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'63 Chevy Impala SS under restoration


LAV25

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This is going to be tough. This is my second plastic model kit in thirty years, and my second this year. The first one was autobiographical. I'd actually owned the truck, had reference pics, and knew exactly where the rust went, what was dented, etc etc. This is going to be a work of historical fiction.

Starting with a Revell '63 Impala SS kit:

revell-1963-chevy-impala-ss-2n1.jpg

The Stepside was a truck owned by a teenager with no money and no car repair skills. This is going to be a vehicle that is in the very first stages of restoration (or hot rod conversion). I just got started, but posting keeps me on focus, so on to some pics.

Partially threaded the passenger side door and installed some dents:

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It doesn't show well in the pics, but I also filed off the aluminum trim strip from the passenger side door. The car was involved in a pretty good passenger side crash, so the door will be from a donor vehicle, painted a different color, and at the moment lacking its trim. The plastic was thicker than I'd hoped, so the dent was a bit tough to do, I'm not sure yet what my plans for the right front quarter panel are.

Anyway, that's all for now, time to break out some paint and get going on all the boring bits. More later!

Constructive criticism, especially from those who own or are familiar with Impalas of this era is very very welcome, I'm flying with only Google images and a history of owning poorly maintained older cars as a guide!

Edited by LAV25
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Great looking project. How is the quality of this kit? Body isn't too great, is this body worse than AMT's? Chassis... Has it seperate axles, exhaust systems etc. Or how about the interior. I'm just thinking about if this chassis is great, it would be nice to put AMT body and Revell chassis together...

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you should do the hood and right front fender flat black as if they are new sheet metal from Year One !

Thanks for the input, I'll have to look into Year One, I had a similar thought of doing the fender in primer gray. I think I'll keep the hood the same color as the main body and test out my weathering skills on it. (OK, let's be honest, try to grow some weathering skills!)

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Great looking project. How is the quality of this kit? Body isn't too great, is this body worse than AMT's? Chassis... Has it seperate axles, exhaust systems etc. Or how about the interior. I'm just thinking about if this chassis is great, it would be nice to put AMT body and Revell chassis together...

I'm very new to modeling, so I can't say for sure. If you have specific points you are interested in, I'll be happy to have a look for you. It does have separate exhausts and axles, but I haven't really looked too much at the interior yet.

There are a couple of things that I don't like. The aluminum trim (the part that I filed off) is molded in, which means that you'll have to paint it, and paint never looks as shiny as chrome or chromed plastic. Also, the SS badges on the front fenders are molded in (I'll try and get a pic for you later) and you are supposed to put a decal over them. I don't think that's going to work. Also, as I mentioned, if you are planning on dents, the plastic is really quite thick, much thicker than I remember it being on my Revell '65 Chevy Stepside.

Hope this helps!

Edited by LAV25
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There are a couple of things that I don't like. The aluminum trim (the part that I filed off) is molded in, which means that you'll have to paint it, and paint never looks as shiny as chrome or chromed plastic. Also, the SS badges on the front fenders are molded in (I'll try and get a pic for you later) and you are supposed to put a decal over them. I don't think that's going to work. Also, as I mentioned, if you are planning on dents, the plastic is really quite thick, much thicker than I remember it being on my Revell '65 Chevy Stepside.

For the trim you can use Bare Metal Foil, it looks much better than silver paint. Hasegawa, Modelers and Good Smile Racing also make similar product.

For the badges it's easier to just sand them off if you are going to use decal.

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For the trim you can use Bare Metal Foil, it looks much better than silver paint. Hasegawa, Modelers and Good Smile Racing also make similar product.

For the badges it's easier to just sand them off if you are going to use decal.

Thanks Silvester, I'll have to look into those. Hasegawa sounds like something I could find around here, not sure about the others, but there has to be something like that. I plan to sand off the badges, I just think it was kind of foolish of Revell to mold them in and then provide decals also.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a little bit of progress. The interior is basically done, but I'm not too happy with how it turned out, so I probably won't show it off without the body. :D

Paint on the body. Lots of weathering to do, but I've got my base coat down:

DSCN2064.jpg

This side looks OK, the light spot is a reflection, the paint color is really pretty even. It's Tamiya Mica Blue (TS-50).

The right side, on the other hand, was involved in a little sideswipe and needed some new panels:

DSCN2067.jpg

DSCN2066.jpg

DSCN2065.jpg

These are also going to need to be weathered, and I of course need to do the damage on the rear panel.

Slow and steady.

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Nice work on replicating the "cobbled" look.

Suggestion: post pictures of your interior, and tell us what you're not happy about. There are PLENTY of people her who will offer thoughtful, informative critique and not rip into you. The goal is to help you get better. We can't do that if we don't know what you're particular struggle is. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Hey, I post my stuff here, and I can't hold a candle to most of the people in this forum. You have no reason to be gun-shy about it.

Charlie Larkin

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Thanks for the advice Charlie. This model has just been fighting with me. Not the model itself, as far as I've gone, Revell has done a pretty good job but, like I mentioned at the start, this is a work of fiction. None of the colors I've chosen seem to look the way I wanted them to, and nothing seems to come out the way I envisioned it. I know I have a long way to go technically, but right now I'm struggling with the artistic side of things.

That having been said, I'll shoot some pics later and throw them up :o for advice. It couldn't hurt, could it?

-val

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I do have a serious question for you: what drove your choice for the Olive Drab Green fender? In all seriousness and in keeping with the 'salvage yard parts' theme here, wouldn't it have been more prudent to use a color that the factory actually used on the panel in question? With that said, you can actually use that as a base for weathering/shading/fading different shades/tones of green to give it a used/abused look. I can understand the primer, as every rust-bucket-to-show-queen has worn several different shades of primer at one time. I believe you will eventually get somewhere near what you were shooting for, so don't give up.

I agree, give us a look at the interior with your comments on what you are not happy with and WHY you are not happy with it. Knowing what you were aiming for and why you are not happy will give us a lot to work with and better be able to guide you in the right direction.

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I do have a serious question for you: what drove your choice for the Olive Drab Green fender? In all seriousness and in keeping with the 'salvage yard parts' theme here, wouldn't it have been more prudent to use a color that the factory actually used on the panel in question?

And a serious answer, part of what plagues me in this sort of hobby. I'm red/green color blind, I can tell the difference (usually), but I have lots of trouble with greens and browns. The fender is Tamiya TS-2 Dark Green, which may well look olive drab, but I just have to go off the label. I didn't really think about whether the factory made fenders in that color, and while olive drab is a problem, not being a factory original color isn't. I'm thinking that this car is sometime in the mid to late 1980s, so that fender probably came off a car that was even more badly wrecked. It's definitely going to be getting some rust on it.

More later.

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Thanks Silvester, I'll have to look into those. Hasegawa sounds like something I could find around here, not sure about the others, but there has to be something like that. I plan to sand off the badges, I just think it was kind of foolish of Revell to mold them in and then provide decals also.

You are in Osaka, right? I found metal foil from Hasegawa and Good Smile Racing in Joshin last time I was there.

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Thanks again Sylvester, I am in Osaka and there's a Joshin right down the road, I'll look into that.

As for my interior. Hmm. The kit calls for flat red and silver, which may be correct but just sounds awful to me. Since this car is more than 20 years old at the notional time it's being built to, I figure I can do whatever I want. My 1:1 '66 Chevy Stepside had Camaro bucket seats (one of which was secured with only one bolt!) and welcome mats on the floor when I bought it in 1988.

I wanted a two tone thing going on, but nothing seems to have worked out right. I'm using Tamiya Flat Blue XF-8 for the darker shade, and Tamiya Medium Blue XF-18 for the lighter shade. Somehow, though, the Medium blue looks greenish to me. Since this is about the fourth color combination I've tried on the seats (blue and white, blue and grey, blue and silver), I think I'm just going to stick with it. Here's the look:

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I know it still needs a little touch up, I brush painted it since I don't have an airbrush.

The front fender, however. If that looked Olive Drab, it needed to be fixed. I gave it a wash of Flat White, followed by a wash of Field Gray. This, I think, is the look I want, and I'll probably do something similar to quite a bit of the rest of the body:

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No Turtle Wax there! The bondo in the lower corner is Japanese Navy Gray XF-12. Much better, I think.

Opinions and suggestions are very welcome!

Edited by LAV25
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Michael,

Thanks for answering me. I didn't mean anything bad or insulting by asking, I really did want to know. Every year, I have to have a full eye exam (to include color differentiation evaluation) as part of keeping all of my NDT qualifications. When I was in service, I could tell you the difference between an F-14, F-18, EA-6B, S-3A, and an E-2C at over a mile in the dark of night. I could not imagine the trouble being partially color-blind would cause me, and truly feel for your predicament. The fender looks great with what you have done to it weathering-wise, and was what I thought you were trying to get to. Keep at it, soon it will be cluttering up the road with parts that really weren't needed anyway falling off! :blink:

Edited by whale392
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Michael,

Thanks for answering me. I didn't mean anything bad or insulting by asking, I really did want to know.

When I was in service, I could tell you the difference between an F-14, F-18, EA-6B, S-3A, and an E-2C at over a mile in the dark of night.

Not insulting at all, it was actually quite helpful, I wouldn't have known that it looked OD without your comment. I went for a year or more before I learned that my favorite green tie was brown, my brown sport coat was green, and one of my gray shirts was actually brown. When I was in the service, my vision was so amazing that they stuck me in a Radio Battalion B) !

Back to work.

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A little bit more. The body was primed in gray under the blue, so I took some 1000 grit sandpaper and lightly went over the whole thing. I left the rough spots I found on purpose, but any area where the gray started to show through, I rubbed some Tamiya Weathering Master Rust onto.

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Oops, hit my picture limit. To be continued.

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OK, dents. I used a messy and experimental (meaning I made a lot of mistakes) combination of gunmetal, silver, and rust to do my body damage:

DSCN2085.jpg

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Not perfect, but it looks OK. It's a little hard to do research here, Japan has strict safety inspection laws that keep older and more damaged vehicles off the road. Probably a good thing....

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And finally, I did say this wreck was under restoration. Just barely. The driver's side either some small dents or rust that went deeper than just the surface and needed some bondo and primer:

DSCN2078.jpg

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This was tough to do. No airbrush yet, so i tried a bunch of different things. Tried to drybrush gray. Didn't work. Painted gray, and tried to use a wash/thinner to feather the edges. Didn't work. Wash of white on top of that. Sort of worked. Finally, Tamiya Weathering Master Snow (the makeup compact stuff) on top and I got my sprayed edges. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it. I still have to paint the hood and trunk lid, I may do the hood in flat black, 70's drag racer style, not sure.

Let me know what you think, good, bad or otherwise.

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The weathering/beating is looking good, Michael. For not having the best color perception or access to the greatest of equipment, you are doing a lot better than I could with all of the advantages!

A light wash of dark blue or a brown will help to add depth to the body lines and all of the door/trunk/gas door/fender separation lines. It will have the added benefit of 'blending' some of the weathered areas into the body.

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The weathering/beating is looking good, Michael. For not having the best color perception or access to the greatest of equipment, you are doing a lot better than I could with all of the advantages!

A light wash of dark blue or a brown will help to add depth to the body lines and all of the door/trunk/gas door/fender separation lines. It will have the added benefit of 'blending' some of the weathered areas into the body.

Thanks Bradley and Dr. C, it means a lot for a newbie like me to hear that! I'm not sure it I'll do a wash or not, but I found on my last project that the door and panel separation lines will draw in thinned paint with capillary action really well, so I plan to do that with some thinned black at a minimum. I need a windless day so I can paint my hood and trunk lid though, the waiting is driving me nuts.

More later

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