StevenGuthmiller

Love it! I found one of these as a built up a few years ago & rebuilt it. Still one of my favorite pieces. Steve

Did you prime first? When I strip lacquers with Super Clean, I've found that it is ineffective on the lacquer itself but dissolves the primer making the lacquer come off in sheets. It's my understanding that Purple Power is not as powerful as Super Clean as well. I've found that putting a few scratches in the surface of the paint will allow the Super clean to penetrate to the primer & produces results much faster. Keeping the solution warm is helpful as well. I've stripped multi-coat Duplicolor paint jobs with Super Clean & while it can sometimes take a while to work, it WILL take off the the lacquer. I have had problems with it completely removing the primer at times, but never the paint. And yes, get it in a plastic container. Steve

Meh. I agree that the '58 GM cars were all overly "embellished" but I have to say, I don't like what you did with this one. Granted, part of that might be just the expectation of what a '58 Impala looks like. I don't like the new roof line at all. I've always really liked the forward slanting pillars & the wrap around glass. And the side trim is too '57 Ford to me. I think cleaning up the hood & fenders looks good, but I think a different side treatment would look better. Steve

I like that a lot better! Steve

Nice looking Merc Tulio! Steve

I don't think the roof line itself looks bad & I actually like the little "kick up" at the trailing end of the rear glass. ( kind of reminiscent of the early 60s Dodges & Plymouths) But the wide blacked out B-pillar & the vent pillar before the C-pillar totally kill it for me. The small vent window up front doesn't help it either. Making it a hardtop & eliminating all of those pillars would look much better IMO. The vent window could stay, but making it a little larger & slanted back at the top would be an improvement. Steve

This is a great idea. I'll never be able to do it myself. I'm no design artist. But I will comment on what you did Harry. The GTO is hard to improve upon in my opinion, but I will admit that the changes you made do give it a much "sleeker" look. Although as Craig said, it may be a little too "Mopar-ish". The Cadillac changes also look good, but personally, I like the before picture better. As far as the Marlin goes, well, that's a tough one. The changes take away a little of the boxiness, but I'm not sure if it helps make it "not ugly". I wouldn't call the styling of the original GTO or Cadillac a "snafu", but the Marlin could use more help than you gave it! Steve

Thanks Ken. Not my idea. I believe I stole that from somebody. Steve

I agree. There were a lot of really beautiful roof lines produced over the years. This isn't one of them. Maybe a '60-'61 Starliner type of roof? Steve

Don't glue them. I put skirts on a '62 Ford & their just taped on from the back side with regular masking tape. I did it that way so that they could be easily removed later without damaging anything. By the way, the Buick is looking fantastic!! Steve

Wow! I just can't believe that someone is actually taking the time to rebuild a Palmer kit! Good luck! Steve

Paint looks great! Richelieu blue was actually the same code as Chevrolet "Jewel Blue". Don't know about "Silver Blue". I couldn't find that one on the chip cards for '61. I used this same color on a '61 Bonneville but the paint came from MCW. I was completely blown away by the difference in the color when it was in natural sun light! Steve

Why not just get the Monogram '69 Super Bee kit. It's 1/24th scale instead of 1/25th but there's no conversion required. Steve

First of all, in order to keep it as original as possible, I would have had the original chrome pieces replated rather than replacing them with resin. But that's water under the bridge at this point. The wheels are most likely pressed into the tires. Those can be removed by "un-pressing" them. place the tires up on a couple of blocks of some sort with the front of the wheel facing down so that the wheel itself is not touching the blocks. Then just lightly tap the back of the wheel with a small hammer to slowly force the wheel from the tire. As far as heat sealed parts go, just carefully cut away at the back of the part until the part comes out. I've literally just taken a small needle nose pliers & carefully broken away the melted pieces of the back of the parts until they were free. Worked just fine for me. Just don't get too brutal. The best way to remove these parts would probably be with a Dremel tool with a reamer bit just grinding out the melted area of the part. The plastic that promos of that period are made of is pretty durable & flexible & can withstand a fair amount of cranking on. The steering wheel was never molded to the dash in these promos. It was probably either glued or heat swaged into place. I would cut it off at the dash, re-drill the dash & replace the steering wheel with either a kit wheel or resin. Steve

Not much today except a vital grille for my '68 Coronet. Steve

Great work Gene! I saved some photos on my hard drive a while back as a reference for a project. Looks like you may have saved the same ones!

Nice Al! Steve

Nice bird Donald! Paint looks great! Steve

I don't know what the problem is Bill, & I don't much care. All I know is that I have absolutely no problems with any other sites on the net or any other hosting sites. Every time I log on to Photobucket, it's 20 minutes of my life that I'm never going to get back. Not worth it. Steve

Where I live, it doesn't flow at all! Steve

Since Photobucket supposedly resolved their "hacking" issues & did their updating, I have noticed no improvement in performance. It's still as slow as molasses in January & it still keeps trying to freeze up my computer. Update ineffective! Steve

OOPS! Steve

I will agree with that. You'll never find as many body issues with a Johan kit as you do with a lot of others. Especially the modern kits. Steve

Nobody will ever know the difference. Steve

Please, let's not! Steve