'65 Impala SS

[Olle F]

I have been tinkering with this for a while, but it's a slow go due to a busy work schedule, house, family and all that good stuff. I hate to post progress threads as I usually don't make much progress, but maybe posting a thread will give me some incentive to finish up.

Anywho, the model is a RM '65 Impala, and I have spent some time fixing their boo-boos. One of the major ones was the rear window. The molding was way too wide and thick, and the corners were too square. Here's the before and after pictures of that... As a matter of fact, I think the "before" picture was taken after I tried to round off the original molding.

I have already shown the interior in another thread, but here it is again... Testors Boyd red with some weathering powder, dull clear, BMF and detail painting:

Originally, I was planning on an off-white paint, but I finally decided to go with Testors "Ivory". Red is nice but gets kind of old, and I wanted something more mundane on this one. I think it will work well with the red interior.

Another thing I had to fix before painting the body was to drill guide pins into the door handles and the rear view mirrors. I'm just wondering how RM had that figured, there were no indications whatsoever for where to put these. Just imagine what a nightmare it would be to try to glue them in the right place on a freshly painted and polished body... Not to mention how easy it would be to knock them off again.

Have to let the body sit for a while now before I polish it, so I guess the engine is next. Got it painted yesterday, so now it's time to detail it. This is the part I enjoy the most, but I guess it will take a while.

That's what I got so far, hope you'll like it.

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

That's nice!!!

Looks just like the 1:1 my Dad bought new in 1965.

[hookedonplastics]

Wow, I really like the interior! Great detailing! I have always loved those '60's cars with the wide chrome strip on the seats.

[MrObsessive]

Ditto about the rear window........I thought also that the angle of the trailing edge of the C pillar wasn't quite right but that might just be my perception.

Yours is lookin' pretty good!...............It's amazing what a little detail change will do for a model!

[Olle F]

Some more progress:

The battery was nice, but wasn't very detailed so I tried to make it more realistic by adding the hold-down bracket. It was quite frustrating to handle all the itty-bitty pieces of Evergreen and metal wire, but it turned out pretty good. The only fly in the ointment was that the edges of the decal curled up a bit. Any suggestions for how to fix this will be greatly appreciated!

The front end, painted and with some some Model Doctor bolts added just to detail it a bit. It looked pretty good out of the box, except for the fact that the parts were badly warped. Had to bend and cuss quite a bit to get it together, but there's still a gap between the upper and lower half of the crossmember. Fortunately, I'm not detailing the chassis, so it won't matter all that much. I was thinking about using a semi-gloss finish on the upper control arms to resemble the dip painted finish on the original parts, but I think duller finishes look better in an engine compartment so I'll probably leave it as it is.

Engine, ready for detailing. The only mod so far is the photoetched oil filler cap, as the cap that was molded in was way too flat. The paint turned out to glossy, so I'll dry spray some clear on it later to bring down the sheen. And the "Tonawanda" decal curled up a bit too, so again: Please let me know how to fix this!

And finally a detail that caused some sleepless nights... The inner fender edges usually look a bit naked on models, on the original cars there's some bracing between the outer and the inner fender. This is almost always missing on models. I have never really cared as it's a lot of work to fix, but this time I decided to bite the bullet and do something. I looked at reference pictures and under the hood of my 1:1 Chevelle, and found out that the inner fenders sit much higher on the model than on a real car. Instead of doing major surgery to correct this, I decided to cheat and simplify the design a bit. IMO, it could definitely have been better, but it beats nothing at all.

I have spent a lot of time under the hoods of old Chevys, so this detail is something that bugs me a bit, but I hope that the difference won't be too noticeable to others. :roll: I'm going to add screws and bolts to it later, but this is pretty much what it's gonna look like:

[Matt T.]

Lookin' good, Olle! I love that color combo, and your details/improvements look to be well worth the time you put in. Those inner fender tabs are a neat little detail.

As for the decals, if you're going to lay down some dullcoat, maybe just use a wooden toothpick to press the corners into the wet/tacky dullcoat?

[Olle F]

Lookin' good, Olle! I love that color combo, and your details/improvements look to be well worth the time you put in. Those inner fender tabs are a neat little detail.

As for the decals, if you're going to lay down some dullcoat, maybe just use a wooden toothpick to press the corners into the wet/tacky dullcoat?

Thanks! I have been thinking about doing something like what you're talking about, but have been burned several times while trying moves like that so I'm a little bit reluctant. With my luck, I'll get fingerprints everywhere and end up with the decal stuck to the toothpick instead of the valve cover. :? But if no one has any solutions that would be safer for a clumsy guy like me, I'll certainly give it a try. I can always touch it up and give it another coat of clear if I make a mess. I'm kinda used to that, so this will be just another day in the office for me.

[Olle F]

Also the places where these decals are peeling are exactly where the decals would peel on a 1/1 car. The battery especially looks even more realistic with the decal coming loose, so you might want to leave those two decals, (battery & engine), as is. Great work so far BTW! 8)

Well, that's one way of looking at it... If anyone comments on a sloppy decal job I can always say: "Everybody knows that it is supposed to be that way, I bet you have never seen a real '65 Impala, have you???" Well, I would still like to fix it, as I suspect that this problem could be due to bad adhesive. I would hate for the decals to fall off later when it's impossible to get them back on again, but getting them smoothed out plus a coat of clear should keep them in place. And thanks for the kind comment!

BTW: A friend of mine was trying to build an old NASCAR racer as detailed and realistic as he possibly could, and one detail he picked up from an old photo was that the large decals that ran over the side trim seemed to be just slapped on and cut the corners a bit, i.e. they were not perfectly snug around the trim. He was very proud of having this realistic detail on his model, but the first comment he heard when he entered it in a show was: "Use setting solution next time, it would make the decals look much better"... :mrgreen:

[Olle F]

I polished the body last weekend, and today I have been sitting on the deck, drinking ice tea and applying the BMF. IMO, polish and BMF are the most tedious parts of any build, so it's a great relief to have that done.

BTW: I was really happy to see how the paint turned out in the sunlight, the color was quite different from what it looked like while I was working on it in the hobby room... I definitely have to get those "daylight" fluorescent tubes and improve the overall lighting over my workbench. :roll:

[larman]

Keep up the great work , that is beautiful so far, and will make a great finished model -Larman

[Tuffy's Garage]

Thats looking very nice

Charlie

[mikelo]

Great work on the BM! Most impressive!

[PlasticFanatic67]

Awesome work, and the bmf is some of the best applied I have seen in years, I have a question for you. How did you get a perfectly round cut on the tail lights with the bare metal foil? I have tried, and tried, and tried, but all mine come out looking like they are not uniform or I would miss with the knife and scratch the paint...... Yours is flawless...

[Olle F]

Awesome work, and the bmf is some of the best applied I have seen in years, I have a question for you. How did you get a perfectly round cut on the tail lights with the bare metal foil? I have tried, and tried, and tried, but all mine come out looking like they are not uniform or I would miss with the knife and scratch the paint...... Yours is flawless...

Thanks, I appreciate that but it's actually not as flawless as it looks in the pictures. I guess my trick is to shoot the pictures slightly out of focus. Seriously, it was a bit finnicky but not too bad at all. IMO, one of the keys to a good BMF job is to make all cut as long as possible so you don't have to start new cuts along the same line, i.e. don't lift the knife until you have cut all the way around. It won't show much if you're slightly off the line as long as the cut is nice and smooth, but a jagged line can look like ###### even if it's just a hair off.

Granted, going all the way around in one cut is a bit difficult to do on those tail lights, so I had to stop a few times while cutting to change grip. However, every time I stopped, I made sure that the knife stayed on the line. And I can tell you that I had to redo a lot of the window trim before I was happy with it, which is par for the course for me. One little trick I use to cut window trim is to tape an X-acto blade to a rounded toothpick, side by side. I adjust the spacing between the tip of the knife blade and the tip of the toothpich to the same width as the trim, and then I use the contraption kinda like a scribe. It makes a perfect cut with little effort. I have a slight tremor sometimes due to carpal tunnel syndrome so I also try to get as much support as possible for my hands, without doing that it would probably be impossible for me to do any BMF at all.

[Lou Kolar]

WOW what a Great looking interior shame to have to put it in the car, it looks so good as it is. Great color combo going to be a winner when finished.

[Harry P.]

One little trick I use to cut window trim is to tape an X-acto blade to a rounded toothpick, side by side. I adjust the spacing between the tip of the knife blade and the tip of the toothpich to the same width as the trim, and then I use the contraption kinda like a scribe. It makes a perfect cut with little effort.

Now THAT'S a cool trick...I can't wait to try it.

[Olle F]

Now THAT'S a cool trick...I can't wait to try it.

Try it, if you're even half as ham handed as I am you'll love it! I have always had a problem cutting the window trim straight and to the exact width, but this trick makes it a breeze and it's especially helpful on models with thick paint or faint engraving. I adjust the width by simply rolling more or less masking tape around the tooth pick before I tape the knife blade to it. It's pretty tedious to adjust though, so if I can just remember next time I place an order with Micro-Mark, I gonna get one of these:

http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?M...ct&ID=83651

It should be easy to replace one of the knife blades with a piece of round rod, heavy wire or something similar, and it will be a snap to adjust for different widths.

[charlie]

very nice job you have done on that chevy

[Tom Kren]

Thats going to be a sharp build and a winner when finished great job so far!

[Olle F]

Time to resurrect this thread... I have been out of town (actually out of state) on jobs the last 2 months, but this weekend I finally had some time to sit down with this project again. The master cylinder looked a bit out of round after I glued the halves together, so I just turned a new cap instead of trying to file or sand it to the correct shape. This assembly isn't 100% as the original, but I hope it looks convincing enough.

Then I applied some wash to various parts like grille and hub caps. I have been thinking about using other wheels, but the wash revealed that R/M did an excellent job on the hub cap detail, so these will definitely be used!

Also worked some on the engine. 3 months after placing the order, I still don't have my aluminum pulleys from Arrowhead ( ) so I just had to bite the bullet and use he original setup. I have also experimented a bit with the sheen on the engine. For some reason, engines and engine bays look more realistic to me if you use duller finishes. I decided to try that theory on this build, so I airbrushed a light coat of dull clearcoat over the whole thing. We'll see what the end result looks like. And yes, the fuel line is not attached to the right location on the carb, I just slapped it on there as it will be hidden by the air cleaner anyway.

Added some screws to the inner structure of the fenders to add some detail, and dry fitted the front end just for fun:

[Fisher61]

You do great work, this is going to be and awesome build! Your right about the black under the hood, it looks like you have just the right sheen. Who would of thought black could be so tough to do?

[MrObsessive]

Olle, that's turnin' out real nice! And yes, black is difficult to get to look right especially in interiors. I've found the best black paint out there for engine bays and interiors is Polly Scale's "Engine Black"-------yours looks perfect though!

It's a water based acrylic, and has just the right sheen to my view for those areas.

It brush paints nicely as well with nary a brush stroke to be seen.

[Olle F]

Bill,

I use Testors "Black Chrome" enamel for mostly everything black on a car. If you airbrush it without thinning it too much and spray a heavy coat, you'll get a nice, "greasy" semi-gloss finish that works well for vinyl interiors. You can highlight it by just rubbing it with a little bit of grease on your fingers (I usually use chap stick). You can get a lower sheen if you thin it with laquer thinner: The more thinner you use, the flatter it gets. That engine compartment has a heavy coat of unthinned paint, so it's about as glossy as this paint gets. The engine was dusted with some diluted clear coat, which is my favorite way to get a lower sheen.

[Olle F]

If you want to drive yourself crazy, you can always try to scratchbuild a wiper motor. It's a great relief that it's done, and I have drilled a few holes as I might add some wires and hoses later.

Now I have two problems that need to be solved:

1: There is a wire protector (a plastic sleeve, screwed to the firewall on the 1:1 car) located at the top edge of the firewall, and I don't have a clue how to make one. I tried to glue a piece of rod to a piece of sheet styrene, but it looks a bit out of scale so I think it would be better to use some kind of thin and flexible material and fold it to the right shape. It would be great if this material also was the right color. I was thinking about using aluminium from a TV-dinner tray or similar, but it would probably be much easier to make it look nice and clean if I don't have to paint it.

2: I have found a cylinder shaped mystery item on the firewall (see picture below) and I don't have a clue what this could be. Does anyone know what it is and what it's supposed to look like?

[Fisher61]

That cylinder may be a vacuum servo for an aftermarket cruise control, or a vacuum storage canister. Can you find a '65 Chevrolet service manual anywhere? I also notice that the car in your reference photo has a/c, did GM use vacuum to open and close dampers in the a/c system in '65? Makes me think it's a vacuum storage tank.

Edited November 18, 2007 by plumber