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jbwelda

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Everything posted by jbwelda

  1. actually the finished model looks a whole lot better than the box art...that has to be a near first of some kind jb
  2. thanks terry...if you got any photos of that build you are talking about please post them. not sure what you mean about the exhausts...they came in the parts pack chevy motor and I believe they were in the mooneyes dragster double kit since it seemed to use exactly the same chrome engine trees as the parts packs did. sometimes I get tired of posting in progress updates because it seems no one bothers to look at them but they do add a certain documentation to the build which I like...good to hear you liked it too. jb
  3. In many situations that is called a sweat shop. if you need employees to work a 12 hour day for anything more than the very occasional emergency, you need to hire more employees and run three shifts. jb
  4. wow someone slapped a X1/9 with an ugly stick! A REALLY ugly stick! totally dig those rear wheel arches. jb
  5. Yes Tom I do have to agree that them keeping the molds around instead of just destroying them certainly helped assure his continuing legacy after the immediate social unrest of the time, and aside from the economics of the move, it does show a certain respect for Ed Roth, particularly in restoring and reissuing them. that deal must have been made while he was still alive (?) so he had to get a certain satisfaction from that ultimately. I'm sure you have read it but his book with Tony Thacker is pretty revealing of his feelings about the Revell situation. Great read and lots of detail on his builds and the role those like Dirty Doug and Robert Williams had in the cars' creation. In many ways Ed was the "concept person" and he left the real work to his cohorts. jb
  6. I would have bet it was a Tatra. jb
  7. personally I think its pretty darn great looking and some real imagination is obvious there. is that based on a PT Loser body, or maybe an HHR? I especially like the Lincoln front end treatment. edit: on second glance maybe its based on one of those butt-ugly throwback Chrysler wagon things? definite improvement in all ways. jb
  8. I would advise against using the PS paint...do a search on my Karmann Ghia project of a couple years ago for some idea what that PS stuff is gonna do unless your luck is way better than mine. way kool build by the way; I've got a Tamiya bug kit that I was going to put a twin turbo Mazda rotary engine into...looks like I got beat to the punch line with this massive motor! jb
  9. >just weren't into the Surfite since it wasn't a big V8 car. a problem that persists to this day if you ask me. I think Ed Roth was way ahead of his time what with using Austin motors and Corvair motors and stuff like that to propel what were essentially personal carrier vehicles. I thought that was part of his genius...while much of the world went on with their big blown bad motors...dinosaur land even back then to anyone with a bit of forethought. not sure I believe that story about HAs either; it came from someone with a vested interest in the situation and paints Revell in a very good light, compared to what I believe the reality was. and that is supported by what Revell did to his cars' models after they cut Ed loose...basically butchered them with goofball parts and dumb designs while still retaining the Roth look but removing the Roth name (not to mention royalties). if they really wanted to cut him loose they should have ceased selling his models instead of bastardizing them. I think it was a very dark day in Revell history but they didn't know what to do about "hippies" until some marketing genius decided to co-opt them into all those dumb flower power designs they attempted to foist on the public. on the other hand ole Ed pretty much went off the deep end with his support for the Vietnam war and all his jingoistic decal designs with dead VC and outlaw motorcycle themes. but such were the times and now even Sonny Barger says he regrets the 81 involvement in beating anti-war protestors because as time proved to him, the government they supported in no way returned the favor and in fact the 81s were way more aligned with the counter culture than the military industrial complex at the time, though they might not have realized it or wanted to admit it. edit: I meant to summarize that as the country was at odds with what was happening on the streets so to speak, so were companies like Revell, and that confusion led to some strange, in retrospect anyhow, decisions and moves and I think getting over sensitive about who Ed Roth was in private life is an example of that. I think Ed Roth would probably have told me I was full of * too. jb
  10. Maybe I missed it but there was a question? jb
  11. Never had a problem with Tamiya ts13 (if saying that isn't asking for trouble I don't know what is...) and I am never even that careful about applying it. I have had the Model Master laquer wet look clear curdle decals but I don't know if it was the decals at fault or the paint or my application method (straight out of buzzcan and I am not really known for restraint) but Tamiya has never given me a problem. shooting Future through an airbrush is the most benign way of doing this I think but you say no airbrush so I would stick with the ts-13 if you can get it. jb
  12. >Which wheel/tires combo did you use on this from Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland ? the 19" ones if that's what you mean. come complete with resin tires as well as the photoetch spokes and resin hub and rims. unfortunately I had some problems with them so those wheels are only white glued on...will try to do better with a second set soon. the ones there presently look ok but if you look really close you can see air between the tire and the rim. I think i need to cut down the photoetch spokes about 1/32" before assembling to allow the tire to sit square on the rim. jb
  13. thanks for all the comments. yeah Tom I built the Surfite a couple years ago and while it was challenging in areas I was surprised how well it went together and how minutely detailed it was. built it so the body would lift off to expose the chassis and Austin motor. don't remember if I had to add plastic to the interior but that does sound familiar. if interested do a search in both under glass and on workbench forums for the threads I posted on it. I actually met Ed Roth a few times, first time wasn't exactly a "meet"...we (mom dad brother and I) had just moved out to California and we were in SoCal to check out the sights (not eds shop unfortunately...more like Dizzyland etc) and were stuck in traffic somewhere in east LA (I was about 14 at the time). I was busy checking out all the cars on the freeway and who should pull up next to us in a beat up 56 chevy gasser with tube front axle but Ed Roth himself! I about had a fit, jumping up and down on my seat, nearly yelling "DAD ITS BIG DADDY ROTH!" and pointing wildly to the car next to us. I just couldn't believe it, basically my hero (aside from the rolling stones) right there right now! Some years later I ran into him at a car show and told him about that and he was pretty amused, and asked me if I was a friend of Ricky Nelson, I guess I resembled someone he had met through him. in prior years I had heard he (after his infatuation with motorcycles and subsequent exile to HA land by pretty much anyone who dealt with him) worked as a sign painter at Knotts Berry Farm, so one year I went there espressly to meet him and see if I could interview him for a car fanzine I wrote for but he wasn't there that day and no one was exactly sure who I was talking about so maybe he did not work there at all. I thought that kinda strange but maybe he got requests for his time all the time and so had fellow workers there cover for him and tell people who asked that they didn't have a clue who was being talked about. I too have always had a thing for all his cars and the models of them but like Tom, I too shiver when I open the boxes and see all the mold lines and pin marks on the fine chrome trees etc. Can be pretty daunting and that's why when I got this with the chassis built up so solid and nice (still lots of imperfections if you look close) I just had to finish it because most of the hard work was already done. jb
  14. all I can say is you must have one magnificent looking display case with all those in it! jb
  15. Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland have some photo etch and resin wheels in various sizes up to 19" heres a pic of some (poorly constructed I'm afraid) 19" on the left compared to some Tony Nancy chrome wheels on the right. they are definitely a major notch above the TN wheels. jb
  16. Oh man, did I just buy some Mooneyes decals from you! I needed another sheet! Sorry to hear that; hope things settle down and you come back up for air eventually. the set of decals I got was first rate. in case I am terminally confused all I can do is quote the stones: what a drag it is getting old. jb
  17. need Lucas, Optima and Interstate and also the little warranty punch out (selectable punch out month and year not necessary) stickers please. jb
  18. that is looking very good. I like the wrap on the headers and all that detail in the motor. orange crate body is a great body, I was going to be doing much the same thing, OC body on a latter day 32 kit, so when you see it don't accuse me of copying! I just hope it turns out as nice as yours, really dig that paint too, it does seem the green base comes through the black giving it a really nice overtone. kool build! jb
  19. great build! did that engine come with the kit or did you scratchbash it? jb
  20. those look most excellent though I could stand a few more pics, please! got this kit but haven't even opened it yet to check out the goodies inside, now I have to! jb
  21. picked up a semi glue bomb partial build of this notoriously fiddly kit sometime last year and it sat on the shelf until a month ago when I decided to get serious. Now to say it was a "semi glue bomb" is really doing an injustice to what was there, a built up frame, engines and running gear, because it was actually nicely built and most importantly, very sturdy and well constructed. The body had been painted but must have run because it was sanded partially back to original plastic, and the interior and bubble top were untouched. So I started by a dip in the purple pond for the body parts, then I glued together the body (three pieces) and sealed up the seams, also the little op-art headlamp/nose piece (what a wonderful little piece of sculpture that is, I think I am going to build another nose piece just to display by itself I love it that much) needed assembly. then painted the body and nose with Tamiya chrome yellow, which is too bright for the real color but this is a quick build so I left it as is since there was nice coverage and all. Let it sit around for a couple weeks while I flocked the lower interior shell, made a back for the seat, dug up some decals for the gauges, and did some detail painting and chose a black and yellow color scheme. The bubble top on these are always a PITA to tint and detail but actually turned out to be not that bad if you don't look real close. used Tamiya clear blue and then outlined the clear portion (masked during the tint) with a black sharpie. some problems began to manifest as I tried to join the body shell to the pre-built chassis, and I was expecting that to happen given I didn't build the chassis so I didn't know about compromises made, etc. as it turned out, not big problems, out of box the interior has some extruded pieces of plastic that rest on one of the crossbars of the rear chassis area, but those made the interior, and hence the body, sit way high in the rear so I chopped them down and the body settled down approx. 6 scale inches lower in the rear. the front could have used some lowering as well but the frame is firmly resting on the notched part of the firewall and also the interior on the pair of engines, so decided it looks good the way it is. then the final fitting of the bubble top to the body, almost always a traumatic experience but in this case, some sanding the bottom of the bubble and then gluing it to the surround (delicate process to not get glue on bubble but apply enough to make it sturdy enough to handle), and it fit right down in its hole pretty good. a bit more fiddling and surfacing the lower surface of the bubble snugged it down even further. but then some of the famous Revell fiddliness got to me: the bubble is hinged, but the supplied hinge seems to be at a weird angle and at least in my trying never let the top sit down properly in its hole like it would without the hinge. then there are these little chrome rods with a tiny tiny ball on top, that is supposed to fit inside this equally tiny tiny little socket which is to be glued to the underside of the bubble top, which is relieved to accept them. then the shaft end of the rods is supposed to fit inside these tiny tiny holes to each side of the seat in the interior piece. yeah that all looks kool in the instrux but let me tell you...I had no more luck with it than I did when I ended up throwing the whole thing against the wall when I was 12 years old! only this time I had the wisdom (ahem) and patience to just laugh at the lunacy of expecting some 12 year old kid to be able to put that puzzle together and decide it looked totally good without that "feature" while telling oneself that you can always go back and do that when you are either more sober or more drunk than you are now. but for now the bubble looks good in place and can be posed in partial open mode or of course removed to see interior detail. anyway turned out pretty good if you don't look too close at the tint in the bubble and disregard the bit of glue on front suspension and ignore the fact the motors are not wired (I would have done that), but I am happy to add another Roth car to my collection and this one in a relatively painless manner. next up I would like to try the Road Agent I think. as always comments suggestions questions cheerfully responded to. thanks again! edit to add: think I will ink in that fuel door on the rear deck! jb
  22. >You obviously have no idea what it's really like in California. I've seen people shot for a lot less than car tipping. >Oh yeah, do that to my car and I'll do a lot worse than shoot you. California born and raised. kool another internet bad man! the problem is, those people you refer to end up doing long terms in prison which is where you would be if you did what you talk. there is zero defense for shooting someone screwing with your car. a car is not a life and death situation. maybe you should look into the actual law before posting nonsense like this. and, im just guessing, quit listening to ted nugent. believe me, if that were my car I would want to shoot someone too but the reality is you will end up paying dearly for the privilege. that's what its "really like in California" jb
  23. original issues are never "worthless", and will probably retain at least 80% of their current value, at least as soon as the dust from the reissue settles. it always happens like that. but my suggestion would be to open it and build it; it aint doing you any good all sealed up on some shelf jb
  24. the cube: it is out of scale being 1/24 vs 1/25 so I may well replace it at some point with...a 63 Ford pickup! thanks for the comments! jb
  25. And then other times it is rocket science. obviously not the case here. jb
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