CabDriver

I did a little research myself but I figure one of you might be able to give me some reliable info... I know that the 9” Ford rear end was introduced in 57, and was used through the 80s, but how similar are the early-mid fifties Ford rear ends visually? I have the AMT Shoebox 50 Ford kit here and the stock axle kinda LOOKS nine-inchy if you squint a little and take into account the soft detail...was the later 9” part VERY different from the earlier models, or was it an evolution of the design? AMT 50 Ford axle below for reference...thanks in advance!

Funny, that was one of the doodles I did when I was thinking what to build - but I figured I’d just copied it from your other bubbletop build 😂 excuse the crudity of my drawing, my wife hid my crayons 🤪😂 Chassis is looking great!!! Keep going bud!!

I can’t wait Tom! I wanted to do a build for each category, if nothing else...might bring some of my other bits and pieces to display too! Thank you sir! There’s no hiding with this one - there’s so few parts you have to make sure they’re all PERFECT! 😂. I don’t have to much issue with gummy-ness with the Createx - although I only use their reducer with it. I do notice it doesn’t sand very well unless you let it set up for a week or so - it tends to roll up like a pencil eraser so if you get a blemish to fix it’s often easier to just wash it off with warm water and start again. All that said, I find their stuff super easy to lay down nicely and they have some great colors!

From TD’s website: “REVELL- USA: Well, it looks like the BAJA BANDITO kit is toast! In addition - due to MAJOR contractual differences - my involvement with the “new” REVELL-USA is over.” Bummer 👎🏻 I’d still buy a Firebomb, but in the interest of the designer getting his due I’d prefer a Baja Bandito...

Interesting! Thank you!

On a slightly related note, I’ve been wanting to build a Beetle - is this kit decent compared to the Tamiya one? Anything terrible about this one that should make me spend the extra on the Tamiya kit instead?

One of the themes of NNL East this year is Box Art Models, and seeing as Tom Daniel is one of my favorites it seemed fitting to do something of his! I had a bunch of Paddy Wagons sitting around here, so I pulled out An early issue one with the silver chrome to do my version of his original 1960s box art design: Out of interest, I compared the frame of my early kit to one of the later reissues, and whilst the later ones aren’t terrible there’s definitely less clean-up to do on the earlier one: Some Bondo and sanding later.... I’m using a black primer to get the color I want from the Createx paint I’ll be using for this - took a couple of little bits of sanding and smoothing after the first coat was laid down but got it ready for paint eventually: This is the Createx color I picked out - I wanted a dark blue to match the box but also something with a little pop to it to catch the eye...I’ve used this color on some little pieces of other builds before but never a whole lot - excited to see how those big panels look in this shade! And a little paint on the frame - I reduced it a little too much so it pooled a little on this first coat but the second and third coat leveled it out nicely: The engine on the box art is red so I shot some Tamiya chrome silver and a base and then a candy red over that for the first few engine parts - this block will definitely benefit from some detail painting: Next job is to get the multi-part body panels ready for paint...more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

What a great start! It takes a lot of fusion and imagination to see how to use all those little sections and pieces of different bodies to get to where you wanted to be. I’ll be watching!

Thanks fellas! Gonna start on this one, right after breakfast: Saw it at the corner store this morning and seemed appropriate 🤷‍♂️😂

So, the web theme for NNL East this year is the AMT 63 Impala kit that was reissued last year: I did some brainstorming on what to do and was pretty much set on doing some form of drag car with the kit, until I saw this 63 online: I think it’s a hearse conversion, but it’s retained the low roofline of the stock car, and seems to be a sedan which has had the rear window moved back and the roof lengthened rather than using the more-logical (but rarer, I assume?) station wagon as a basis. Then, I fell down a rabbit hole of reading about the interesting world of ‘street freaks’... ...and a plan was born! I figured a street freak version of that hearse would be a pretty interesting build, and I liked the idea of combining some of those gasser influences into a street car. A quick mockup before I started hacking plastic... I can already tell that this build is going to involve more scratch building than I planned on, not least because the kit chassis has almost everything moulded in, but I’ll start with the fun stuff. My plan is similar to what the builder of that 1:1 seems to have done - just lengthen the roof and slide that rear window right back. Used my new Tamiya scriber, mostly, to score some lines like so... Then removed the rear deck lid from the section I’d removed: And reattached the rear window portion as far back as it would go: Those black styrene strips are to keep it aligned whilst the glue dried, and to give me something to attach a new panel to, to extend the roof: The roof panel itself is pretty flat, but those curved edges seemed like they were going to be tricky to recreate so I built up a little thickness of styrene bar in the gaps so that I can sand them smooth and shape them to match the existing shape: And that’s about where I’m at so far - I’ll get some sanding and shaping done on the body tomorrow when the glue’s set up, and then we can start figuring out how tricky it’s going to be to make this thing into a jacked up pseudo-Gasser! More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Just a little progress - got some primer on this, this week! Wanted to see how much more sanding and filling was in my future...turns out some, but not too much! Nice to see the body all one color finally!

I can’t take any credit for that idea - someone came up with that about 30 years before I was born I think 😂

That looks awesome! I really like the color!

Got my web-theme build for NNL East in the Mail today! I was out when it came, so I was relieved that our terrible Moroccan neighbors didn’t get chance to steal it before I got home like they’ve been doing with my wife’s packages... There’s a lot of stuff in this box! I don’t have as crazy of an idea as Impalow had for his...but I still got a little bit of a crazy idea for it...

The grill made me think of a Lotus 7!