hedotwo

Welcome Bobby! Lots of sharing and helpful folks here. Ask away when you have questions.

x2.... and welcome aboard John!

Beautiful build Mike! Great color choice too!

Great set of builds!

Welcome Charlie!

Welcome Ric!

Great start!

It's done Tom ?... I posted in Under Glass

Finished the build of one of our family cars, a '61 Impala 4 door. Dad bought the car new and kept it til he traded it in on a '67 Impala. I started with a rough friction promo that needed a fair amount of work, but fit my budget. I posted a thread in the WIP area of some of the repairs I had to make. I used MCW Seafoam Green and Tamiya Pure white lacquers for the exterior colors and Apple Barrel Key West and Aquamarine acrylics for the interior. I replaced the promo metal chassis with an SMP '61 annual along with the firewall and other engine compartment items. I can't say for sure where the small block came from. Wheel covers were from the Lindberg '61 Impala along with the fender ornaments. I modified the wheel covers to represent the centers a bit better than the annual did. Overall I'm really pleased with the result of the build but there are things I could have taken more time with and done better. I think we all come to the time when we're ready for the build to be done so we can move onto the next project. Shout out to Hi-PO for a couple of my wheel cover decals and to Tom Geiger for printing out replicas of our license plates. Thanks a bunch for looking!

Last set of pics. I decided to ditch the friction chassis and use a '61 annual instead along with a spare engine/firewall too. A few years back I would have taken more time and done a better job detailing the engine and engine compartment but I ended up doing just enough to make me happy . For the wheel covers I used Lindberg covers which I lightly drill out, punched out small discs from 020 stock, painted black, and added small crossed flag decals from the Lindberg decal sheet (thanks Hi-PO). While they're not exact replicas of stock they're better than the stock annual covers in my opinion. I also used the Lindberg fender ornaments that to me looked more accurate than the kit ornaments. I cut off the bottom half of the ornaments so they sat a bit lower. Thanks for all the interest in my build! I'll post the final pics in Under Glass soon.

If you take your time they're fine. They're actually pretty sharp. They come in different shapes and thickness. I use them alot.

A pillar repair. Had a derelict 61 HT body to use as a donor. Rather than replace the whole section, including the vent window, I chose to only replace the part of the pillar that was missing rather than cutting into the body. The promo pillar was thinner than the annual donor pillar so it needed some massaging.

Next up is repairing the front valance.

Finished up my '67 Supernatural Impala front seat conversion to a stock bench. I used a rear seat from the two door kit, filled in the speaker with styrene slurry, cut off the package shelf, sanded the center of the seat cushion and backrest smooth while leaving the textured remainder of the bench. I then fabbed a seat back using quarter round and 020 sheet. For the back seat it was much easier, only having to fill the speaker hole and sand the center sections of the seat cushion and backrest. I did not modify the front seat cushion to give it rounded corners, but rather just left it squared off "convertible style".

Welcome Murray!

The plastic is very brittle, eliminating any hope of simply bending the fender back into shape and gluing. Add the fact that being a promo it had a stationary hood I chose to remove the hood and then the fender. I reinforced the joint with strip, which also made lining the fender back up much easier. After cutting the hood free, and losing some of the material on the fender, I needed to add some narrow strip to give support to the hood to keep it level with the fender. Roughed in the refit of the fender

Great job on both!

I have a list of "memory" builds to do and you're right it is fun when it brings back memories. I'm actually doing a simultaneous build of a '67 Impala four door hardtop along with this '61. We kept the '61 until dad traded it in on the '67. I took my driver license test with the '67 on my 16th birthday in 1968. Other family cars on my list are a '53 Ford, '57 Ford, '70 and '78 Caprice. Then I have my own cars that I've owned too.

Beautiful build Thomas!

No 348... 283 2 barrel.

Finally getting around to posting a WIP of a '61 Impala four door promo that is a tribute build to our family car in the early '60s. Good memories of the Imp with the family taking long trips each summer in it. Two especially memorable ones were in '63 and '64 when we did back to back trips out east, including New England in '63 and visiting Kennedy's grave in Arlington and the World's Fair in '64. Those were the days,... both summers were HOT and with no AC the hardtop was helpful. Having no seatbelts today seems strange but back then my brother and I had unhindered run of the back seat. I've been looking for an affordable four door for quite some time and one finally showed up and I was lucky to win it. It needed TLC and bodywork but I was ok with that. Full disclosure, I'm almost finished with the build so I'll be posting some build posts the next few days and then I'll post the final result in the Under Glass. Me and my older brother, probably on our way to church. Numerous issues to be corrected, not the least of which is the right front fender. Front roll pan and driver's A pillar needed replacement and I had a perfect donor I had a second donor for the chassis

Welcome aboard!

That's what I ended up finding for my Invicta.

Below zero isn't uncommon at all here, but rarely does it reach -31. Last time it hit -30 was maybe 5 years ago.

You too Les.... took a bit for both trips but it was worth the wait. Now, onto my project of the '59 Plymouth suburban. Fun and frustration ahead..... ?