papajohn97

Beautiful clean build Sid. I love the two-tone color choice and clean paint execution as well as that gorgeous interior. I feel your pain on the challenges of joining chassis to body and getting everything to seat perfectly, seems like I have the same problem on about half of the 1/25 builds I do. I’m slowly learning the more dry-fitting before painting, the better! I would be proud to have your build in my display case “as is”. The one thing that sticks out to me with this Revell kit which surprises me (and is unrelated to your excellent build quality) is the unrealistic looking finished tires + wheels. The wheel rims appear to me to protrude way too far beyond the outside face of each tire and the tires also appear slightly undersized to my eyes. I built the Revell ‘57 “Black Widow” 150 coupe kit which was tooled a few years later than this ‘56 and the wheels and tires look so much more realistic to me. I have this ‘56 210 kit in my stash (it was my first 1:1 car) and I’m tempted to use the wheels and tires from the ‘57 kit when I get around to it.

These are Top Studio Detail Master parts I ordered a few years ago from HLJ.com. Unfortunately they are getting harder to find these days, the 1.2 mm sets (the size I used here) are still availability from BNA (Australia) and a few Chinese sources, check eBay.

Lots of dry-fitting, bending, trimming, dry-fitting again in an effort to join the engine, the headers, plug wiring and chassis together with the goal of the velocity stacks to protrude out the cut-out in the hood in a somewhat centered fashion. Here’s photos of my last-dry fit with the headers bonded to the engine but the engine/ trans not yet glued to the chassis and drive shaft: I’m glad I didn’t yet bond the engine/ trans to the chassis as it’s unlikely that everything would have cleared and been fully asemble-able if I had. There is not much clearance between between parts and that was after a lot of trimming on the headers and chassis A arms. If I do bond the engine in, I think I’ll wait until EVERYTHING else is assembled onto/ into it first. Here’s a few pics of this dry-fit body + interior + chassis + engine/ trans balanced over all four wheels & tires (not snap-fit yet onto the axle posts on the chassis). I like it! Still lots to be done on this, I’ve had to shorten my scratch-built fuel pump to clear the Moon tank, also need to make some side windows (car had all Plexiglass with no roll-down cranks), paint or BMF the window frames, make and install the fuel tank lines and water lines (which will disappear past the firewall, they would go into a 5 gal water tank/ pump in the trunk), add the brake cylinder/ reservoir, grills/ light covers/ bumpers, etc…. Still enjoying this build but it’s been a lot more work than I anticipated. Looking forward to an easy O-O-the-B build on my next one! John

With AMT/ Round2’s re-release of this old annual ‘64 Comet Caliente kit with (I’m told) a fairly decently tooled body but no engine:, I’m thinking of using the body and interior from this kit and some Slixx decals to recreate this Dyno Don ‘64 A/FX car but with a detailed 427 engine and a moderately accurate chassis: My question is this: has anyone taken a crack at doing this car with engine via kit-bashing? The two possible kits I’m thinking of using for the chassis and engine are shown below: 1. This excellent Revell kit for both chassis and engine?… 2. Or this excellent Moebius kit below for the chassis and an FE block 427 out of the Revell Thunderbolt kit or other suitable source: I’ve read somewhere on this forum that the hood cut-out of the AMT Comet is shorter than the hood from the Moebius kit so that’s one issue I’m aware of. MCW offers resin replacement hoods for the ‘64 body with the double front scoops (or a teardrop) options so the hood issue may be easily solvable. I’m ok with making moderate mods to the chassis and other parts to make the body fit the chassis but, like most of us here on this board, I prefer to learn from other’s experiences when attempting a kit-bash project. I welcome everyone’s input/ opinions/ experiences! Cheers, John

I’ve been looking for additional sources for 1/25 sixties super stock drag car decals and am interested if anyone has recently ordered and applied decals from SlotCar-Fever.com (coco_mn (11880 star) on eBay, slotcarfevercheyna on Etsy)? I’m looking for sharply printed “vector graphics” decals (like most kit decals from AMT/ Revell/ Moebius/ Tamiya/ etc. as well as SLIXX, Yesteryear ) vs. the lower resolution “rastor graphics” type decals (SMP). Do Slot Car Fever decals have crisp sharp graphics? Are they thin but strong and easy to work with? I don’t mind having to cut each decal shape out individually and being inkjet printed, I’m ok if they are printed on clear or white based decal sheets. Let me know if you’ve used Slot Car Fever decals and if you’d recommend them. Much thanks! John

OMG! I put the “S-E” logo on upside down on the drivers door….senior moment? Luckily I was able to soak the decal to loosen it and then correct it. Posting WIP’s are a great way to perform public quality control inspections on a build….embarrassing but effective!

I finished airbrushing the Mr. Color clear coat (nice stuff) onto the body by thinning it 1:1 with Mr Color thinner then I let it cure for a couple days before applying the decals: These decals from Yesteryear are super nice and thin but oh-so delicate. I broke a few but was able to finesse them back together. I used a little white glue heavily diluted with MicroSet beneath each decal to try to reduce ghosting but I’ll not be surprised if a few don’t ghost a little after these dry. I love decaling these super stock builds, the decals really make the paint pop. I’ll clear coat over these once dry and then apply some BMF to the window frames. John

I airbrushed several plastic spoons & knives with the Scalefinishes base paint as well as some Alclad Chrome over black lacquer to test the Mr. Color clear coat, will give them an extra day to cure before I test the CC. I may apply a few scrap decals onto the spoons and knives to verify that the Mr. Color doesn’t react with them. While waiting for my spoons to dry/ cure, I did a little work on wiring the engine and finishing up the interior: I noticed in the reference magazine engine photos that, like most other BBC’s, the plug wires are routed over the valve covers and between the header tubes which I won’t be able to do until after I mount the headers to the engine (which I have to do while installing the engine into the chassis! Warning!: Finger and tweezer gymnastics job ahead!!!). Sounds like a good situation to dry-fit test first?

Nice job Walt! I particularly like the PE grill, valve stems on the rear wheels and the neat & tidy BMF work. So what’s with the rod passing through the oil pan? Did you make the front wheels steerable by adding pins to the front axle hubs and adding a tie rod?

I’m also looking forward to ordering a few of both the standard and AWB kits so I sure hope they are both still in the pipeline. I have decals for a Dick Landy “Landy’s Dodge”, a Gary Dyer “Mr. Norm Grand-Spaulding” (the blue one) and a Bob Harrop “Flying Carpet” all waiting for these kits. If I finish these three versions and still have the itch for the AWB one, there’s always the Ram Chargers car, Dave Strickler car and Bud Faubel’s “Hemi Honker” along with a bunch others I’m probably forgetting….so thankful to Moebius for doing these ‘65 Mopar kits!!!!

Thanks Pierre, you’re a very talented builder so your compliments made my day! I bought these resin elbow fittings a few years back to use on some 1/20 F1 builds, I think I ordered them from Hobby Link Japan (HLJ.com) and they are manufactured by Top Studio: In checking both HLJ and one US dealer, Scale Pro Shop, it looks like they’re all out of stock. BNA in Australia has some and you can order them thru their eBay listings. BNA is an excellent shop, they don’t gouge and shipping is amazingly affordable and prompt.

Today I masked and airbrushed the reddish-orange onto the lower sides of the body: I mixed three parts of the Poppy Red with one part of Regal Red - It look about right to me for what I was aiming for although who knows how it will look with clear coat applied? I failed to spray a few plastic spoons with the white and orange paint to allow testing with a new clear coat I’m thinking of using. I usually spray Tamiya TS-13 Lacquer over Scalefinishes base paints but I’m thinking of trying this Mr. Color UV Cut Super Clear which I’ve read is easier on decals: Scalefinishes website says their base coats are not compatible with Mr. Color Self-Leveling thinner but I was planning on using their standard thinner to thin this clearcoat. Let me know if anyone’s tried this stuff over Scalefinishes basecoat. John

Lots of airbrushing today: I put a few coats of Scalefinishes Chevrolet Arctic White basecoat on the upper surfaces of the body. I need to knock-down the gloss of the Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black (X-18) on the chassis and driver’s seat, it’s amazing how much this paint can vary in sheen from bottle to bottle. I’ll use Dullcote or Vallejo Satin (my favorite lately). Tomorrow I hope to mask the upper white on the body and basecoat airbrush the red-orange. I’m thinking of mixing some combination of these two Scalefinishes basecoat paints I have in my paint collection: I would just use the Poppy Red but I have a Gas Ronda Thunderbolt already painted this color and I’d like this Seaton car to be a slightly different color (redder?). Color period photos of this car (actually two cars?) are all over the place in hue but most of them appear in the reddish orange range. I welcome any thoughts or if someone happens to know the actual color they used. John

Not my favorite drag car period either but you did great job on this one, particularly on the chassis mods. I believe Don dropped out of funny car racing in the late 60’s due to how crazy dangerous they became when supercharging was introduced, he was a devoted family man and had the good sense to know that the risks were just not worth it. I wish there were good kits available for Don’s “Eliminator I & II” Mercury funny cars (not that horrid AWB AMT kit!), that’s about the latest drag subjects I’d like to build.

Great job Michael on this ‘62, the kicked-up front end looks perfect. I was really impressed with the quality of this Revell kit and would like to build another one someday, maybe a Dave Strickler’s/ Bill Jenkins “Old Reliable”? Can never have too many ‘62 Chevys (Impalas or Bel Airs!).