Brightening The Christmas Season with an SCX24
˘I really hope that you have an opportunity to spend Christmas with family and friends!
Introduction
What do you get someone who will not take anything from you? Well, this is what led to me giving a personal gift of a custom-painted SCX24 to my neighbor.
Here is a little context
It was a summer morning. The pipes were not cold, but they were not hot. My daughter got out of the shower and told me that the water did not feel warm. Now, you have to understand what this means. My daughter is someone who can step into the shower when Rip Van Winkle goes to sleep. When Rip Van Winkle wakes up, he will have to pound on the door to use the bathroom. My daughter does not consider a shower complete unless she has exchanged all the water in the water heater. It's not surprising to hear that my daughter ran out of hot water.
Alarm bells go off when my wife goes to use the hot water later that day, only to report that there is no hot water. I run downstairs and see that a puddle has formed under the water heater. Thankfully, we caught it soon enough before the pan overfilled. I texted my neighbor, who is a plumber, and he recommended some water heaters to consider. He stopped over after work and helped me install a new water heater. I tried to give him a beer for this, but he does not drink.
Fast forward a couple of months. We evaluate our garage before winter and realize that our heater is just not cutting it. I enjoy working on projects in the garage during the winter.
I realized that we should spend some money and upgrade what is in the garage. My old heater used to struggle to keep the garage at 40 when it was 35 outside. If it got below 0, then forget it. The real problem is that our freezer goes into defrost mode, thawing out the meat in the freezer. This does not meet our approval.
My neighbor comes through again. He scores us a Hot Dawg heater. I am pretty sure that this heater could heat my garage, my house, and my neighbor’s house. In fact, if you want, I can probably send some heat your way. The thing is awesome and lives up to its name!
I tried to give him some money so he could buy a toy, but he would not accept the cash.
How Did We Thank Him?
So, we narrowed down our options. My son and I got thinking. We know that he is a Jeep guy. He loves his Jeep, and he almost bought an RC Jeep a year ago. He talked to me about the Axial CJ-7. He almost pulled the trigger on it. I am not sure why Axial discontinued that truck, but they discontinued it. My neighbor wanted one, but he could not justify spending the 400 dollars on something that would not get him to work. He also considered the size of the model. The downside is you get a cool RC truck, but you have to store it somewhere.
So, I put on my thinking cap. Axial makes a sweet SCX24 with the Rubicon body. The problem is that they do not make the Rubicon in red. He likes red Jeeps, and so we need to engage some RC powers to make sure he gets the correct Rubicon in what he would say is the proper color.
I have an airbrush, I have Proline paint, and I have a heated garage. I think we can figure this out. I ordered the Axial SCX24 and the clear body. We are ready to go.
The clear body is very nicely done. I am a Tamiya guy (Usually build a Tamiya model each winter) and so I have a high standard. And Axial exceeded my expectations.
The first thing that I did was wash the body. You always want to get the body moulding residue off the Lexan.
Then I proceeded with masking the body. I do apologize for the quality of the pics. My sausage fingers turned down the exposure on my camera without me noticing that little detail. I did not realize this until I delivered the Heep… I mean, Jeep to my neighbor. So, some of these pics will be a little grainy. I do not blame the camera, but my sausage fingers. I also blame my getting lost in the project. I just kept saying, “Work it… work it…. Yeah… baaabby Yah!” It never hurts to channel a little Austin Powers on a gloomy winter day.
The other challenge is the front of his Jeep. He has a Rubicon with the blacked-out grill. It is not square, but more of an oval-like pattern, but not fully oval. So, I found an image of the front end of a Jeep like his. I took a screenshot of the image and imported it into the Cricut software. I managed to clean up the image so that all I had left was the shape of the grill. I flipped the image, sent it to my Cricut, and made a mask. I did my best to scale it, but I still had to use some masking tape.
The masking is done, and it is ready for paint. I used the Proline Red. I find that this paint works best in the airbrush at about 40-50 PSI, depending on the day. I was going to make a custom color, but I hit some clear plastic with it, and when the paint dried, it looked great! It was definitely close enough to the stock Jeep red. So, I ran with it. I also backed the red paint with black. That tends to make the paint pop. Also, make sure that you use Lexan paint. The paint for RC bodies is designed to etch its way into the body. It is also flexible, so if you roll your RC car, the paint sticks much better. If you use basic acrylic paint, you might get huge chips in the paint.
So the order is simply:
Wash the body
Let the body dry
Mask the body (windows and grill mask)
Apply red to the body (Unless you want a different color. Then you probably don’t want to apply red to the body)
Peel the grill mask off
Paint black to make the red pop and black out the grill
This is where you can see the inside of the body, backed in black. Remember, to paint the inside of the body. The outside has a protective plastic coating that is supposed to be ripped off before applying the decals. The plastic cover keeps the body from getting overspray when painting it.
It really sucks when you forget the peeling off the protective cover stage. Don’t ask me how I know. Well, I have this friend…right? I may have had a Christmas story moment where I didn’t say “Fudge…. only it wasn’t fudge… I said THE Word!…”. And back on point.
Next, you peel off the protective coating. I have that in the video below. You simply get a hobby knife and start pulling up where there is an edge on the body, like the holes for the body mounts. Eventually, the plastic coating will let loose and you can pull it up.
Next, I applied the decals to make it look as real as possible. Axial does a great job with this as well. You really have some different options. You can black out the widows or leave them plain. Nicely done, Axial!
Next, I had to remove the mounting system from the old Jeep body and attach it to this Jeep body. You can see the back of the screws poking through the inside mounting plate.
I screwed in the hex screws using the 1.3 hex. This is where I really love the iFixit kit. The tool kit is a beautiful thing because all your hexes and screwdriver bits are right there.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic of the body mounting to the frame prior to giving it away. So, I grabbed my Axial Deadbolt and used that to show the body mounts.
(You pop the tabs into the frame, and then screw in the screws. It took me a little patience, but it paid off. )
Now that everything is attached, I put the truck back in the box and sealed the box to make it look as brand new as possible. (Unfortunately, I gave the truck away before I had a chance to take the pic with the updated exposure. So, yeah, it is more grainy than I want.)
Whatcha Learn?
I learned that it is easy to throw money at something, but a personal touch is priceless. In reality, doing this project was not overly challenging for me. I have done many RC bodies in my day. However, it was meaningful and I wanted to do a good job. Not only did I want it to look stock, but I wanted my neighbor to have a nice RC truck. It is nice to receive an envelope of cash, but making a personal gift is more meaningful. It was fun to share the hobby with someone. I a not sure if he will buy another truck or just set this on his shelf. Whatever the case he took it and appreciated it.
I relived my childhood. I used to work at a dealership and prep Jeeps. There is one I have been casually looking for. It is the YJ-7.... yes, I know square headlights, not a real Jeep. Well, I’m not a real Jeep guy, so I am good with that. However, the YJ-7 with the 4.0-liter engine is a great Jeep. The original YJs with the straight six were a pretty pathetic dog. Well, that is not fair. The motor was simple and fairly bulletproof, but it just had no go. However, the YJ with a 4.0 is a really good find! My brother had a Jeep, and my cousin had a Comanche. I have many good memories of getting those things in the dirt, snow, and doing a lot of shoveling. However, the memories are still good.
It also made me think of driving my brother’s YJ. It was fun to blast around with the bikini top on the Jeep with the doors removed. We went all over the place in that thing. Those were some good times. So, it was fun to walk down memory lane after applying paint, decals, and carefully loading it back into the box.
I had fun researching Jeeps. I thought that Jeep meant: Just Empty Every Pocket. However, I discovered that Jeep really started from GP. Not General Purpose, but G (signified by Ford) and P (80-inch wheelbase). I have no idea how those letters became associated with those numbers, but I’m running with my research. I guess Algebra does have a purpose.
Jeep, the word, came to be known as something extraordinary. So, GP for something that shuttles people around can easily be merged with Jeep. I am not sure how that translates, but this is Motor Trend’s claim.
The seven slats on the grill were later adopted as a marketing claim that the Jeep was sold on seven continents. Some say it is Ford possessing a patent on the 9 slat grill, but that is questionable. According to Jalopnik, there is no such patent. The most likely reason is that Willys needed the room for the bigger round headlights, and so changing the grille design was necessary for the additional space. (Here are two sources that I also found helpful: Realtruck.com, Carbuzz.).
My theory is that bean counters cut the fun. Willys wanted to cut production costs and put bigger headlights in the front. Marketing guys started the rumor that it was seven continents. I say that because bean counters ruin the fun, and marketing guys seize a good selling opportunity. The seven-continent theory is an awesome sales pitch, so who could blame them? All that to say, I enjoyed researching Jeeps.
Modeling brings out the sentimentality. My dad used to drive a Jeep in Korea. He did not want to go to Korea and his story was pretty funny.
My dad was pretty competitive when he would shoot. When he was in basic training, the GIs had to put a rocket through the window as one of their tests. The guys kept missing the window. Well, my dad was going to show them how it was done. He put a rocket right through the middle of the window. He was nailing every shooting drill. Finally, someone told him that he was an idiot because if he kept getting a high score, then the US Army is going to ship him to Korea.
Well, it was too late. He went to Korea. He was a good shot, but he shot everything because he was color blind. They realized he was not front-line material or general GI material. So, it worked out well for him. His duty was officer Uber. Yup, he drove officers around in a Willys Jeep. He said it was the best gig you could have. He got to go off-road in Korea, pick up officers, and drive them around. He would sometimes camp out in the woods as he drove between bases.
He said that if he didn’t have a family stateside, he probably would have enlisted as a career Jeep driver.
These things are more than models, but the ability to walk down memory lane.
Conclusion
This project was fun. I think that the Jeep turned out pretty well. Considering it is a Jeep and all…. I kid… I kid…. lighten up, people! I think I already admitted that I have some fond memories of Jeeps.
In the end, this little SCX24 turned out to be more than just a custom-painted RC Jeep. It became a way to say thank you to someone who quietly showed up when we needed help. I am glad I took the time to do it. I am also very thankful that my neighbor accepted the gift. Although my son was eyeing it up to add to his collection.
There’s something about working with your hands that makes the heart happy. A small project can carry a lot of memories if you let it. I thought about my late father and brother.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Do you have any Jeep stories or off-road stories? I’d love to hear your story in the comment section. Remember to use social media to be social and look for opportunities to be generous.