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1965 Mercury Comet Cyclone (update 1/4/19) Finished!


RancheroSteve

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Happy New Year - time for some action!

I've moved the recently released Moebius kit to the top of the pile and made a start on it. I won't be going full "MrObsessive" on this, but I'm going to try to make a few improvements and corrections where I can. I haven't decided on an overall theme for the car yet, but in the meantime, I figured the body would be a good place to start.

First up is the roofline over the rear quarter windows, which has been the subject of discussion over in the "New Kits" thread. I'll begin by removing the molded in drip rail:

06 drip rail removed

Next, I made a pair of new rails from 1/64" x 1/32" brass:

08 brass rails

I made them with just a little bit of a sharper angle than the kit rails. I glued the rail to the body, starting at the front. Once the rail was adhered at the front I was able to carefully attach it at the crucial curve, so that only a small part of the original body was "winking" at me from below the brass. (Sorry for the out of focus image).

09 rail added

Next, I sanded off the part of the original roofline below the brass. Notice the rail stops a little above the small piece of trim at the base of the roof (see various reference photos).

10 rail finished

Repeated for the other side:

11 right rail finished

There's still a little more clean-up to do here, then I'll shoot a little primer on it to get a better idea, but so far I'm thinking it's a definite improvement.

Thoughts and questions welcome.

Edited by RancheroSteve
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The idea is very good.

May I make a suggestion for next time, if there is one?

So that we can see approximately how much plastic you removed, it would have been helpful to pencil in borders on the upper and lower ends (i.e., on the outer edge of the pillar and down towards the drip rails,) and cross-hatching the area in-between. 

Where that isn't possible now, could you give us an idea of the amount of plastic that was removed by eyeball measure, if need be, so we have a starting point?

Charlie Larkin

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Where that isn't possible now, could you give us an idea of the amount of plastic that was removed by eyeball measure, if need be, so we have a starting point?

Charlie - good suggestion. I tend to engineer by eyeball in a lot of cases, but my best guess is that the amount removed isn't much more than about a 1/16, but it's enough to make a visual difference.

Meanwhile, I shot a little spritz of primer on the roof and it's looking better.

38 roof rear

Now the thing that's bothering me is the way the top of the roof falls off too early at the rear (as Erik Smith mentioned in the other thread). I'm working on trying to improve the roof there, but what I'm also noticing is that the rear window is essentially too low - there should be a little more roof below the window before it meets the rear deck. I can't see any easy fix for that without hacking out the whole rear window frame and raising it up, so I think I'm inclined to leave it where it is and live with it.

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A little work on the top rear of the roof, so that it doesn't drop off so quickly. I had to be careful here - didn't want to mess with the rear window opening. Misted a little primer on; a little more fine tuning and I'll think I'll leave well enough alone, then move on to the rest of the model.

840 Comet roof

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Now the thing that's bothering me is the way the top of the roof falls off too early at the rear (as Erik Smith mentioned in the other thread). I'm working on trying to improve the roof there, but what I'm also noticing is that the rear window is essentially too low - there should be a little more roof below the window before it meets the rear deck. I can't see any easy fix for that without hacking out the whole rear window frame and raising it up, so I think I'm inclined to leave it where it is and live with it.

I just got my kit last evening, and I see where there could stand to be a little more real estate between the tulip panel and the bottom of the rear window. It's there, but maybe could have been an inch or two taller like the 1:1..............I'd probably leave this area alone too. I like what you did in flattening out the rearmost part of the roof! Very good job! ;)

The kit according to another thread has some issues with the chassis as well-----------not sure what I'd do if anything about that. I can see why Moebius did what they did, they need to stretch those tooling dollars as much as possible, but it can be a pain for those of us out here in the lunatic fringe that like every line and contour to be just so!

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I just got my kit last evening, and I see where there could stand to be a little more real estate between the tulip panel and the bottom of the rear window. It's there, but maybe could have been an inch or two taller like the 1:1..............I'd probably leave this area alone too. I like what you did in flattening out the rearmost part of the roof! Very good job! ;)

The kit according to another thread has some issues with the chassis as well-----------not sure what I'd do if anything about that. I can see why Moebius did what they did, they need to stretch those tooling dollars as much as possible, but it can be a pain for those of us out here in the lunatic fringe that like every line and contour to be just so!

Here's my photo of the ACTUAL '65 Comet Cyclone that was used in the development of this kit, just for reference.  For starters, this car was spotted at the Auction Grounds at Auburn IN, on the Friday before Labor Day 2009.  Note in the attached  picture the rather visible downward curve of the roof panel toward the rear (FWIW, images of a '64-65 Falcon Futura hardtop  will show exactly the same shapes--other than the shorter wheelbase, Falcon shared the same basic body (including the roof stamping) with the Cyclone.  Next, note from this side-view shot just how close the bottom of the back light is to the line of the trunklid.

This was the very first car that Dave Metzner and I referenced, and there were probably close to 500 pics taken of it, not just overall exterior shots, but as much detail as we could find--many pics having a folding carpenters' rule (with every other inch blacked out, to give ready dimensional reference)  to get dimensions such as spacings, window/wiindshield heights and such, even the dimensions (length, height and depth out from the body surface) of scripts and badges.  I would suggest when evaluating any model car body for accuracy--look at that boy shell with one eye open, the other either closed or masked off.  Why?  Because cameras are one-eyed only; they don't have the binocular vision we humans are blessed with.  Viewing a model car one-eyed allows one to see that model just as a camera "sees" the real thing!  In addition, a camera lens will almost always "distort" the looks of the real thing, regardless of the quality of or type of lens.  So, multiple views are truly necessary in order to capture not just the lines of the real car, but also in determining angles (very few cars ever had perfectly straight lines from front to rear, for example.

1965 Comet Cyclone side view1.jpg

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Here's my photo of the ACTUAL '65 Comet Cyclone that was used in the development of this kit, just for reference.  For starters, this car was spotted at the Auction Grounds at Auburn IN, on the Friday before Labor Day 2009.  Note in the attached  picture the rather visible downward curve of the roof panel toward the rear (FWIW, images of a '64-65 Falcon Futura hardtop  will show exactly the same shapes--other than the shorter wheelbase, Falcon shared the same basic body (including the roof stamping) with the Cyclone.  Next, note from this side-view shot just how close the bottom of the back light is to the line of the trunklid.

Thanks for weighing in, Art. Not to split hairs, but that's a Caliente (same body, of course - slightly different side trim and grille).

I will agree that Moebius got the body mostly right, and I'm grateful for that - I'm not trying to be overly critical or to bad mouth the work anyone has done here. I'm happy to have the kit to work with. But to my eyes (and to the eyes of some others, too) the curve of the trim over the rear window isn't quite right, and that downward curve of the roof starts a little too soon, so I've just been trying to alter this stuff so it appears a little better to me. This isn't my usual style of building, so it's a bit of a new adventure. 

I have some issues with the chassis and driveline as well, but I'll admit that I'm pretty intimate with that stuff to the point that I could easily be accused of excessive rivet counting if I go public with some of my criticisms. I'll probably share some of them as I go along, but they may or may not matter to many of the builders of this kit. It's finally just a model, but we do get wrapped up in this stuff, right?

I'll leave you (for now) with a photo of our Caliente back when:

65 Comet LR

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It's easy, looking at Art's pic, to mistake the roof crown's curve for what is actually being discussed. The straighter line referred to by Steve is present, extending from the horizontal drip rail trim. The roofline is captured very well in Steve's pic...

65cmtrf1

The original amt '64 comet and falcon seem a little more accurate.

On ‎2017‎-‎01‎-‎07 at 8:18 AM, MrObsessive said:

 I can see why Moebius did what they did, they need to stretch those tooling dollars as much as possible, but it can be a pain for those of us out here in the lunatic fringe that like every line and contour to be just so!

I guess criticism is, and will be inevitable when dealing with subjects that we can be emotionally linked to via nostalgia, etc . Definitely can be balanced more with thoughtful suggestions for work-arounds and improvements; though some things, as Bill and Steve note, create a longer road to accuracy.

Thinking about that back window while prepping the body last night... what about laying a couple of strips along the bottom of the opening and carefully taking a corresponding amount off the top? (edit-never mind, not enough room) 

another edit regarding the chassis...further research shows moebius made pretty good effort to backdate details on the '66 chassis to match earlier falcon/comet floor and it's closer than the mustang floor would be.

 

 

mike

 

Edited by mk11
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