"YELLOW FANG DRAGSTER ALTERATIONS"

I'm a big Ed Roth fan and collector and I have almost every model that has Ed Roth's name on it.
I was very exited to find out that there was going to be a 3D printed model of the Yellow Fang dragster.
So after purchasing it for $125.00 and waiting 4 months to get the model and another 3 months to finally get the driver figure.
Sadly, I was very disappointed to find the 3D model to be extremely wrong..... As are the decals!
I will list all the modifications and scratch built features to the 3d model below to make it correct!
And a review at the end.

 

Here you can see the inaccuracies between the Yellow Fang Dragster and the 3D printed body.
Rather than list all of the inaccuracies now.... I'll tackle them as we go down the list.

The 3D print body has a banana shape and no matter how many times I heated up the body
and tried to straighten it.... it went right back to it's memory and kept the banana shape.
So, gobs of putty was added to the top and side panels.

The engine was set back 6 scale inches by cutting out the cowl & firewall and a new firewall was set back 6 inches.
The cowl was removed (since the Yellow Fang never had a cowl).
The Canopy was super glued to the body as this 3D canopy has the wrong angle.

6 inches was also added to the top of the body panel in front of the engine. The firewall was also set back 6 scale inches.

A quick check on the internet reveals that the wheel base is 153" . The wheel base on this 3D print is 147".
So they couldn't even take a few seconds of time to check the wheel base on a Google search?.... FOR SHAME !
The rear wheel well location is (you guessed it)..... Off by 6". Here, I'm drilling new holes (6" back) for the correct wheel base.
I'm also using Speed City Resin- Goodyear 16" Slicks, American 16" Torque Thrust Mag Wheels & Deep Dish Inner Rims.
Notice, I've marked the correct 45 degree angle on the canopy too.

The top was reshaped to have a crease down the center as it was missing from the 3D printed body.
My friend Jim Polli contacted George "THE BUSHMASTER" Schreiber and George told him this story...
"The name Yellow Fang was Ed's idea based off Phyllis Diller's husband's nick name "White Fang" and there weren't many yellow top fuelers at the time
and I liked the color yellow. So we painted it at Ed Roth's shop using some "Diamond T Truck Yellow" Epoxy Paint.
We used the epoxy paint so that the nitro or heat from the headers would not remove the paint that I called "Bullet Proof Paint".

Unfortunately, The decal sheet that was purchased separately is also wrong.
The lettering does not go down on an angle but is straight across.
Since the body is angled it gives the impression that the lettering is angled... It is not!
Once again, I had my good buddy Keven Gomske create all new lettering and sponsors including: The BUSHMASTER lettering on the cowl and
the Snake image and Bushmaster lettering for my Driver Figure's helmet and visor that I will be adding later.

I removed 7 inches from the rear wheel well fins, to fit the new slick location and to have space for the slicks.
I then had to add 6" of plastic sheet extending the rear of the front wheel well.
The extended (header plate) pieces will be removable so I can add the engine later. A lot of putty was used to re-shape the rear fins.
The inside curves of the rear wheel wells were also filled with sheet plastic.

The lower panels on the 3D print were in too far and needed to be pushed out 3" on each side using .020 Plastic Sheet and a lot of putty.
The inside of the body was also ground out to make more room for the incorrect 3D chassis.

All the angles of the tail section on the 3D print were extremely wrong, so I had to re sculpt all of the tail sections.
Added pieces of plastic to sides of the parachute area and puttied top of rear wheel well to create a new angle.

Re-scribed engine access panel lines in front of engine. Re-surfaced the entire body of the 3D printed dragster!
Entire body needed to have a crease all along the top of body & canopy using putty.
This was a lot of work that I tried to have fun doing, but to think about spending $125.00 and waiting 7 months to get..... ?
None of my customers will EVER have to do any thing like this to make my models correct !

Here are the removable "Header Plates" that are backed up with piano wire as they are very fragile.
Created a new (correct) 45 degree angle on rear of the canopy. I later re-scribed the engine access panel lines in front of engine.

Canopy was reshaped to have a crease down the center. Made canopy hinges using sheet plastic.

The driver figure on the 3D print is too small to be 1/25, but I'm still going to use the body as it's already tapered to fit.
I'll replace the 3D head with a more accurate sized "Speed City Resin" Figure #2 head.
The 3D Hilborn Bug Catcher is also too small, so I am replacing it with a Correct "Speed City Resin" 1/25 Hilborn Bug Catcher!
I also added axle stubs on the body where the new axle holes are (not shown).

Here you can see the difference between the head sizes.

I thought I could keep the inaccurate wheel tread distance, but I couldn't stand it.
So I added 3 scale inches to each side using hollow tube and adding other pieces to simulate spindles.

Review:
While doing all these changes to the 3D model, it has cracked- split or chipped on me 23 times.
All those issues had to be repaired and really slowed down the build process even more.
3D resin is extremely brittle and a real pain in the @$$ to work with.
I found that the 3D print is off by 6" from the front of the engine back, from side to side and the front wheel tread distance.
The rail frame is also too narrow and looks very odd and the Driver Figure is also too tiny to be in 1/25 scale.
But, with perseverance and working almost everyday/ night, I have achieved what I've wanted for years.
,Scott Kapellusch