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1959 Dodge -- My Tunaboat Replica -- W.I.P.


Ramfins59

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Thanks guys, I appreciate your comments.

John, yeah the interior is coming along... slowly. I sanded off the engraved pattern on the seats and filled in the "dip" in the front seatback with bondo. I have to saw a split into the front seatback, as the seatbacks on the 1:1 car would fold forward to allow entry to the rear seat. I drilled holes in the side panels for resin window cranks and door handles.

Jonathan, I agree with you about the '59 Dodge being a beautiful car. The colors of the one I had weren't so beautiful though...LOL. I'll be doing another one sometime in the future in more "beautiful" colors.

Tom, yes it is fun working on this car. I've wanted to do this for a long time. You'll hopefully get to see it in person at NNL East.

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Thank you very much Carl. I'm very happy with the way the "baby poo" color came out on this car. It's really not a bad match to the 1:1 car.

Yeah John, I've got 2 whole months... won't be a problem at all. Actually I'm hoping to have it done in a couple of weeks or less. I attached the interior courtesy lights and made a pair of visors from thin sheet styrene tonight. I'll install them tomorrow after I trim the side windows from the promo glass. I'll need to fire up the trusty Dremel to make short work of that. Are you going to have your car done for the NNL..??

Edited by Ramfins59
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Yeah Jim, I'm workin' on it. Still sanding molded detail off the seats and puttying and sanding the front seat back. I also have to scratch up some realistic looking armrests, then paint it, apply some upholstery decals, flock the carpet and rear tray, and then start detailing the dashboard......LOTS to do yet.

Today I trimmed the front & rear glass to fit after cutting them apart from the one piece promo glass. I want to check the fit of the interior bucket with the glass tacked in place because, while Modelhaus' interiors are good, there is usually always fitment issues once the glass is in place. I'd like to get everything right now so I don't have cursing and yelling at final assembly time.

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Jim, the glass is regular kit thickness clear plastic.

Mark, yeah, the '59 Dodge is a BIG car. My Coronet was 18' 2" long. My younger daughter played upright string Bass in H.S. and at the end of a school year we had to return the one she was allowed to bring home. It lay down flat on the rear seat (without the peg extended) and didn't touch either side.

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That color worked out well. I wish I knew what Testors had in mind for the Floquil/Polly S colors.

Looking forward to more.

And Tom- I'm planning on coming Friday night so I don't have to leave stupidly early. Might bring a couple of non-modeling friends with me to break up the cost of the room a little, too. The NJ Transit bus is down the road and they can go goof off in NYC for the day, and then we can meet a friend of ours who lives in Brooklyn for dinner.

Charlie Larkin

Edited by charlie8575
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Thanks guys. Today I'll be continuing work on the interior. I finished sanding the engraving off the seats, sawed a split in the front seatback, and glued some small pieces of half round plastic to the side panels to simulate front and rear armrests. I'll be priming and painting it today. If all goes well I'll hopefully show some pictures of the progress.

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Today was one of those modeling days where some things go well and some things don't. The interior is painted, the carpet is flocked, the door handles & window cranks are in and the dashboard and steering wheel are painted and detailed.

While gluing in the glass a drop of CA glue flew onto the inside of the windshield....... I spent an hour or so polishing that out.

I attempted to use some Scale Motorsports upholstery decals on the seats. I made patterns with masking tape and cut the decal material to size. The first piece went on fine. The second piece wrinkled up and tore... so did the third piece. I took off the first piece and just threw them away...... No upholstery decals. This is the third time I've tried using those decals without success.... and it will be the last time.

I sanded the tire treads and started gluing the wheels together. Tomorrow is another day.

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OK. The interior is done......stick a fork in it...... YEAY..!!!

First, I tried sanding all of the molded detail from the seats (this is a resin interior by Modelhaus). I was able to remove most of it and then painted the entire bucket, dashboard and steering wheel with Tamiya Dark Earth spray and when that dried I sprayed it all with Tamiya Semi-Gloss Clear. Next I flocked the carpet and rear tray Brown. After that I brushed on some Floquil Depot Buff to the side panels and steering wheel for a little contrast. I glued on strips of PE metal sprue to the side panels for a touch of bling and added PE speaker grilles to the rear tray. A PE piece was also added to the rear of the front passenger seat for the swing out ash tray that was on the real car. I drilled holes for resin door handles and window cranks (by ReplMinCoMD) which I painted chrome silver.

I added PE "foot" pedals to the gas pedal and headlight high beam floor button (I had them in the real Tunaboat). I also added a black painted handle to a piece of a straight pin, which is glued into a small hole drilled in the floor, for an emergency brake release handle that the 1:1 car had.

The dashboard is detailed with BMF and chrome silver paint and a round,flat shirt pin head for a glove box door button. The speedo gauge is from my parts stash and the speedo and other gauges are covered in clear epoxy drops for lenses. A round shirt pin head was added to the steering wheel for a necker knob (which I had on the 1:1 car) and a straight piece of a pin was used for a turn signal lever. A dash mounted mirror finished it all off. Here's how it looks;

TUNABOATINTERIORFINISHED11024x686_zps282

TUNABOATINTERIORFINISHED21024x639_zpse68

TUNABOATINTERIORFINISHED31024x749_zps4a5

I'm pretty pleased with the way this turned out. The real car's interior should only have looked this good.

Thanks for looking in on this. Now back to the rest of the car. We're almost there..!!

Edited by Ramfins59
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While gluing in the glass a drop of CA glue flew onto the inside of the windshield....... I spent an hour or so polishing that out.

Cool Progress Rich! And the above quote from one of your posts... is there winter static in effect? I recently had some CA on the end of a toothpick, aiming it for the spot on the inside of the roof where I wanted to affix an interior sun visor. As I worked the toothpick down towards it's goal, suddenly the CA leapt onto the already installed windshield! And in such a zig zag pattern that there was no way I did it! Some one else responded to a post I made about it with a similar situation.

Charlie- Looking forward to seeing you at NNL East. Stay in our host hotel and we have a great Friday evening get together. Some folks say it's more fun than the show!

Edited by Tom Geiger
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Thanks for your great comments everyone.

Tom, I've never heard of winter or cold weather static affecting glue but I guess anything is possible. It sure is aggravating when it happens though.

I'm hoping to have this car finished by Sunday so I can take it to the South Hills Show for the Curbside Class.

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