customline

He's 94.

Yessssir! The styrene is all up in there now, Boss.

Yeah, man, can't believe Barris would let them put his name on that. I'll bet them shtickers are worth a week's pay by now. Hmmmmm.

Medium radical says it precisely sort of. It will NOT be fun if I can help it! Just you watch! You won't be able to look. It's truly scary.

Remember what I said about the squeamish now..... This is known as "flying by the seat of your pants" and there's turbulence ahead.....

The shoebox Ford. The first car I remember (Dad kept that oil burner for ten years) in my life was a '51 Ford custom tudor, color brown (bronze?) metallic. I heard him say more than once that it burned oil from the day he bought it. (So why didn't he...oh....) The idea of this one is chopping it a very healthy four scale inches and it is because I'm trying to look like a chopped Merc. Can't do that with a coupe. Gotta have a tudor. So....I got it in my head that if I could maybe move the backlight rearward to say...half-way to the trunk opening and lay it way down on a low roof, I could get close to that Merc lead sled feeling. It's a little scary; there's lots of taper, bottom to top, on the greenhouse. This body is an easy section job but the roof is not an easy chop. The early plan was both section and chop but after a week of mental activity the conservative won out. Here's the victim, an eBay find ? This is not an attempt to model any particular car. It's an adventure, an experiment. I've been lusting...well, needing to butcher this one into a sorta "punk" lead sled. Something with a quickie stolen car smell to it. You've seen them. You'd peg it for a novice, which, it so happens, it is! Gotta learn it somehow and this way is fun for me. The following is not for the squeamish. Our victim was given a bath and scrubbed with DAWN ( go away, I'm no good for you....) uh... The shiny black was tough on my eyes for some reason so I dusted it with some light gray primer Check your magazine archives. See any customs with no windshield wipers? Smooth is king here. All you need is Rain-x anyway. And here we go .....don't expect much ?! This is what I would like to say, but without the accent....and lower.....black cherrrrry

I see you have met my little brown buddy, Len. I think of him as my little work-around. ? I love the gen 1 & 2 'vettes and this one should have been the '63. It just makes sense... to me, ? anyway

Thanks, Greg, it was a fairly enjoyable build.

The paint could've been better, Will, but I'm OK with it. Thanks for your encouragement.

After that, there's nothing left to be said. Thank you, Lenny! ?

I have this compartmented, clear plastic box with all plated spare parts. I save everything including those eeeny-weeeeny unidentified "round things" . One time I used a '39 Ford tail light for a base. I hated doing that ?. I'm going to see if I can do a bit better on the movable mast. I'm not happy with it. Thanks for sticking around, David!

Thanks, David. What about those eeeeeeny-weeeeny ones, Dave? I might have missed a few of those ?.

Yeah, yeah. Gotta get on to what's next. Thanks, Bil.

Who's Dagmar? She might want the other one back but I'm saving it for the Starliner.

Thanks, Brian, it was a fairly enjoyable project and I highly recommend this kit for OOBs

Last call for the Fabulous Edsel Pacer ? Finally reached the end of this adventure in model building. This last item is something most of y'all know about if you hang here a lot. For those of us with mental deficiency and some uninitiated newbs, here's what I did for good radio reception. The body is already "drilled" for a kit supplied aerial which, I think we would all agree, is out of scale. It needed to be replaced with something closer to scale and detail. I learned this nice little upgrade from an expert right here on this forum! The first thing I did is add a block under the kit antenna hole. This provides a good "bottom" for the mast. Then I needed a mounting base for the mast. After rummaging through my "small round chrome" box, I found a nice pair of eeny-weeny chrome bullets intended for who knows what. I flattened the tip of one of them and started with my smallest surviving drill bit and, luckily, drilled it through very close to perfectly(?). The hole was then drilled a bit larger to get a nice snug fit with the tubing. The tubing is stainless steel hypodermic tubing. It can be found on eBay. It can be purchased in a single 12" length and you cut it with your Dremel cutting wheel, carefully! You may find something a bit better but all I have on hand for the telescoping smaller mast is the beading wire. A length of that, straightened out and topped with a dab of CA to replicate a ball. Does anyone know why they put that little ball on top of the antenna? I do. Anyone who worked in a car wash in the early '70s also knows. I drilled the bullet for a good fit and did the same on the fender being careful to not go through the block on the underside. After that I sanded the bottom of the bullet to a good, flat surface and reducing the thickness of the bottom rim. With a tiny bit of CA, inserted the assembled antenna, then worked out the upper mast. It looks OK with the bead wire but it's a loose fit. You will likely find a better top mast on your own. I will keep looking too. The main thing here is the hypodermic tubing. Smaller tubing may exist, I dunno, but this looks better than the plastic one in the kit, for sure ? I hit the top of the bullet, where it was bare, with molotow and dipped the piece of bead wire in CA for the little ball and that's it. Slide it in and crank up the tunes! I got it registered in Michigan. I cut the decal out and stuck it on the kit plate with liquid tape. The End. Thanks for all your comments, questions, praise, snickering, lol-ing, etc...

Some dynamite work being done here. Super nice interior. Paint rubbed out beautifully.

Oh yeah...I like to keep some 92% IPA on the bench and I will use it for various clean-ups including foil residue. It works great for that but you must not use it on lacquer, of course. I almost used it on a lacquer job but I caught myself in time ?.

Oh, yeah, the wheels - I really like them for early hot rods. I'm not too keen on how they make the attachment to the axles ( unless you use the kit axles too) but those wheels are recognizable for what they are - they're pretty cool. I'm really liking this one, boss!

Well, it's not the first time, Len ☺️. I was referring to the "over-spray from the top on the moldings..." but my comment was aimed not specifically at your situation, just in general. If I could rephrase it I would say "don't sweat burning through color on trim that will be foiled because you would be doing said trim a favor by smoothing it during the rub-out operation, thereby providing a better surface for the foil." Your post sorta reminded me of my great discovery (stuff everybody probably knows already) and I wanted to put it out there. Please forgive the wet foot prints. Your remedy for your specific situation sounds like a good plan and I have used it recently myself. ?

Hey, Len, I recently discovered that I don't need to be careful around the trim (that will be covered with foil) while color sanding/polishing. In fact, if the polishing burns through on the trim, it's smooth and it will play nice with the foil. Does this make sense or am I all wet? (Not literally; that's another thing entirely ?)

Thank you kindly, sir, I shall, and, so far, yes.

Those door cards look terrific, Moz. I reeeeeealy like the arm rest/door pull thing...another idea for me to steal ?

Happy to help. ?

Tan goes well with dark blue and a light gray might work also. Maybe a light blue. White is always an option.