ChrisBcritter

Another gem, Tulio! It also demonstrates what a good job AMT did on the tooling. I bet it was a lot of fun getting the teeth out of that grille (been there, done that).

Same here and I've been very happy with Flickr, less so with Photobucket. I post photos on the H.A.M.B. "Vintage Shots from Days Gone By" thread and I got sick of PB shutting off my photos for a week or so at the end of the month due to "bandwidth usage" - never mind that I'm nowhere near my photo capacity. No such issue with Flickr.

Just got the reissued '53 Studebaker a couple hours ago over at HL with the coupon - and was disappointed to find it had the old '60s Firestone 500 narrow whitewall tires rather than the new vintage-style wide whites I was expecting (since the box art shows wide whites). Is this a factory error that Round2 would correct, or am I out of luck?

Nice rich color on that wood - like a fresh restoration photographed on an afternoon in late autumn.

Good find, Walter - could we see some photos of what's inside? Don't think I've ever seen this one.

Is the Premier Renault 1/25 or 1/32? Just saw an unbuilt boxed Hubley Dauphine go for over $300.00 a week ago - might be time for Hubley's successors to look for the molds. If that Ranchero is the styrene version I certainly would be willing to take it off your hands! At least you could flip 'em all on eBay for a tidy profit.

I especially like the last photo. Those aftermarket wire wheels could be made by using these photo-etched Tom's Modelworks airplane wheels: 24.95 mm diameter, intended for 1/28 scale aircraft.

This is one of those times I could slap my forehead and say "Why didn't I think of that?" Nice work Alan!

Sometimes you strike out at estate sales, but sometimes you score. Case in point - I spotted this photo on the sale website: Hmm. So I drove out to Palatine in the rain at 5:30 AM and got my name on the waiting list to go in (#6). At 9:00 when they opened, luckily the five people in front of me weren't after models, so I snagged these: The '65 Rambler American promo is very cherry other than a little rubbing on the bumper corners; it's a keeper. The '32 roadster is the 1964 Ford promo issue with some parts off the trees and a few small tire marks, but all there including perfect decals and the note from Ford in the bottom of the box. The '49 Ford promo is the first version, with the suicide rear doors, in a metallic gunmetal color. Needs a good cleaning but has little of the usual warpage/shrinkage in the body. I think the two Fords may be trading material, although the blown Chrysler in the roadster kit would look good shoehorned into my ITC '40 Mercury (it's going to be built as a gasser when I get the parts together and fix the body so it actually looks like a Mercury). Best part: paid $9.00 for all three and I couldn't get out of that house fast enough - after thanking the sale staff.

I'd like to try one of these - believe the scale was 1/48:

I've wondered about that myself. I wonder if the '60 tooling was modified into the '61 and then '62 wagons? I have a '61 wagon that's been in progress for about 35 years - paid $9.00 for it at an Old Town Escorts swap meet way back then; also a '62 promo wagon that isn't warped much. The kicker is I've seen a Ford Motor Company photo showing promotional models of its 1963 line - and there was a '63 wagon. Wish I could find that photo...

They might not; it wouldn't surprise me if they made the promo first and reworked it to make the two-door kit. Check out the interior on the '61 kit, and you'll see that instead of rear window handles there are door handles molded in!

...And "SGT. FRIDAY".

I'm surprised AMT hasn't thought to reissue their '36 Ford 5-window under this banner, as it has an actual appearance in a Stooge short: False Alarms (1936)

Good luck with the Bonneville - are you going to kitbash it with the new '61 Catalina? If not, the AMT '62 Impala would provide a windshield frame. Use the glass you have if you can save it - the Impala frame is wider at the base and it will fit, but it's tough to make the Impala glass fit.

I, too, would like to see some first-gen compacts; maybe an idea for Moebius? An early Corvair Monza might be up their alley after the '65 Comet comes out.

I admit to using ArcSoft PhotoStudio; came with the computer when I bought it and I've gotten used to using it.

Around 5 PM, just as I was leaving Hobbytown USA, I spotted a bright orange '69 Shelby convertible headed north on Waukegan towards Deerfield.

Such a nice old kit - built it when I was a kid and it had no major issues I could recall. And I bet you could cut down that custom grille to make a decent LaSalle unit...

Finally managed to nail down one of these '55 Chevy 2-ton trucks cheap-ish; for something that's been reissued the prices have sure been high: Like Lysleder above with the Hondas, the idea here is to combine this kit with a more "toy-like" one: It's a 1/48 scale toy bank given away circa 1957 by the Superior Coach Federal Credit Union. Pretty accurate except the windshield is too much of a V shape. I could make this into a good approximation of the Partridge Family bus, but I'm not that ambitious... The Chevy kit appears to be missing one rear spring and the driver's seat, so if anybody has those, I can trade some of the bits I won't be using. (Like I don't have enough projects already, but I love a challenge!) Also got a set of NOS '61 Pontiac wheelcovers for my Franken-Bonneville.

Beautiful. I've always thought of Australian slopers as the last version of the Victoria body style.

Had to use another variation recently: Some 50-odd-year-old light blue enamel on an interior was being stubborn; it was on the seat pattern and I couldn't sand much without losing detail. So I ended up soaking as much off as I could in the purple stuff, then carefully applied a little ELO and went over it with the plastic bristle brush on the Dremel at low speed. (This was after a toothbrush wasn't strong enough.) The stuff came off and spared the upholstery pattern, but I did have to keep rinsing it in the purple as I did it or else it would dry and stain the parts again. And yes, I was very careful not to get liquid into the Dremel and wore rubber gloves.

Got your license plate if you want to try something else:

Thanks! It works better on on these older kits where the plastic is pretty thick.

One thing I've been doing lately is to cut away the plastic between the molded rear leaf springs and the frame, enough so from the side you can see the gap and the springs look (at least for a moment) separately molded. Sometimes other relief-molded items can be modified this way, like crossmembers and exhausts. This is a '61 Comet: (The little pieces on the springs above the axle holes are fillers that will be filed down.) Unfortunately detailing one of these chassis can be like eating potato chips - hard to stop with one item! Still want to add a couple more details before I start hitting it with gloss, semigloss, and flat black and steel and aluminum...