Russell C

Spotted an opportunity to pick up a convertible kit for cheap, not planning to build the whole thing, just rob some parts out of it. Upon seeing the dead satin chrome items, I thought I'd check the photos here to see if I was imagining things by thinking I'd previously seen shiny bumpers & such. Turns out that was a factory defect. One other handy thing I found elsewhere (or so it seems) was this German site's how-to on fixing the kit's defects: http://www.modellversium.de/galerie/12-autos/1756-1960-pontiac-bonneville-sports-coupe-trumpeter.html Google's English translation here.

Folks fail to factor the physics involved in that sometimes. I vaguely remember an old account of the injuries from a jump in one of the Smokey & the Bandit movies is what led to seats in some later stunt vehicles being hammock-like and not attached to the floor. From this link describing Hal Needham's stunts, the one about the 140ft Chevy truck jump says this, Needham was hauled off to the hospital with his first broken back, a compression fracture. “This thing had a telemetry system we wired up in the cab . . .I pulled 29 g’s when I landed on the other side,” he says."

I believe Gregg is looking into this, but for me, I can't see any photos in the MCM-specific galleries, they're all black boxes: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/gallery/category/1-members-gallery/ And from that, threads like the one I had on Bob Nordberg's vintage models show no pics?

My suggestion is that there is no convincing way to dress up chrome headlights. To go one step permanently better is to acquire a pile of various kit headlight reflectors & clear lenses either from sellers at a local model car club or off ebay when such cheap piles pop up, drill/ream out the chrome surface, install the chrome reflectors & lenses, and then you'll have a far more realistic result from not all that much extra effort. My reflector pile has diminished down to this after all these years...

Is the format customizable by the mod / site administrators? I liked how the prior one allowed individual reply-to posts to have the signature turned off or on. Seems now there is only the blanket 'on/off' switch which I found in the Account Settings page for "Signature". Plus, no offense to the new format, but having the "Quote" thing right under the post text (along with the "+" box, which I just discovered is for multi-quoting) is really annoying. It would be nicer if those two features could be moved way over to the right out of the way.

Sometimes the old vans are a ball...

Mildly entertaining post-apocalyptic movie with random clever parts to it, a few entertaining vehicles, including the star vehicle Been done here before by Rob Mattis, but one could borrow the basic theme and/or borrow the theme of another mustang movie car variant, if the offroad look appeals to you:

'40 Ford "Tudor Coupe" When I was an itty-bitty kid playing with my older brother's original issue black plastic AMT '40 Tudor, I always thought the front end was pretty, but the back was too turtle-like. Later, I built my own metallic purple paint-blistered, then orange glue bomb, and right before I junked it completely, I used the body to do a silhouette pencil drawing to cure its too-turtleness. And I ended up with the 1992 illustration below, which was too VW beetle-like. But just a few days ago, I spotted the sectioned/channeled iconic 1st version Dave Cunningham Tudor, and that reminded me of a photo alteration I've long meant to do. The result is below, from this original photo, heavily sectioned with just a slight rearward lean of the windshield and a bit of channeling. Less turtle-like, without looking too much like the factory coupe, and without turning into the Lincoln Zephyr coupe version. Call it splitting the 3-way difference. I'd also blame the curves of the trunk & rear roof on the Matchbox Rolls Royce Phantom VI that I also used to play with.

I've been keeping my eye on ebay for '57 Continentals for another of my somewhat demented customization ideas, and the Revell 1/32 scale kits seem to be continually appearing for not especially outrageous prices. For what I have in mind, a built junker might suit my purposes ok. Saw this usable $24.21 1/25th promo ebay listing just last week, probably should have snagged it... For alternative's sake, more info on the quite pricy Franklin Mint 24th scale diecast here.... And then there is this guy who scratchbuilt a 12th scale one.

Didn't know, only caught secondhand info one why you were smiling less some time after that. Put the vibes on the car that creamed you instead, maybe. That's good to know.

Tamiya Honda CRX. Converted mine to LHD decades back, should have had a resin cast done first, of course...

Courtesy of Mark Gustavson last night, his latest photo of Bob Nordberg's Ford cabover shortly after he unpacked it. He says "While the model has come apart a bit, there only broken part is the front spindle that allowed the front right tire to depart -- the rest of the parts just came loose." He will be taking studio-style shots of this one and the others of the Nordberg collection that were donated to the International Model Car Museum by Nordberg's son. Mark reminded me to say "this model shared the top adult honors, with Augie Hiscano, in the second Revell-Pactra contest (1964) and that I will be restoring the model for the Museum. The whole acquisition, and this model in particular, will be featured in the 2015 Museum newsletter. [ ... ] -- we have an identical display case for the Nordberg model." What Mark means by that last bit is that Nordberg's model arrived at the Museum with the original Revell-Pactra display bubble that was part of the 1964 award, which was partially seen in the photo in my first post by Nordberg's son. At the Museum now, Augie Hiscano's winning model is displayed in its original bubble display, seen at the middle left of the photo below, from a Facebook photo link out of Brizio's 2015 Museum photo thread. Mark also wanted me to remind you-all that Richard Mike Johnson's Pegasus model, winner of the first 1963 Revell-Pactra contest is also at the Museum - seen in the upper right of Brizio's photo. So, that whole display will soon have even more old amazing model history within it.

One could always aim instead for 'Palmer kit distortion-style', and use a Hasagawa Celica kit as the base...

x2. Like I mentioned in an earlier BMF thread, I bought 3 sheets in the late '70s (for $2 per sheet) and I've barely started using the 3rd sheet after all this time.

I ruin their collector value by using 'n abusing 'em. Here, for example is the box from the mid- late-'80s that provided me with the material to make my GTI pickup. But ever since that time it has contained pretty much my entire stock of model car wire material.

33. And all this time from some other write-up years ago, I thought it was the right-brain that was the organizing side. Meanwhile my chosen field of work was graphic arts, which I still like very much, even though one would think it was on the other end of the artistic intuitive scale. So I must be nuts.

I altered a Gary Campesi illustration and slapped Edsel quad lights on a '34-ish pickup, for my thread on ideas I'll probably never get around to building......

So when the first photo fools a guy (me) by having me think it was a photo of the full size vehicle and the rest are the model photos, that's an indicator of a mighty good model.

Brizio is a good model builder? Right. When pigs f̶l̶y̶, er... surf.

Rip apart a toasted non-working CD drive out of a computer, and you'll see the laser mechanism board thingy is supported with 4 squishy grommets. A bit big for 24th/25th scale cars, maybe. The ones shown here range from around 3/8" diameter to 1/2", but they do sorta resemble airbags....

Couldn't resist tempting Harry with this one, a still-ongoing ebay auction for a "Rowley/Sturtevant Daytona GTC". Not sure what kind of photography technique the guy was using, but a couple of the other pics make it look way more model-like.

Really modelly. A model of realness. Or something...

I'd advise Rocket Bunny to move the headlights out wider, put a stylized Alfa Romeo grille on it, and they could get away with it being a more clever modern interpretation of the GT Junior...

For 'standard' body shape cars, a couple of wraps of clean t-shirt cloth remnants is good enough around each, stuff two or three models in a regular model car box with cut-to-size bits of corrugated cardboard lining at least one side and one end to prevent box-crushing, and away it goes in an airline carry-on suitcase with all my other stuff. Things like my Top Fuel 4x4 dragster are a whole different matter. When I flew up for the 2001 GSL contest, I created a special box, which was the second 'carry-on' item I could bring which fit nicely under the seat in front of me. built entirely out of a sheet of refrigerator box material, half of the two-part handle on each side of the top flaps, L-shaped straps taped down on the near flap and fitting into a slot in the far flap the 'inner box' toward the front (with a leftover bit of blue t-shirt material sitting in it) is permanently taped in blace, while the side area with two pockets and a triangle brace is removable. I put a couple of t-shirt-wrapped regular models in that area for the 2001 trip, while potentially needed repair glue / tools went in that upper permanent 'inner box' side area / brace out, nearest to camera, model on removable platform with wheel chocks & removable handle which allows me to lift the model out from under the 'inner box' The transport for the 2001 trip went perfect, the key to success was to never let the thing turn over on its side.