jbwelda

thats an excellent build there...i see you have the same problem i had with the thing: the engine deck cover doesnt open very wide. i see you have a little prop rod there that looks pretty nice. i was thinking next time i build one i am going to try to get some more movement out of the deck lid or just leave it unhinged. as i remember everything else on that kit fit and looked really nice and you have done it justice in your build. kool one.

very nice. i remember when there were cars like that parked in the back of old barns. they are getting pretty rare these days i would think! thats a nice flattie there too.

thats some great work on those off road accessories! i love that snorkel and the front bull bar/winch is killer. great job and to think its in 1/43, very nice!

wow! how did all those vintage kits end up (well not "end up" because with you they got a whole new lease on life) at some yard sale in australia? amazing, especially that wild dream/king t set and the towd and manx and that invader thing looks awesome. that smug bug hurts my eyes to even gaze upon it. and the thing is in 1/16th too? wow, whatever caused that?

has it been mentioned that it looks like, from model roundup web site anyhow, revell is going to reissue ed roths tweedy pie (the original, presumably?) and also the Orange Crate. those along with the tony nancy set and that guy from gearz or something's 32 hot rod thats supposed to be all new tooling, make revell the ones to look for for my model $ coming up!

mr camaro, when i am finished with this build i will gladly donate the vette body to you...but that might be awhile! and yes that bike comes from Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland...they dont have a web site but do a google on the name and you will come up with a phone number to call norm there. edit: oh and great minds think alike and all that...turns out i already had 2 cans of evening orchid inside the box for the king t...since that is recommended once again i will probably go with that, thanks again for the reminder.

thanks Del, i will ask Gene next time i run into him, i usually see him a couple times a year at this show or that... does Testors actually have a "55 Chevrolet" Evening Orchid or is it just evening orchid and you mean it was close to the 55 chevy color?

Well i am beginning to see some space on my workbench to start thinking about what to do next. problem is, i got a bunch of stuff i have been planning but i think in settled on a few. as it turns out most of them are resin conversions or builds. here they are laid out: so what is there is the following, starting bottom right and working my way clockwise: Broadspeed Mini Cooper body with a Tamiya Mini Cooper Racing series for a donor kit. i plan to save some time by doing this in conjunction with the Mini Cooper Traveller (or is it a Countryman? never could keep them straight, one is probably an Austin and the other a Morris or something...), on a Monte Carlo Rally Mini Cooper donor. i plan to do this one rally style and maybe extend the roof rack to full length and some other kool stuff. both of the resin bodies are from Scalekraft. next there is the Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland resin repop of the AMT Triumph motorcycle. cafe racer for this one, and luckily that trim is included in what looks to be a really nice little kit...been wanting to build this for awhile, hence it went to the top of the pile. then we have the original Don Tognottis King T in the AMT double kit with Wilhelms Wild Dream (which i have already completed). even though the King T's style isnt really to my liking, i need to build it to complete the set but also to honor Don who passed away several years ago and with whom i had a passing friendship for a number of years. he once presented one of my models with his "pick" choice and so i will display his King T on the plaque he signed. if the wild dream was any indication, this should go together well and i have found some fingernail polish that looks to come close to what i remember the paint to be. this car was restored a few years ago and i took some pics of it but i am not sure how "on" they are with the paint. back to the resin, finally i have a Jimmy Flintstone Cadillac XLR body and just for the heck of it, a Corvette C5-R Lemans donor to attempt to make somethink kinda krazy. we will see how far this goes. i might just build the motor and stick it in an undersized street rod or something.. the caddy body is kinda generic looking but might work out...the wheelbase looks spot on with the vette and so does the body width. might be fun. there you have it...i think those few ought to keep me going with build threads for...oh, carry the 4 and pass the spli...uh budwiser, three years or so! any comments or suggestions?

i know i could look this up but this is probably a better resource than wikipedia for this sort of stuff... so the original stock pinto was available with a 1200 cc 4 cylinder motor? thats what it says on that 75 MPC box. cause thats just plain small! even by english car standards where everything was running 1.3 liter or more. and to push around that heavy (though "compact" by those days standards) brick? that thing couldnt get out of its own way! but then the 74 MPC box says 2 liter four cylinder, which is a little more like what i thought was the base engine. cause 1.2 liter is just plain underpowered no matter what you do. (cue the 500HP 1.2 litre motor photos). way too underpowered to run on USA freeways i would think... they redeemed themselves with the small blocks though, a pinto with a small block was a potent piece. too bad GM never deemed the Vega worthy of a factory V8.

wait...why would a vampire drive around in a car with crucifixes for wheels?

i am going to buy it just for the figures. goofy car but some really nice looking fodder for customs and rats and stuff. i want this one:

thanks for pointing out that there is a ghetto, i mean area, for trucks. i hadnt even noticed it. so now we go there for started, finished, contemplated, discarded anything having to do with "trucks"? not in the "on the workbench" or the "under glass" or even the "new releases" areas? really bad idea, but thats just my opinion. is that where i would post a model of the wheels on my skateboard?

well, i may have mentioned wanting to clear my workbench for a bunch of new projects this year, so id decided to get back to this oldie, been a couple years since i have done much but look at it. last i checked there were some fit issues, especially with a photoetch screen i had bent slightly wrong and that required some cutting or something to get the body to fit onto the chassis. then it appeared the interior might interfere with the body on final assembly and i wished i had waited to glue the interior tub to the chassis and instead had glued it to the body itself and then fitted the chassis to the body/interior assembly. but i am happy to report that a little serious fiddling and pushing here and pulling there and well you know the drill: force the thing to the point where it almost, but not quite, distintegrates in your hands but instead you get stuff to look almost right...and it looks pretty much almost right! heres a couple of photos to refresh your memories...i had to go back over the thread to remember where i left off. as you can see all the trim is mounted, i need to finish up a couple pieces under the hood, then mount the front wheels and brakes then finish up a few details like the roof antennae. back end still sticks up just a bit but i think once i have the front tires on i can convince it to sit down over the tires a bit more...want to see how the front fit to check final stance. anyway thanks again for your patience and this might get finished up in a couple weeks if the Lords willin and the crick dont rise...and with our current drought conditions its not likely the latter will be a problem! thanks again for looking and of course comments, questions etc gladly entertained! ps: jaguar fan, i dont remember if we sorted the instructions but if you are still out there and need a copy of them please inbox me and we can get that done.

i gotta agree with Dave there about tamiya...number one in my book pretty much most of the time. especially when you consider fit and finish right out of the box, usually suprisingly excellent. now to the subject of the most best perfect kit ever, i can add one that i bet no one else has mentioned: the 60s AMT (and MPC before it i believe) Wilhems Wild Dream, kitted with Tognottis King T roadster. as unlikely as it might seem, that kit really went together well, the funny little pieces that make up the rear end that you never really see...surprisingly they fit right in place at the last moment! even the weird teardrop shaped taillight lenses fit in the area formed for them. the hood and side panels fit right in place and it was easy to get the exhaust header out the holes located in the side panels. the multipiece interior bucket was similarly well engineered. amazingly so for the time it was produced. really just kind of fell together like it was supposed to despite early on fears about mis-fits. its a pretty rare kit and brings kinda high money on ebay but you can find cheap ones from time to time. highly recommended. (dont really know about the King T model in the same (AMT) kit, havent built it yet)

way back there harry said: >To allow box-stock builds of "custom" subject matter to compete head-to-head with actual customized models doesn't seem fair to me. it does seem kind of "fair" to me...the box stock will be entered in the custom class and not even be seriously considered as on a par with any of the others by the judges. because they know what they are looking at.

>I am not a fan of using floor wax on anything but floors yes and i am not a fan of smearing super glue all over the nice paint job, which i am surely doomed to do. so... future is acrylic clear, just easier to use and in the case of using it to attach photoetch, its not going to be much.

> photo etch should be attached using some type of super glue Future (aka Pledge with Future Shine or some such marketing driven nom de polish) is your friend here.

>IMO the 6" narrowed beam would be too much; well i kind of agree with you on the current stance (minus a problem or two that arent visible in the photos), i like the wide look. but the problem is more that i had to grind like mad away from the inside of the wheels as their offset sets them way out there especially when you figure in the brakes, and i also had to grind away the portion of the front suspension arms where they connect to the wheel backs. thats why you arent seeing photos of the underside! its not really that bad but my initially visioned level of detail didnt carry through because of the narrowing i had to do to get it to the point you see it. so that 6" i mentioned counted that it could use a good 3" of it just to let me avoid excessive grinding, then the other 3" would go to actually narrowing the track. the tires are hitting the top of the fender and actually have slight camber with tops in and bottoms out, like the rears. so some slight narrowing would help that out a lot and better center the tires in the wells side to side. (btw, 1/8" in 1/24th scale = 3" 1:1 scale, so the 3" i mention above means 1/8" when it comes time for cuttin...). thanks again for looking and im glad youre enjoying this build! edit: oh i forgot to mention, i bought some micro magnets on ebay and when they arrive i am going to try using them to hold the deck lid on. i really wish that one air box werent a bit crooked, that happened when the carb snapped off at some point and i had to reglue it. i wasnt going to glue the air boxes to the carbs until i was able to check the fit of the hood, but oh no, i got impatient! i could have easily taken a sixteenth inch off the bottom of them to let them fit under the hood. oh well, lesson for next time! as it is, the hood sits slightly crooked as it rests on the air boxes otherwise i would just lay it on there with magnets to hold it and call it good...might still work out.

wow that turned out very kool! nice job on cutting away those fenders! did you have a build thread going on it?

very inspirational! at first i couldnt even see the willys in there but it is very powerful once you realize what youre looking at! very sweet!

that looks great; i especially like the motor and engine compartment. is that the pete brock revell kit?

>Did they move this show from the fall when it was with the Good Guys car show in Pleasanton? naw that was (and maybe still is) another NNL. "NNL" is a bit of a generic term. this particular one this weekend is the "NNL West". you will see the term used a lot in different parts of the country and really implies a show versus a contest. few to no trophies though there are usually special awards for one thing or another or one celebrity type or another's pick. the shows in pleasanton were quite possibly "NNL"s but this is kinda the big daddy of the northern california shows. oh yeah...im gonna be there! its one of about three "must" events for me in the year.

yes welcome, post some more pics of those, i especially want to see the MR2

Some of us may have followed along on the build thread: http://www.modelcars...showtopic=26850 its finally wrapped up, for now that is...just in time for NNL 2012 (not that its likely to be noticed there...amongst the 1000 or so exquisite builds!). needs to have the deck lid clearanced to fit and could really use a new front end narrowed 6" scale inches or so, but its looking pretty good. for those not along on the build, its mostly a box stock tamiya karmann ghia, with motor, trans and rear running gear from the fujimi 356 enthusiasts kit, quad cam porsche carrera motor, heavy duty anti sway bar, kool azz wheels on all four wheels, disk brakes up front and finned drums in the rear, front suspension moved up about a scale 6" drop, pretty hokey but it worked and doesnt look too out of place underneath. 356 seats, dashboard and accessories, steering wheel etc but basically pretty non-flashy outwardly, just lowered. things could have gone better but you just cant blame the fit when its a tamiya like this...everything fit beautifully right out of the box...the bumpers have the right angle and they arent even glued in...in fact the chassis should come off the body still because i never glued it and its in solid. my mods made some fits problematic but even that wasnt that dramatic. and turned out pretty kool too! any questions, comments or suggestions truely appreciated, thanks for looking!

hey dave, thanks for the suggestion, in fact my early plan was for some extended hinges and i might still go that route...ive eyeballed the height pretty close and i would be very surprised if i could wittle enough away from the hood underside to make it fit...looks like it has to come all the way through. thats without extended hinges; just making the hood fit flush to the body all the way around. i have a spare hood to work with, so if i go with dremel therapy i can try it as i go...if it burns through to the outside surface then its scoop time!