How to Customize with Ammaddon 
So, your sick of the peg warmers, bored with the cars out and want to do something about it right? Well, the one solution to all these problems is customizing what the great pegs have available. One may say, “I can’t customize, I can’t even draw” or some other excuse. The truth is you can. With the right tools and practice you too can be on your way to making show winning quality cars. Ol’ Ammaddon is going to help get you started. Hopefully if HWCP allows the space, this will be a continuing educational section. I know when I first started I couldn’t find much info. So I learned by mistake and intuition. Here is a bit of info I’ll pass on to you.
Tools are important in this hobby. You can never have enough. If you have the right ones, it can make customizing very easy. I will make a brief list and more than likely add on periodically. The best place to get most of these tools is www.micromark.com. They have lots of neat stuff and great prices too!
Tool Box- Organization is key!
Dremel or something comparable- Great for cutting, sanding, deburring etc.
Drill- for drilling the rivets (some cases the dremel can be used)
11/64 and 9/64 Drill Bits- Seem to work the best for drilling the rivet heads
Needle Files- Used for shaping and smoothing out those hard to reach areas.
Small Jewelers Saw- makes cutting doors and other intricate cuts easier and eats less diecast in the cut.
Small Screwdriver- Helpful for many things, especially separating the body from the chassis.
Exacto Knife- Good for cutting plastic interiors.
Small Hand Drill- helpful for drilling out mufflers, using as pilots for morphing cars together.
Needle Nose and side cutting Pliers- Various uses.
Tweezers- Small cars, small pieces need I say more?
JB Weld- Use to morph cars together and adding shape.
Bondo- Add shape to cars.
Glazing Putty- for real detailed work, smoothes out finish
5 Minute Epoxy- Multi use
SandPaper- I use 400 grit and finer.
Air Compressor and Airbrush- For great paint detail. (Wait to make sure custo’s are fun for you, expensive tool to have)
Paint- Whatever you like. Spray cans, nailpolish etc.
Lacquer thinner- thins the paint
Lighter Fluid- I use zippo for removal of blisters from the cards.
Paint Brushes- 000, 0000 for detailing the interior etc.
 This is your basic toolbox, there are more advanced items you can get and I may mention them later on. Don’t go out buying everything till you make sure customizing is entertaining for you. Now, let’s do a basic custom:
 Find your car. Decide whether or not you want to put it back into the blister after your done. If you do, soak the back of the card with lighter fluid where the blister is mounted. Let it set for 2 minutes or so and slowly separate. Look on the bottom of the car, you should see rivet heads. This is were the drill bits that I told you to get come into play. Using the 11/64 or 9/64 bit, CAREFULLY begin to drill the head of the rivet. The object is to just drill enough to separate the car. You want to leave as much of the post as you can. (The post is where the rivet is mounted). Use your small screwdriver to pry the car apart. Now you will be able to see just how the car was assembled. I normally wrap my windshields in TP (toiletpaper) so it does not get scratched. Here’s where you can get creative. First step of creativity can be changing the wheel. I normally use RealRiders from any car I can find to donate. JL and RC seem to be the best to acquire nice RR’s. Look at dollar stores and such for clearance on cars with RR’s, pick up as many as you can. Never can have enough RR’s!! You’ll notice there is a crimp over the axle of the car. I find using the dremel and grinding the crimps off is easiest. If it is a plastic base then using that small screwdriver to pry back the crimp also works. Now, make sure the donor wheels fit the width of the base. If not, you can cut the axle with the side cutters to widen or shorten the axle. If you do this you have to be very precise when mounting them back on. I normally have the base raised to wheel height and apply the 5-minute epoxy to the axle. Be careful not to get the epoxy on the wheels..they won’t spin if you get it on them. Now your ride has a new set of wheels. What’s next? Well, if you are planning on chopping, morphing or just repainting the car then have it soaking in paint stripper while you are mounting the wheels. I normally use a gel type stripper; it bonds to the car more and does a great job. Make sure, after all the paint is off the car you wipe all the excess stripper off, I normally use a damp cloth. A bristle brush works good when you have paint in grooves and nooks. Ok, have a stripped car, nice set of wheels, what to do next. Need ideas? Get some car mags with a lot of pictures. I use them to get ideas, as well as most of the customizers I know. If you plan on chopping the car or morphing it then it’s all in your mind. One main thing is to plan out all your cuts in advance. You can have doors open, make hoods pop whatever…but you need the right tools. This is were the Jewelers handsaw comes in handy. It doesn’t eat much metal in the cut and is fairly easy to use. Make your cut lines and start chopping. For morphs you can use a larger saw, just make sure you plan where the cars are going to join. I use JB weld when putting the pieces back together. You can use tape to hold the pieces or clamps. Allow sufficient drying time. JB is sandable; the seam doesn’t have to be perfect. Now, if you want to add more body and shape to the car, use Bondo. Local auto shop will have it. It sands easy and dries quickly. Just don’t bake the cars after it’s on, or you’ll have a sloppy mess. You can use your files to shape it and sand paper to smooth it out. I also use the glazing putty. I always like to take it a step further.
After all the mods are done, you’re ready to paint. I like airbrushing my cars. Yet if your reading this you are more than likely beginning and only have spray cans to work with. So I will go along that route. Make sure the car is dust free. I use tack cloth to get the dust off. Using automotive primer, spray 12- 16 inches away from the car in a left to right motion. I normally do what is called dusting. Thin even coats, normally around 3-4. I then let this dry overnight (regardless of “claimed” drying times). While this is drying you can detail your interior and engine. After you have the final coat of primer on look over the vehicle. I find that gray primer shows imperfections the best. Repair as needed, wet sanding the area with a fine grit paper. Now you’re ready for paint. When using spray paint, I normally soak the cans in hot water for 5 minutes prior to spraying. This seems to help with the paint spraying more evenly. Again, make sure there is no dust on the vehicle. I use the helping hands to keep the body up in the air, that way the bottom doesn’t stick to anything. Spray 12-16 inches away, lightly coating 3 to 4 times. When done with the can, turn it up side down and spray to get the paint out of the nozzle, (good house keeping). I let the paint dry for at least 48 hours. Now, if you want to put painted stripes or flames on it….this is the time. I will cover this procedure at a later time. Then the clear coat. This also comes in a can. It dries a little quicker, yet I think it runs easier to. So be very careful when spraying this, distance helps. Clearcoat is what gives the car that great glossy look. I normally do at least 4 coats. I let this dry for another 48 hours. By now you should have the interior of the car detailed, and if applicable the engine as well. You’re ready to remount the car. There are a few way’s to do this. One is to use epoxy or JB Weld. The more professional look is to use self-tapping screws or re-riveting it. Riveting is a little more complicated because you need a substantial part of the post left and the rivets are hard to find. I will post the size later. After you mount the car, paint the base in a detailed manner and bada boom bada bing, it’s done. Simple huh? Just plan on devoting a lot of time and frustration into a nice piece. Improvise and experiment.
 Look for future how to’s soon to come. If you have any questions email me at [email protected]. I will try and answer your questions, if I can’t I will track the answer down. When I get a scanner, it is possible you can see a visual step by step as well as some of my custo’s. Happy Wheeling!!!!
Ok, you made it past your basic custo. Congratulations. Ready for some more to info to feed your noggin? Let’s go over some paint choices. Hopefully you figured out hand painting the whole car with a brush just doesn’t work out. So you’re using spray cans. Wanna get more color variation? Get a basic airbrush kit. There are quite a few kinds. Start out with the kind that testors makes. You don’t need a compressor; you just hook up a charged air in a can. (A little info, the more expensive the airbrush, the more cleaning is needed). You can’t get thin lines for detail and such, but the spray is nice and even. Now you can get creative with your color choices too. I use nail polish. It’s cheap, dries hard and there are a ton of colors to choose from. The only thing is it’s really thick. So you need to thin it with paint thinner out as you do with any airbrush. 50:50 is a good breakdown. Nail polish works great.
 Need some extras to put on that rad custo you have. Want some surfboards. Get out the files and sandpaper I told ya to get. You can get great results from popcycles. What ever your making, make it smaller than scale, that way you can put a thin coat of Bondo or JB weld on it to make it nice and hard. Want some fog lights or BAJA lights?  Grab a pin and some little (I mean little) clumps of bondo. Start scratchin away!
 Here’s a neat yet more advanced trick. Do you want to have hoods and doors that open? You need that jewelers saw I said to get. Then go to a hobby shop and find the thinnest diameter copper tube you can find. Then find piano wire just about the same thickness of the whole. Grind, cut or chisel recessed line in the hood, or the frame. This will be where you mount the copper with JB or epoxy. The piano wire obviously needs to be a bit longer on both sides of the tubing so that you can weld it to the receiving body piece. Presto. A simple hinge.
 Want to make spark plug wires, get moms ol-sewing kit out and choose the color string you want. I normally lay a few pieces out and starch them so they will be stiff and hold shape when gluing them to the block.
 There you go kids, a little more info for you. I will be sending more as I think of it.   Ammaddon…..PS, send me a baby boomer!
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