John Goschke

Sean, you lucky dog! How come it's sitting so high though? Is the chassis not in all the way?

Wow! Looks just about perfect from where I'm sitting! Thanks to everyone at Moebius for going the extra mile(s) to get it right and for the final tweaking of the badges. Great work!

Outstanding work! I love how you took such a simple kit and with some careful modifications and additions brought out the best in it, making it look more detailed than it really is. The nicely done painting and shading on the driver goes a long to add to the realism.

Beautiful build!

Wow, never heard of that one! Looks like I gotta do some research....

Really beautiful work! Wish I could do such nice even gradients.

Thanks guys! Awhile back I added some color to the grill and taillight surrounds. The plan calls for some gold scallops on the body.

I think your admirable fabrication skills would be better invested in doing a station wagon conversion on AMT's fine '53 Studebaker kit. Unless you're a masochist, of course, in which case you could certainly burn it and start over from scratch.

Masking Tape Madness! OK, finally forced to stop thinking and talking about doing this, yesterday I actually sat down to start taping out the T-bird for the second color, Tamiya Pearl Blue, on the panels, closely following Larry Watson's layout for his '58 'Bird. Started taping at 11am, and except for a couple short breaks, finished taping at 8pm. Thanks to my wife for kindly doing the grocery run by herself in the afternoon! My previous practice would've dictated painting the blue first because I find it easier to get a smooth finish over a large area with Tamiya's aerosol cans than my Thandler-Chandler Model A airbrush, however, a spoon test revealed that spraying the pearl white outlines over the blue would not have the desired opacity. Oh well... I started outlining the panels with thin (1/32" or less) strips of black photographic tape by laying a long strip out on my glass surface plate and cutting the strips with a #11 against a steel rule. For the tight curves in the corners the thin strips allow me to carefully press the tape down with my fingernail to work out wrinkles as it's gently pulled and stretched around the curve. After the panels were outlined (by about 6:00) I filled in with wider strips of photo tape and cut strips and bits of wide yellow Tamiya tape. Early this morning I shot the color and the last two shots were taken minutes after all the tape came off. It's not as smooth as I'd like, but fortunately the edges are pretty clean and it appears to be more or less even.

Beautiful work, Andy!

Beautiful job!

Outstanding work on the trim conversion. This model has a very authentic look.

Nice work!

Oops, sorry, Hans! It's fixed now.

Thanks for the kind words, guys! To answer Hans' question here's a shot of the passenger's side with the patch highlighted in red... Note that the bottom corner in front of the rear wheel arch is in its original position. Basically what's needed is for the lower body edge to rotate down from that point to add depth at the cowl. The reworked body measures 7/8" from the bottom of the upper body molding at the cowl to the bottom front corner of the body vs. 25/32" on the original.

Well, through no rational process and with something like ten other projects in various stages of completion, I've started another one. Crazy, I know. But, been wanting an unchopped five-window to go with my other Trophy-series Deuces and found a decent body for $2.00 at Super Sept. Showdown. Took it home and stripped the paint, and got rid of AMT's wacky section job by splicing in a section from a roadster body to correct the lower body profile. The chassis, rear axle and exhaust are from an AMT '32 phaeton kit, dropped front axle is from the '34 pickup. Split the wishbone from the phaeton. Headlights from the Monogram ex-Little T. Hop-up parts from the '34 5-window on '32 5-window flathead. Original issue wide-5s and wheelcovers from AMT '36 Ford with rear tires from '56-vintage Johan promo and front tires from PMC '54 Nash promo. Instead of the deep channel of the original AMT 5-window, this one's channeled only the height of the frame. Going for a late '40s - early '50s look with this one.

Wow! You've got my attention! That weather metal finish is one of the best I've seen. Love that it's got banger-power, too.

Chop looks great! The '40 Ford coupe's got to be one of the toughest cars to chop and have it look as good as the original; you done good! Really like your technique with minimal putty as well. I like where you're going with rear end treatment. Looking forward to seeing a complete mock-up to get the whole picture.

For a top-quality build that doesn't seem unreasonable. Probably works out to about $10. per hour for labor.

Thanks! Engine came from an original Johan '63 Chrysler 300J annual kit. Radiator and firewall are from Johan '62 Chrysler 300.

Some really inspirational work in this thread! Here're some of the mills I've managed to get done... AMT '32 Ford with dual carb '40 Flathead... AMT '40 Ford with "Nailhead" Buick ... Johan '60 Dodge Dart Phoenix with D-500 Crossram 361 c.i... RevelloGram '55 Chevy BelAir with Dual-Quad 283...

Wow! That thing is cool! Great job.

That interior is awesome! Like it so much that I'm stealing that color combo for the interior of my '32 5-window!

Steve, either of those B-body Mopars would be a great choice. One of the virtues of the Johan Mopar kits I'd like to see preserved in any new or re-engineered release was the high degree of interchangeability between the makes, models and years (much like the real cars.) Heck, the '60 Dodge I built has a '61 Plymouth chassis, '62 Chrysler firewall, and engine from a '63 Chrysler 300, all of which fit without modification. While the chassis and interiors might leave something to be desired for today's builder, in large measure it's hard to fault the accuracy of Johan's bodies for those cars and there's no reason IMC couldn't base a new tool for the '65 Belvedere hardtop on the original Johan body for the '64 Fury or Dodge Polara. Ideally an improved chassis, interior, and basic engine tool for the new kit could be slightly modified for subsequent reissue of the '62 and '63 Dodge and Plymouth and possibly for the '60 and '61s, and might serve as the basis for similarly improved and re-engineered '62-'64 Chryslers and '60 Desoto. The '60 - '61 Chrysler bodies are a tougher case given that they're on the Desoto wheelbase, which is incorrect for the New Yorker (perhaps these bodies could be modified to '60 Windsor and '61 Newport hardtops.) Although the old kits do not have the detail of today's kits, there's a lot to said for their simplicity, and I have to wonder if there would be less tooling and production cost if any potential new kit were developed with an emphasis on simply creating an accurate body, with a nicely detailed interior, engine and chassis that would have a lower parts count than the typical new full-detail kit from Revell or Moebius. I'm thinking of something along the lines of Revell's excellent snap-kit '63 Vettes, '57 Chevy, or '75(?) Monte Carlo, but with an engine and a somewhat more detailed chassis. Done properly these kind of kits also could have fewer fit problems and could perhaps be offered at a lower price to the consumer.

Beautiful! Really great color combo with the interior and the stance is perfect.