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Today she outlined the drivers side eye.

I was going to hire a pinstriper to outline the eyes and mouth…

But Sam wanted to give it a try.

I am impressed with the results.

The thickness of the line is perfectly proportioned for the artwork.

I really like how sharp the point at the rear of the eye is.

She didn’t have time to do any more this evening.

We’re going to buy some more supplies on Friday.

Hopefully we’ll have more done on the car this week.

Thanks again Sam!

-Dad

p.s.  I forgot to mention that when I first spoke to Sam about this project, she took a sheet of paper, and drew many different versions of the Flying Tiger Eyes for me to choose from.

I chose this version because of how “mean” it looks.

…in Krylon as there may soon be a shortage on the West Coast!

We’re using Krylon Ultra Flat Olive Drab spray paint like there is no tomorrow!

Also, Krylon Flat White & Flat Black spray paint, and Krylon Short Cuts brush paint in Flat Black, and Flat White.

BUY NOW!

Before it’s too late!

Here’s what I got done today:

I painted the cowl.

Most of the time to paint this part of the car was dis-assembly and masking…

The driver’s side has the brake master cylinder and clutch cylinder, the metal lines, some misc cables, and wiring to mask.

The passenger side was easier.

I still have to replace the orange wire loom with black, and reattach the loom to the firewall…

The car is looking more “together” as we get more of it painted…

The cowl looks much better!

One of the things I really like on this car is the all-steel-custom-flat-cowl.

It gives a nice clean look to the car.

That is a lot of labor right there!

I also painted the passenger side door…

Finally, I painted behind the drivers rear door today too.

I still have holes to fill on the tail gate and some sanding on the tonneau cover before I paint the entire truck bed.

The body is 100% STEEL.

There is no filler, Bondo, or fiberglass of any kind on the car.

Sam had a good idea, and placed the Flying Tiger logo on one of the spokes on the steering wheel.

This is a water slide decal of the Walt Disney drawn Flying Tiger.

This may be the only Tiger on the car.

We’ll see.

Stay tuned as we get the paint and body work done…

-Stewart

…are complete!

Sam designed everything and laid out the masking tape.

I gave some input and was the “backup masking guy” & “painter”.

I have a lot of reference photos of Flying Tigers…

…but ultimately, the artwork has to fit this particular grille.

Sam did all the artwork herself.

Not only that, but she did it by “eyeballing” it…

…with just blue masking tape, and a pair of scissors!

Step one.

Designing the shape of the mouth.

Once we had the shape, we painted the lower part of the mouth red.

(This color red matches the seat material on the Rat Rod perfectly).

Then we masked off part of the red and painted the upper mouth black.

Then Sam started masking out the design of the teeth.

This part took at least a couple of hours.

Note how each tooth point ends on a vane in the grille.

Like her father, Sam is very detail oriented…

After Sam had all the teeth outlined…

…we masked off the center part of the mouth.

Then the grille looked like this:

Once we had everything masked off…

…we could start the white paint for the teeth.

Here is the Rattle Can Picasso at work.

After several coats, the grill looked like this:

When the paint dried, we could remove the masking tape:

The next step was the pupils in the eyes.

Sam did them by hand, using Krylon Short Cuts paint.

And here is the final product:

The afternoon sun is making it tough to photograph…

I am very pleased with the results.

Sam did an outstanding job of creating the eyes, mouth, and teeth with just blue masking tape and “eyeballing” it.

The car looks mean, and that is our goal.

Back in 1941, Pilots in the American Volunteer Group decorated their Curtiss P-40 aircraft (aka Warhawks) with shark mouths.

The Americans wanted their planes to look intimidating…

…and they were.

Sam is still going to outline the mouth and the eyes in flat black.

She did an OUTSTANDING job on this project!

Thanks Sam for helping me capture this theme!

The car looks great!

-Dad

p.s.  We still have other graphics and paint work to do.

Stay tuned…

…was needed on the Rat Rod.

Just to the pickup bed.

See the lower portion of the bed behind the rear wheel?

It’s about to go bye bye…

There is no need for that section of the pickup box.

It serves no structural purpose, and I don’t like the look of it.

In my opinion, the lines will flow a lot better with out it.

Also, in the above pic, you can see that the bed itself is bent, right above the part that we are about to remove.

We’ll fix that too.

Here we go…

Just three welds to cut through with my handy angle grinder, and the driver’s side is free.

There is a support beam attaching the passenger side to the driver’s side, and one piece attached to the bed under the fuel tank.

Again, none of it is necessary structurally due to the custom boxed inner bed frame.

This portion of the bed was left on for aesthetics.

Let’s get to the passenger side…

Don’t try this at home kids…

I am wearing safety sandals

Once the welds were sliced on the passenger side, we tackled the inner structure…

After the center support was removed…

The two sides were removed as a single unit.

Just a few rough edges and loose ends left…

And the final result?

Voila!

MUCH cleaner!

I like it!

Now, Sam and I are going back to paint work this afternoon…

Stay tuned…

-Stewart

We got more painting done today!

We primarily worked on the grille.

First we painted the stainless steel trim with self-etching primer.

Then we laid down several coats of Krylon Ultra Flat Olive Drab, taking care to get all the visible inside surfaces of the grille as well.

We are using all Krylon rattle cans for most of the paint work.

We’ll use some Krylon brush paint for some detailing on the graphics too.

This way, if we ever need to touch the car up, we know exactly what brand and color to buy.

So far, we are VERY happy with the results.

Tomorrow we are going to tackle the Shark Mouth and Eyes graphics.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get the grill graphics done and have the whole car painted by tomorrow evening.

Sam and I have been reviewing all of the Flying Tiger images that I’ve been saving over the years for this project.

I think we have decided on the final logos and their placement.

We are going to paint on all of the graphics by hand, with the exception of the Japanese Rising Sun logos.

I am having some decals made for the kill flags.

I settled on a location for the new tail lights too.

So, I installed them while Sam was working on the Grille.

I think they look great!

These tail lights with die cast metal bodies are perfect for this project.

They look just right.

Now we have to fill the six holes in the tail gate from the old tail lights so we can finish painting the car.

Finally, we have decided NOT to paint the frame or suspension.

We are going to leave them their beautiful shade of patina.

I love the word patina.

It just means rust, but it makes it sound so high class! 

Thanks for looking!

-Stewart

…held today at Salem’s Harley Davidson on Silverton Road.

As this was my first “rat rod” show…

…I expected to see lots of pre-1948 rusty rat rods.

That’s not really what we found.

There were MANY 40′s, 50′s, and 60′s traditional show cars attending.

I was a bit disappointed by the abundance of non-rat-rods.

However, all was not lost…

…as we found this truck titled Frank’s Spare Parts.

This truck was worth our time going to this event.

I absolutely LOVE the Frankenstein’s Monster Theme.

Everything from the door logo, the “hand” rear view mirror, to the welded seams with “stitches” on the fenders really make this truck!

I had the opportunity to speak to Derek, the owner of the truck.

He is also the owner of Cherry Redd in downtown Salem.

Derek & Cherry Redd are hosting the Rust-O-Rama Show on July 17th at the Oregon State Fairgrounds.

I showed Derek some pics of my Rat Rod, and asked him if we could bring her on a trailer, as she isn’t road worthy yet.

Derek was fine with that!

So…

We’ll be bringing the Rat Rod to Rust-O-Rama!

I cannot wait!

On the way home from today’s show, we picked up the rest of the paint to paint the Rat Rod.

I think we have enough Olive Drab paint to complete the body and grille.

Also, we picked up the red, white, and black paint for the shark mouth and eyes.

We’re gonna try and have the car’s paint finished for Rust-O-Rama.

Stay tuned…

-Stewart

Here is the LINK to the RoadMonster at Jay Leno’s Garage.

Also here, and here.

I originally posted the RoadMonster on Jay’s site back in 2007.

Then in 2008, I added some new pics.

I believe that Jay’s site has had a software upgrade at some point, because for a period of many months to a year I couldn’t find my car on his site.

In fact, my car never came up under a search for Buicks.

Now it appears three times in the Buick section.

I noticed some of the other Buicks are listed multiple times too…

Also, all of the old user comments are gone…

That said, the site is MUCH easier to navigate now.

The cars are now categorized by make.

As of this post, there are 289 Buicks to view.

Jay and his team have rebuilt and upgraded the search engine, and now it is very easy to find a specific brand.

Thanks for upgrading the site Jay!

Oh, by the way, are you ready to adopt me yet? 

-Stewart

p.s.  If you wouldn’t mind…

…please stop by and rate the RoadMonster for me on Mr. Leno’s site!

Thanks!

The Super Bass-O-Matic 76!

I remember this skit from when I was a kid.

Great Classic SNL!

Dan Akroyd at is best!

And then there’s the Samurai Delicatessan.

John Belushi at the Samurai Delicatessen!

It’s Classic SNL at it’s finest!

Too funny!

-Stewart

…of All Time?

The Christopher Walken / Will Ferrell “More Cowbell” Skit.

It is my personal favorite.

Enjoy!

-Stewart

…is tomorrow.

I can’t wait to see the rat bikes and rat rods!

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to bring my rat rod.

She won’t be road worthy until next season…

However, I have printed out a bunch of pics of my rat so I can talk to some of the people at the show, and show them what I am working on.  I want to get input on several areas, including front brakes, front & rear shocks, wheels / tires, etc.

I am pretty sure that I have good plans, but I want to talk to the guys who are really into these cars.  Also, I am hoping to get some good ideas for my car from the cars I see there on display.

In addition, I am curious if there any cars there that look at all like my car.

Finally, I’d like to get some input on the suicide front end my ride has.

It’s a pretty radical front suspension set up.  I’d like to see if there are any other cars with this set up.

I’ve seen a few rat rods set up with a suicide front axle, but I’ve yet to see one with such an exaggerated lengthened front suspension…

I’ll post up some pics after the show tomorrow.

Stay tuned…

-Stewart

p.s.  I’d really like to know what grill I have on this car.

If you know, please leave me a message.