bogger44

Thanks Niko. I agree the stance on a model is one of those things that can make or break it of sorts. Glad to hear you came over from the darkside Tom Lol! Mainly Fords and Mopars for me too, but do love them all regardless of make. Yeah it would have been interesting to see what Chevy would've come up with. Thanks Mack. All the chrome was done with BMF, a tedious job that I never really look forward to doing but love seeing the results. I have used Molotow pens on other builds as well and have been pretty happy with the outcomes.

Love those colors, Mike! Well done, a great looking truck for sure!

Sorry to hear of all the headaches it gave you Roger, but man the finished product is brilliant! Absolutely love the motor, and the paint looks exceptional as well. Another beauty, just as you always do, congrats!

Killer Bee! Nothing wrong with having the modern supercharger under the hood, I think it looks great. Well done!

My fourth completion of the year, shooting for twelve but who knows if that'll actually happen LOL. A pretty good kit overall, however I did make a few modifications. The biggest gripe with this kit is the ride height and truck like tires. I lowered it using a Bob Downie article from an issue of SA. Pretty easy to do by just removing some material from the back side of the brakes, allowing you to mount them higher up on the spindles & axle. The kit tires were ditched and some Pegasus 225/45-18's Michelin Pilot Sport's took their place. The Michelins are a little wider than the rims and stick past on the inner side a bit but it doesn't bother me. One could add some material to widen the rims accordingly if you wanted. Also, the nicely done metal exhaust tips were replaced, as I thought they were a little on the small side, with some made from aluminum tubing. It's Krylon Short Cuts Flat Black for the interior, which I think does a wonderful job simulating leather. It doesn't show great in the pics as I had a hard time getting a half-ways decent in focus pic of it. For the exterior it's plain old Model Master Gloss Black lacquer, with their gloss cote over it. The gloss cote was very temperamental and came out a little foamy and with a slight milky looking hue. It's the same clear I used on my Thunderbolt I completed earlier in the year and it was just fine then. I didn't want to strip the whole shebang so I polished it out the best I could and ended up being pretty happy with the outcome. Tamiya Smoke was used for the window tint and on the wheels. I guess that's about it, so on to the pics, thanks for looking and any comments/questions.

Pretty cool topic and interesting reading about everyone's totals. I've got 95 currently under glass and another 10 or so older not so great builds from my teens packed away. Then there's the 25 or so really old bombs that are long gone. Guess that makes a total of around 130.

Great looking Camaro, and I agree that is a sharp color choice. Well done.

Thanks guys. It was fun to finish up a kit that my dad had started so long ago. I have a MPC 70 GTO of his in about the same build state that I have to tackle one of these days. Thanks, it is fun to slam one of these old hogs of kits together on occasion even if it's just of the nostalgia of it. Thanks Nigel. Those bezels were done with a Molotow marker. Thanks David. No those rear tires didn't come with the kit, I'm not sure where he had sourced them from. I really like the looks of 'em though. I believe the kit only came with the BFG's that are on the front. Thanks Roger. I think the stripes really kind of helps to distract your eye from those proportion issues. I do like that old school vibe it has to it, I almost felt like I should've had my hair in a mullet while building it LOL!

The infamously lackluster MPC Firebird. As mediocre at best as this kit is, I wanted to finally add it to my completed list. This was one of my Dad's kits that he had started back sometime in the early 1990's and never finished. He had painted the body and added the stripes, as well as picking out the wheels/tires, but that was really about it. I remember it sitting mocked together on a shelf for some time so it had collected a fair bit of dust and stuff. So freshening up the paint was my first order of business. I didn't go crazy on it, just a good cleaning and a light polish. The 400 that comes with it was missing, so while I didn't have a spare Pontiac engine I did find what looked to be a Chevy 396-427 so I figured why not go with that, being not out of the realm of what may have happened to some of the real ones back in the day. Not sure what kit the motor was from, it was molded in orange (maybe the MPC 69 Camaro convertible?). It was just the bare block & heads so I had to scavenge for all the other parts to go with it. Since there's really nothing going on at all under the hood of this kit I didn't do any of my normal wiring. Not real happy with how low the headers (from the Revell 67 Chevelle PS) hang down but I can live with them. Oh yeah, then there's that goofy half circle chin spoiler. I didn't like the way it looked, so I carefully filed it down a bit to a more pleasing to the eye shape, and repainted the reshaped surface accordingly. Along with adding BMF to the trim, that's about it noteworthy. Even with this kit being as marginal as it is, I'm glad to have finally brought it to the bench and get it completed. I really dig the late 70's-80's vibe it's got to it. She's no where near my best work, but I am proud of it nonetheless. Thanks for looking and any comments and questions. Of note, you may notice it looks like the left front tire is getting some air...it is. On my bench and shelf it's not real bad and hardly noticeable, but the art board I use as a base in my pictures has a warp to it and makes the gap is more pronounced unfortunately. Forgot to mention as well, the exhaust tips are made from aluminum tubing.

Nice! That looks so tough, those big meats out back are great. Would like to see a few more pictures. You had a cool ride in high school. The cars to have over here were late 70's-early 80's Monte Carlo's and Grand Prix's. Seemed like darn near everyone had one LOL.

Thanks for the decal info Tom. Sorry about the troubles you had with the yellow car, hopefully if you do decide to re-do it the second go around will go better. I think the next one I'll probably build is the Hubert Platt car. Bob, thanks as well for the heads up on the spelling error of Healey. I didn't even realize that.

Perfect colors, Randy. Well done!

I'd be proud to have that in my collection. 👍 She's handled the test of time really well.

Thanks again everyone! Build 'em Barry, you'll enjoy them! The other one I've built is Ronda's too. No problem Tom. You are right the front suspension is a bit tedious and I'd say it's really the only relatively sore point in the kit. Well, the headers are a little tricky too, for me anyways. I probably should have worded raising the suspension a little differently, as the main assembly is left stock, I just trimmed off the mounting pins from the spindles and moved them down a bit lower. When reattaching them I pinned them on with a small chunk of metal rod for strength. Here's a couple pics to show how much I moved them down compared to the OOB setup on a beater chassis I have. On another note I did add some small blocks to the rear leaf spring mounts to pick up the back end a little, but they didn't add much height. I did this same process when I build Gas Ronda's car, too. I am pretty happy with how the decals turned out, but believe me there are a couple warts here and there lol. I know you've built the Bob Ford cars, do you remember where you got the decals from? I wouldn't mind adding one of those to my expanding fleet of 'bolts if they are still available.

I agree. Could easily pass for the real thing. Most excellent!