StevenGuthmiller

Hope you have a great birthday Harry! I believe you deserve it. Steve

Well, I give up. I measured the overall length of the model & it's roughly 8.5 inches in length. That would come to 212.5 inches on the 1:1. According to the information I found, the 1:1 should be 219.8 inches. That's more than 7 inches short for the model. I don't know where a guy would get a scale 7 inch stretch on the model without making it look like a cartoon. That's more than a quarter of an inch! Adding a quarter of an inch to the area between the wheel well & the door would definitely not work by itself. The way I see it, the only remedy would be to add tiny slivers of plastic all along the body in select areas so as not to throw off the look of the entire car in one area. I know Bill Geary is a stickler for this sort of thing, & I'm sure whatever he comes up with will look great, but I personally would never even contemplate proceeding with a surgery like this. I still see little difference between the 1:1 photos of the 300 and the Johan New Yorker in appearance. Let's keep in mind, if Johan downsized the body to fit the box, it only stands to reason that they would downsize the overall scale. I did a little more research and these are the results that I came up with. The overall height of the 1:1 was 55.1 inches. The model is roughly 2 1/8 inches high, making it just under 2 scale inches too short. The 1:1 was 79.5 inches wide, the model, 3 inches. This means that the model is also nearly 4 1/2 scale inches too narrow. So, as we see, in order to make this model the correct dimensions, the entire scale needs to be changed. Instead of 1/25th scale, Johan must have made this kit closer to 1/26th or 1/27th scale. Steve

Being as this model is 1/25th scale, multiplying times 25 should give you the 1:1 measurement. According to my calculations, 4.825 x 25 = 120.625. If that were correct, the model would be 6 scale inches too short. Can't be. Steve

You could always try shooting straight automotive lacquer over bare plastic. This is one circumstance where lacquer's tendency to "craze" plastic may come in handy. Steve

Yes Bill, but don't you think that measuring a shared chassis plate may not be the way to get accurate body proportions? My only point is, stretching the front end may only make the car look more out of proportion. Looking at the photo comparisons above, the only thing that I'm seeing that looks like it might be a bit out of whack is the rear wheel opening & perhaps the length of the lower rear quarter between the rear wheel & the bumper. I still think that the front fender looks accurate between the 1:1 300 pics & the Johan New Yorker. Seems to me any stretching in that area will really make it look wrong, especially when your talking about 4 scale inches. Steve

Agreed, there is no perfect paint job, But for the purpose of painting a model car, harry does quite alright with a simple spray can. My point was, an air brush is not necessarily the only avenue to progress. Steve

There's a very good possibility that the chassis on the original Johan kit might be a little off. These chassis plates were very rudimentary & were shared between a lot of Chrysler, Plymouth & Dodge kits for several years. So the likelihood of the wheel base being a little wonky on the kit is very good. But looking at the body itself compared to the 300 photos, I see no perceptible difference. I think this photo of a '61 Windsor may illustrate at least some of the difference in length. The length of the lower front fender between the fender well & door edge is obviously shorter than any of the 300 pics or the Johan New Yorker. I would imagine the rest of the 4 inches would have been eaten up some where else along the body. To my eye, the door looks shorter on the Windsor as well. But there is a marked difference between the Windsor & the New Yorker in the front fender area. Steve

Looks pretty good for a small scale. Yeah, the glass looks a little out of place & it really would benefit from a set of wide whites, but otherwise a very nice build! Steve

I'm really not seeing enough difference to justify cutting the body apart Bill. I'm no expert & you may be right about the wheel base situation, but I'm not seeing it. Short of actually getting out a ruler, I don't see how anyone would ever question it. Just looking at the distances between door lines & wheel arches & the position of the rear wheel in accordance with the C-pillar, I'm not detecting any difference. Part of the appearance of additional length on the 300 may have something to do with the extra trim on the New Yorker, specifically the wheel well & rocker panel trim. By the way, according to my research, The 300 & New Yorker were on a 126 inch wheel base, not 124, & the Windsor was 122". I'm absolutely not seeing a 4 inch difference. Steve

I always thought that this could be a relatively easy conversion. There's very little difference between the New Yorker & the 300 appearance wise. All you would have to do is remove all of the New Yorker trim, exchange grilles, add the 300 side trim & exchange interiors. The side trim would be the most difficult part. The interior could be pretty easily revamped from an original '62 Chrysler 300 interior, if you can find one. Not a lot of variation between '61 & '62 interiors. I've not thought too much about taking on this conversion though. Johan '61 Chrysler New Yorkers are pretty rare birds in their own right & cutting one up would go against my grain. But if someone really wanted a '61 300, I think this would very definitely be the most direct route. Steve

Is there a next level? If there is, I haven't seen it. Steve

Can't disagree with any of that. I use both cans & airbrush as well. Just depends on the situation. Steve

Or you just buy one on ebay. Steve

Straight Duplicolor "Perfect Match". Steve

No need to worry about the grille or bumper Bill, but I would be willing to work a deal if you find some good glass. Yeah, it was a bit painful to the wallet to purchase this one, but after seeing a couple of other ones go for well over $200.00 over the past couple of weeks, I think I did alright. The body, hood, bumpers, tail lights & all of the interior parts are pretty much pristine. As with the '69 that I built, all of the guts would come from a modern kit anyway. Steve

I toyed with the idea of using the the glass from the '70 Super Bee kit in my '69 Coronet but I have a suspicion that it may share the new glass with the AMT '68 Road Runner kit & it just didn't seem to fit quite right. I could probably make it work with a little fiddling. Just out of curiosity, I checked my '69 Charger 500 kit & you're right, it looks like the same grille. Only problem is, it has the "Charger 500" script molded into it. It would be a real pain to remove it without damaging the fine grille members. Water under the bridge anyway. The original grille is on it's way. Steve

We could give them the benefit of the doubt, but the whole point of their existence is to do one thing & one thing only.......store photos. I'm not the type to throw something over board because of one indiscretion, but this has been building for me for a long time. I've probably wasted hours on Photobucket waiting for pages to load & tip toeing through all of the adds. Plus it's propensity to completely freeze up my computer nearly every time I use it is pretty much more than I can, or will withstand. I probably will not remove my photos & yes, I will probably check back from time to time to see if they've gotten their act together, but in the meantime, I see no reason to patronize a service that basically doesn't work. Steve

I have been tentatively keeping my eyes peeled for one of these for a while. I finally decided to drop the hammer on one. There is a kind of funny story that goes along with it. I found this on ebay as an incomplete kit. Most of the important parts are there. The only big thing that I could see that was missing was the glass. I struggled a little to tell in the photos whether or not the stock grille was there, but there were 2 grilles included so I assumed that one would be the stock article. To my dismay, when the package came today, there were only 2 custom grilles in the box. Well, not being the type to worry about these things I told myself that I would merely keep my eyes peeled for a grille. Just out of curiosity, when I got home from work, I thought I would do a quick ebay check & lo & behold a seller had a stock grille, & front & rear bumpers up for auction with only 52 minutes left! I threw a quick bid up on the grille & won. I won't tell you that the kit or the grille were cheap........because they weren't, but they were within my comfort zone. If anyone is interested in the trailer, I may do a trade for a glass set for an original MPC '68, '69 or '70 coronet. Of course I will need to do a parts inventory to see if everything is there first. Steve

Should be a pretty straight forward operation Bill. Just paint the tub white, mask off the areas you want to stay white & shoot the whole thing with turquoise. Just don't go over board & do something like I did to mine! Steve

Looks like Photobucket better stock up on those free mouse pads! Do I need to add anything to my argument about Photobucket being a POS? I believe they made my point for me. Steve

Nice project Bill. I love the '59 Edsels. My favorite of the 3 years. I built mine several years ago & it started out as a "Junior Craftsman" kit. They can come pretty cheap occasionally. It's been a while, but I believe I got it for around $30.00. No need to thank me for the script tip Bill. I don't guard secrets. I want everyone to know about it if I have a technique that works well. It's just that not everyone listens. Steve

I noticed that there were problems again yesterday. On another forum, I had posts that were missing some photos & not others. Just more fuel for the fire & another reason why I started this thread. Steve

You can do that, but eventually you "will" run out of space. Then you have to go back & start deleting something. Been there, done that. Steve

That's kind of a tough question to answer right off of the cuff. It's kind of like being a plumber & asking what tools & tips you need to do a root canal. It might be a better approach to ask individual specific questions. I don't want to be a grinch, but I think most of us would be hard pressed to get you going in the right direction in a paragraph. Most of us have developed our building techniques over decades & there is a lot to cover. Steve

There's no accounting for tastes Harry. Obviously someone thought this looked good. Steve