the process. If there's one thing that sucks, its when you do that and end up lodging a microscopic piece further into your skin. not only will you then feel it, you also have a hard time finding it and taking it out.
 
Yeah, long sleeeves ftw. Also while stripping paint. If remover touches you, it stings like all hell. It's worse on the face.

/inb4jason'sspraycanremover
 
Cano
Yeah, long sleeeves ftw. Also while stripping paint. If remover touches you, it stings like all hell. It's worse on the face.

/inb4jason'sspraycanremover
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I stripped 4 cars yesterday with my bare hands.

Gloves smoves. :lol:
 
haha screw you both. The one time it got in my face, the brush's hairs got stuck in something on the car and when I popped it out, wee, remover to the face!

/bukkake
 
I suppose I can wear a long sleeve shirt, I never thought of that. :lol:

For me, going to use the Dremel is a very informal thing. I put some safety glasses on and go to town. Making sure the car is secure and your fingers are out of the way are needless things to worry about I think. It distracts and separates you from the car and what you're doing to it.
Yeah obviously you want to get your fingers out of the way, but I don't get super particular about it.
 
Do a shirt if you don't want it anymore, because once you get metal dust on it, it's a pain in the butt to get off, which is why I'm recommending long sleeve rubber gloves. No fabric.
 
Here's a little teaser of what I've been working on for the past few weeks.

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As you can see it's a BMW 2002 turbo. The silly wheel arches are gone as is the turbo-esque front bumper. Instead I made a new bumper out of styrene which is the black part in front of the car. The paint doesn't look good yet as I've only sanded it and it still needs polishing.

And if anyone spotted the paint chip on the back that was because I was being clumsy with the paint still soft. I dropped the car and was so relieved that the two paint chips (the one visible on the picture and one on the left headlight) are in places I'm going to repaint anyway.
I'm trying to make it look closer to the regular 2002 as the casting from Hot Wheels is a strange hybrid of a regular car and a turbo.
 
Speaking of popping cars open and of Dremels, I have one of these and it's awesome.

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I haven't used mine for HW stuff yet but I suspect it's the perfect way to drill out rivets. It's also awesome for precision grinding and stuff like that, you can put the sanding wheel right at the level of the base and run the workpiece up against it like it's a tiny drum sander. I bet for stripping paint you could put the wire brush in it and then hold the car with heavy gloves and it'd be much easier than trying to clamp the car down and hold the dremel, too.
 
Apok
Here's a little teaser of what I've been working on for the past few weeks.
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That looks really good, bud. I had been pondering if taking the arches off one of those would be worth it. I'll look forward to the results.
 
Some of you know, I've been really interested in real rider cars like Garage, Boulevard Series, etc? I really want to get into wheel-swapping, but I want to do it on the cheap?

Would this drill work? It's dirt cheap, two speeds both ways. I was thinking about purchasing it with this kit with the bits?

Also, in the original post, Jason mentions dremel? I was under the impression that you can do this with dremel or drill, but didn't have to have both?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks very much in advance!
 
Nice S2K Zach 👍. Cool 2002 WIP Apok as well 👍, and a6m5, that drill should do the job nicely, though if you have the opportunity to get the Dremel as well, it will always come in handy for removing tabs that hold the axles in place and other stuff.
 
a6m5
Some of you know, I've been really interested in real rider cars like Garage, Boulevard Series, etc? I really want to get into wheel-swapping, but I want to do it on the cheap?

Would this drill work? It's dirt cheap, two speeds both ways. I was thinking about purchasing it with this kit with the bits?

Also, in the original post, Jason mentions dremel? I was under the impression that you can do this with dremel or drill, but didn't have to have both?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks very much in advance!
Click to expand...

A Variable Speed drill is really the best thing to use so you can drill slowly. With that drill you posted, you have no control over the speed. I would spend the extra $8 and get the variable speed version from Walmart.

The Dremel is used for other stuff, cleaning castings, grinding things down, etc.
 
Well went to Wal Mart and Sears last night. Got some bigger cutting discs for my dremel so i can bring some life back into my old recycling truck i have had since i was 2 or 3 years old. Going to be so happy when i get it fixed!:D Also, my dad got paint stripper in a can finally (despite the parental issues that followed), now i plan to strip my beat up Countach and paint it a different color.;) One that Hot Wheels has never done before. Any ideas?:)
 
a6m5
Also, in the original post, Jason mentions dremel? I was under the impression that you can do this with dremel or drill, but didn't have to have both?
Click to expand...

If you have a Dremel, you practically forget about drills. The Dremel can hold the drill bit used to pop cars open, as well as a bucketload of other accesories that work great for whatever other things you want to do to the cars. My dremel has over 15 bits that I've bought over time, and they do the job absolutely easier. If you're really gonna dive into this, I'd ssay go for the Dremel and ignore the drills altogether.

~

Now, I'll show you my projects for the muscle car contest over at the next club meeting. I digged around in my projct box and found several muscle cars that need restoration, so I opened a bunch of them. We'll see how many of them I'm able to finish in time for the contest.

First up, this Matchbox Lesney Javelin which is, as you can see, a horrible casting, but it has some potential to be turned into an all-out road racer. Thing is, this one has the least chances of being finished, as it needs several custom pieces done, like the front snow plow, and even glass, because those yellow things are just eeeww. The wheels will be NASCAR-style.
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Then we have this Hot Wheels "Hot Bird" 1977 Trans Am. I've already made the T-Tops openings larger and I'm working on a paint pattern that will use a custom version of the classic Screaming Chicken, but will engulf part of the top too. Wheels are gold JLs.
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To continue the Pontiac theme, we have this cool JL 1971 Firebird Formula that a friend of mine got me in this shape, the car is cool with opening hood, the engine as a separate piece, and rubber tires on original-looking wheels. This one will be a straight-up repaint/resto, in blue most likely.
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Another JL car, this Mach 1 was found by the same friend in the sad shape you see in the pics, wheel-less and with the hood sunken in the windshield cowl. I'll have to fabricate a new rear wing for it.
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Finally, there's this cartoonish Matchbox Lesney 1973 Challenger street freak, which will be done in a psychedelic late-70s street freak style in lime green with psychedelic panel painting all over the body. I've already designed the tampos it'll wear in the hood, which you can see under the pictures. The car will use the enormous, white, Torq-thrust style wheels I just showed you a few posts ago in the donor's pictures.
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In this picture, I've cut off the air box that came in the interior piece, as I'm going to run a roots-blower. In the end I had to cut the entire front section of the interior piece.
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The hood tampos:
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I'll be showing you guys real-time updates on each car, I don't think I can finish them all int ime, but I hope I can take at least 4 with me. I've already done some work on some of them but I need to take pics.
 
I just like using a drill to do the rivets because I can hold onto it easier.

Honestly there's no perfect way of doing any of this, it really comes down to what's easiest for you personally. I can't get a good grip on a dremel for drilling, so I choose not to use it for that purpose.
 
Thanks for the info & the tips guys. 👍 Dremel sounds like a good option, but I like the added versatility of the drill......... because I don't own one. I broke mine long time ago, and it would be nice to have one around again.

Question about what At1 brought up. When do you have to cut tabs for the axles? Is this done every time you want to remove axles?

Thanks again guys! And Cano, good luck with your projects. Some really cool base cars. 👍
 

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