Deal's Wheels Trans Um Tirebird completed!

[treswright]

I recently invested in an Alps printer and have been doing repro decals for Deal's Wheels models. I had this old Tirebird that had been painted blue, I bought it like that off of eBay some 10 years ago. I decided to make some white stripes to try out on it, and that eventually led to a full-blown restoration. The glass was cracked and the model was missing a lot of parts. It came apart pretty easily luckily! A Zzzzz-28 reissue was used as a donor for the glass (tinted with Tamiya Smoke), tires, wheels, axles, chassis and rear chute. The pilot was repainted along with pretty much everything except the body. But the body did get new repro stripes in white and silver, plus decals were custom-made for the headlights, taillights, turn signals and grille. I like the white and blue Tirebirds together and tried to play them off of each other with details (like the tire lettering colors). I hope you guys like it!

[Honest Charlie]

Nice save Tres. I have always loved that kit. You sure did this one justice. Looks fantastic in blue.

[Tim Nolan]

Nice save. How many built Deals kits do you have in your collection Tres? Let's see some more photos! Still doin' the Zoids and Eggplanes too? Kool stuff....

[treswright]

Thanks guys! Honestly there were a few points in there where I wondered if it was worth the effort, the paint is so thick on this thing that the parts fit was terrible. I spent an entire evening just trying to get the glass to fit in there right. I thought about stripping the paint, but there's so much filler underneath it that I probably would have had a real mess on my hands.

Tim, one of these days I should count them About 20 I think (including all the store displays). Nearly all of them are pictured somewhere on my site. Ironically I haven't built hardly any out-of-the-box, but I have "restored" quite a few of the built-ups. I have a Baja Humbug on the boards right now that is about half done, I think after that will be a Glitter Bug. The decal repros will help me get some old projects dusted off too Still to this day I have never built a 57 cHEVY nor a few others. I'l looking forward to getting to that some day!

[Paul B. Canney]

I like it better in blue

great save

[Deleted]

Nice job on the kits and the decals.

[ShowRodFreak Don V.]

Love them. Great job



don v

[Wardster]

Coolness, Tres. Coolness! (Saw them on your site, too.)

Silly question: how many of the Trans Um (mostly body?) parts are directly interchange-able with the Zzzzzzzz-28's parts? It just looks a lot like they might have reused whichever one came out first as a starting point, mold-wise, to make the second one's mold tooling? I see a few body differences but not THAT many; other than the obvious hood and/or arches over the wheelwells.

[fredmellini]

Just to Kool Tres!!! ;D ;D ;D...............Even though this things are carntoonish, when the effort is put into these kits they become a work of art!!!............Looks great!! ;D ;D

[treswright]

Thank you guys!!

Fred, I just saw in another thread that you picked up a Spitsfire and Van, are you going to do the evil clown treatment to them? ;D

Ward, it's probably easier to list the parts that were different- car body & associated parts, driver's head. That's about it! The glass, interior pan, chassis, wheels, tires, axles, driver hands, chute & wheelie bars are shared parts.

The glass was a different color though, it was green on the Tirebird and clear on the Zzzzz-28. Here's an interesting tidbit though, the Modeler's Club issue of the Tirebird had clear glass. The Funster issue had smoke-tinted glass. So there are 3 variants on the glass color!

[Deleted]

Nice work...hope Revell has them in the vault!

[eggzilla]

I'm not worthy. Tres, you just keep poppin those puppies out and we'll just keep using them for some much needed eye candy and get all hot and bothered to get off our collective couch potato butts and start building more kool wheels.
Keith

[Wardster]

treswright said:

Ward, it's probably easier to list the parts that were different- car body & associated parts, driver's head. That's about it! The glass, interior pan, chassis, wheels, tires, axles, driver hands, chute & wheelie bars are shared parts.

Tres, thanks for that info ... but that still makes me wonder; especially since you say the glass is the same. Can you take a chassis from one kit, and fit it under the other one? Where they mate, are there any significant misalignment issues? (If not, I'd still think that Revell reworked one body into being the other.) What about the part that has the back bumper / tail lights / etc.? If that part can be swapped around, that would tell me a lot!

[TheMadModeler]

NICE.. Very Nice.. Love the Blue..
BiLL..

[treswright]

Dave, thank you and yes, fingers are crossed that Revell will keep these in the pipeline! In years past they said it wasn't worth their while to reissue unless they could sell huge quantities, but per Deal these new reissues are limited to 3000 units each. Hopefully this signals a new trend where Revell can make smaller quantities and still make some money off of them. As long as this is profitable maybe they'll continue the trend.

Keith, thank you but I can't believe you would feel guilty considering your incredible quantity of radical DW customs I wish I had your patience, I tend to rush things towards the end just to get it finished and move on to something else!

Ward, the bodies and associated parts (bumpers, etc.) are completely different to each kit. The parts I listed above are identical, as in made from the same molds. In fact, even the number engraved into the windshield is the same on the Z and Trans Um (F 6636 7).

Bill, thanks!

[johnespeed]

Those are both great builds, I would have liked to see the before pics ...lots of work, but well worth it!!!

[treswright]

Thanks John!! You know, after I had the thing completely apart it dawned on me that I never took "before" pics It really wasn't too bad, just kind of plain looking. Same thing with the white one. I did a lot less work on the white one, basically I just cleaned it up and did some detail work on it. I'm trying to get at least one example of each DW model in my collection that is in its original plastic color, so I didn't want to paint the white one. The color is interesting, it's a pearl white that is semi-translucent.

[treswright]

I was just looking and I do have a "before" pic of the white one. As you can see I didn't do a whole lot of work to it, just some detailing here and there:

BEFORE


AFTER