it’s craft day over here!
i ran across a toy Jeep Wrangler Unlimited JK for sale on eBay in the same Granite Crystal Metallic paint as my real rig and had to have it for some reason. it sat on my desk for a couple months before i decided i needed a more interesting way to display it…
first mod – i nipped the rack off with some flush side cutters to make it look more stock.
i had an idea! i thought i’d mount the little guy in a frame along with some blueprint type line drawings.
Michaels had this nice little 6″ x 9″ shadow box for 50% off – perfect!
it was meant to be a pinboard, so i scraped the fabric/styrofoam off to get just a plain back, which i planned to glue a printout to.
it still wasn’t quite deep enough inside to fit the Jeep, so i cut new interior sides out of foam-core to space the backing all the way flush with the rear of the frame. i just glued these new walls in with spray contact cement.
just like in real-life, a little fender trimming was still required for clearance. i also drilled a couple holes to mount the model to the board.
i found these line drawings of a JKU for download on several sites and used the front/rear ones to create my layout, marking the center point for where to mount the model.
i had my design printed at a Fedex Office on 100 lb cover paper then trimmed it out to sit centered on top of some dark gray felt to sort of simulate a matte. more spray contact cement was used to mount everything.
i drilled 2 small holes for the screws to hold the toy in place. lining everything up was the only tricky part of this whole endeavor.
i’m actually pretty stoked with how it all came out for the small amount of time spent!
