gwolf

"I'm with you, keep going, nothing more satisfying than bringing one back from the dead" Dragcarz, you are so right! It's such a challenge isn't it?

Thanks guys! A little update... I ended up ditching the entire part that sits over the rails that originally had the fenders on it (I don't know what to call it, but ditching it allowed me to channel the body over the rails). I liked that idea but couldn't get it as low as I wanted it to be. I was close to starting something else until I read James2's post where he had flipped parts of the rail in order to lower the car. ( http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=73539 ) I flipped the entire underneath but it made little difference in lowering the rear (the underneath is a one piece deal). As you can see the front end is way too high. Now I'm getting the stance I want. The rails are right side up, but the front springs are going to be flipped. I've seen 1:1 cars that had worse setups than that, so I'm gonna go with it. I'll keep working on it and in the meantime try to find some nice whitewall big 'n littles.

Pretty quiet in here...

Thanks man!

Bernard, great stuff! Where did you get the great big 'n little whitewalls?

James, that is brilliant. I think you just gave me some ideas.

A good portion of all the cars I built between 12 and 14 years old featured a variety of horrible attributes: gold exhaust pipes, blue gas tanks, yellow engines, blue fan belts, red batteries, homemade distributors and spark plug wires made with old Radio Shack parts, a rainbow of colors under the hood. I'd try to stuff bigger, parts box engines in Jo-Han '62 Plymouth Furies and '62 Dodge Darts and cut big squares out of their hoods so they'd stick out and fit. And if a kit came with slide-on decals I'd put them everywhere. It was like I was colorblind and had no concept of what a car should look like. But I had such a blast doing them back then. Point is, I like your "sorry excuse for an attempt to paint the interior and some engine components" comment and I'm sure you thought you were doing a great job at the time.

Hey man, that is looking great. I'd love to see you make an in depth post on how to chop the top. I'm working on a '32 myself, and I think I definitely need to chop. Gotta find me some big 'n little whitewalls too.

Great work! Love those wagons.

I'm thinking about building car kits again after almost 10 years. To get warmed up I started practicing on some glue bomb builtups I got from my buddy Pat. So first up is a 1932 Ford kit. I'm not sure who made it, probably AMT. It's painted, lots of glue, and misaligned in quite a few places where it was glued. Furthermore, the radiator grill had been painted then some decals applied to it. The underneath is one piece, with molded in rear axle and such, which is a pain. Preferably I'd like to just have the rails and update the rear axle and exhaust, but I'll just keep working for the time being. The first thing I did was to score the running boards and front fenders then cut them off using a razor knife. After that I trimmed, sanded and smoothed out where they had been removed. The firewall was heavily glued to the body, more so on the drivers side side. Since I knew this car would be lowered or channeled I began to clip out the firewall. I have firewalls in my parts box, so I could replace it. The firewall was a huge pain and a small chunk would not budge. About half an hour with nippers and a shaving with a razor knife removed it. I sanded it down level with fine grit sandpaper. On a side note, the paint and decals came off the radiator grill after being soaked in water for a night. Must have been tempera paint or something similar. Here you can see that the body is sanded smooth where the firewall was once heavily glued. The black spot makes it appear there's still a glob on there, but it is smooth. As of yesterday I'm still trying to figure out a decent stance. It's tough with that one piece underneath. I've seen aftermarket tires and even recently purchased a set of those AMT whitewalls, but do any of you have any tips on how to get four tires matched up with wheels that will connect to the axles?

Anybody have any secrets to working with parts box wheels and tires? For example, I have several sets of wheel / tire combos given to me that came off of die cast kits. They use a straight metal bar to connect to the car, but I want to use the normal wheelsbacks plastic kits provide. Any info and input welcome. Would just like to hear what everyone else does with wheels that don't necessarily fit the kit they're matching them with.

Great build! If you have interest in Bond Bread, you might dig these, WWII Bond Bread matchbook covers with Navy planes one them. I have about 12 of them. http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p157/danster-nj/EE/postings/series1-b.jpg

Nice work! I actually like the look of the roof rack you started.

Thanks Derick! We'll form a '53 Flip-nose Ford support group for others who have had issues with this kit. That F-100 / T-Bird was looking great! Too bad it got smashed. That link to the Nightmare Kits post is hilarious- Totally peppered with references to the flip-nose kit. It ain't just me!

Steve, Thanks for the kind words. The blue paint is just hardware store spray paint. This build is from 2003, so I may not have that can of paint, but I bet I might. If I do, I'll give you the details. I'll also look for those rear windows in the parts box.

Agreed, Jantrix. But in 2003 I don't think I knew BMF existed. I'm excited to try it out on some new cars though.

Wow! Great job!

Welcome back Marcus!

This Rat Rod '49 Ford is the second to last kit I built. Made in 2003 I was going for the rat look, before I knew much about it. The '49 Ford and '49 Mercury kits have always been one of my favorites.

The last model car I finished, 9 years ago in 2004. This one was such a pain, the parts didn't fit, the flip-nose was very hard to stay in one place...this kit got me out of the hobby for almost ten years. Thinking about it now, I have to applaud the model company for even trying to do a 1:25 flip-nose. I might even try to build another one.

Hi Blair and welcome back. I'm just now back after about ten years.

I like that blue too. I'm telling you, that white stripe would be amazing on it...

Thanks guys. I definitely want another one (or ten) of these Revell '32s.

Thanks Mangodart. I'd love to have some more of these old Jo-Han kits.