Snake45

Does it have to be tubing (i.e., hollow)? I'd be willing to be you can find some clear monofilament fishing line about that size. You can also heat-stretch clear styrene sprue to whatever diameter you want. Getting it exactly to your desired dimension will probably take some practice, and you'll probably make several unsuitable pieces for every usable one you produce, but the price is right and it doesn't require any special equipment or unique skill.

Very nice! We don't see enough of these.

Very nicely done, Dave, and boy does that take me back! The old Mono woody was one of the very first model cars I ever built, back in 1966 or maybe even 1965. Come to think of it, I didn't even consider myself a "car modeler" yet but for some reason though Woodies were cool. I remember it had whitewall inserts and big slicks on Americans (or maybe they were Astro Supremes) on the rear. I carefully hand-painted the "inset" areas of the wood with a darker brown paint, not knowing that this wasn't really accurate. I still have most of that old model. Not sure I still have the wheels and tires but pretty sure I still have the rest. About a decade ago I bought a fairly cleanly built, unpainted "glue bomb"-ish example of the same kit, the idea being to combine parts from it with my old one and come up with one good model. Now you're making me want to dig that glue bomb out and see if I can work one of my Snake-Fu "survivor restos" on it. Very cool!

Very clean work, especially on the ultra-glossy white paint, which isn't easy to pull off. Well done! Not sure I'm really digging the "big steel" wheels, though. To be honest, they kind of remind me of a certain line of diecasts I see at Walmart (Jadas, maybe?) that I'd be tempted to buy one or two of, but their oversized wheels/tires put me off. But hey, that's just ME. It's YOUR model, and you built it the way YOU wanted, and good for you!

I never saw the Impala, ever, not to this day. And I only saw one or two Bonnevilles, one of which I bought. The places that carried these always seemed to have the Cads and T-birds in stock, though. I could swear I saw a '66 Wildcat, too, a few times--or have I completely imagi-membered that? ETA: I just googled it and yes there was a Wildcat in this line, too.

I've never seen an actual Sizzler kit "in the flesh," only pics on the net. My first exposure to the kit was a 1966 or '67 issue of the ancient Car Model magazine, where someone modified the Sizzler frame to make a tube funny car chassis for a '66 Skylark (which was painted sort of like the USA-1 Chevelle funny car of the day). I thought that was pretty cool. I recently acquired a modern Slingster kit, which I'm looking forward to doing SOMETHING with someday. Thinking of un-altering the Bantam body and making a '60s-ish street rod out of it. Not sure what I'll do with the rest but the kit looks like a parts mine.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I don't really think of this one as a "save," as the kit is common, cheap, and still available new. And I don't really think of it as a resto, either, because it was in pretty good shape (except for the near-broken A-pillar). I just laid some Snake-Fu on it, the way I do to diecasts, promos, and snappers, and maybe "repurposed" it a little. You might remember a couple months ago, I was up in the General section looking for a good word to describe work/projects of this kind. Got several good ideas, but not really any great ones (yet). Whatever you call it, it was cheap, it was fun, and it wasn't too difficult. It goes in the WIN column.

AMT never did a '66 Pontiac of any kind. They did '65 Bonneville, Grand Prix, (sort of) Catalina, and GTO. MPC did a '66 Bonneville in both HT and convertible. The Hasegawa kit is sort of a ripoff of the MPC '66, but not quite as nice in the body. But it can still be built up into a very attractive model, as we see here. BTW, AMT never got the roof right on ANY of their '65-'66 GM fullsize cars, Chevy, Olds, Buick, or Pontiac (except of course the '65 GP). The right side is pretty close to right, but the left side of the roof is completely whack. The Revell '65-'66 Impalas are a great improvement in this area.

Very nice! I gave up on the first-issue Revellogram '70 AAR and grafted its grille into a Monogram '71 body to make a righteous '70. That's as far as I've gotten. Haven't decided if I want to finish it as a Hemi or an AAR.

I've never measured the DD but the body of the dragster has always seemed way oversized to me, though the rest of the parts (wheels, tires, engines, axles, etc.) are 1/25. The dragster frames look a bit too large in the driver area, too, The Fiat is pretty much 1/25 but note that the whole nose is lengthened something like a foot to match one particular famous Fiat racer of the day. That one car is the only one stretched like that I've ever seen. If you want to build any Fiat altered out of that kit, you have to shorten the nose, which isn't as easy as it might sound because of the wedge shape of the hood.

You don't see these built that often. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Might be possible to just re-clear over the fingerprint and spot-polish that out. I'd try it before stripping, anyway.

Sometimes--SOMETIMES--when you install the interior and/or chassis into a warped body, it straightens it out. You can't count on this, but you might get lucky. It's worth testing for before taking more drastic action.

Wow, "Bright Gold" '70 Mustangs are all over the place! https://www.google.com/search?q=1970+mustang+bright+gold&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV457o6s3UAhVGbiYKHWG8CAQQ_AUIBygC&biw=1620&bih=860

I wouldn't have thought of that, but you could be right. http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/aclchip.aspx?image=1970-Ford-pg01.jpg

I'll bet the whole place smelled like rotten eggs, too. I learned this the hard way when I stripped a model with Easy Off a couple years ago, and thought I could mask off some paint I wanted to save with aluminum foil. Well, THAT didn't work out so well.

That MPC '66 is worthy of a full resto--either a survivor resto or a full rebuild. I'd survivor-resto the AMT '64 and put a blower motor coming through the hood hole. (I'm working on a similar project even as we speak). Too bad it doesn't have an intact '64 hood painted to match (or does it?). I just got a Palmer '66 myself last month, and am trying to come up with SOMETHING cool to do with it. Thinking maybe a Vette-"ish" kit car if I can find a suitable donor frame. (Mine has the windshield glass, but not the chrome frame.)

Very nice! It could very well be one of Tom Daniel's sketches in an early/mid '60s Rod & Custom, when he was still designing with taste and style.

Did you thin the Testors with lacquer thinner or something else? I've never had this happen with LT, though I did have something similar happen with Pactra Odds N Ends thinned with naphtha. It took over a year to dry hard enough to polish! But I've polished out Testor enamel thinned with LT after as little as 24 hours, though waiting at least 48 is better. BTW, I thin the Testor/Model Masters AT LEAST 50-50 with LT, and usually more, depending on how thick the Testor paint is. I've seen the MM enamels come anywhere from honey-like to almost airbrush-ready right out of the bottle, so it's hard to give exact ratios. It's just something you get a feel for eventually.

Very, very nice, both! IMHO Buick got the Riviera EXACTLY right in 1966 and everything they did to it after that only made it worse--only a little in '67, and then progressively worse after that.

I thought I had three kids, but judging by Father's Day, I only have one. Got 0 cards, got one call from my son, who was planning to be here but his C-17 is broken down in Las Vegas. (I guess if you HAVE to be stuck somewhere with a US Air Force credit card, you could do a lot worse). Not a card, not even a call from the other two. Oh well. Maybe someday they'll be sitting in my lawyer's office and find out what it feels like to be forgotten.

Looks like all the stock parts are there but the body (and glass?). I'd think it would be worth the investment to either convert that body back to stock, or tool up an all-new one.

Thanks. That's one of the few shades of that line I haven't used, or at least bought and spoon-tested. It came out pretty nice for no clearcoat and no rubout. I might have to find some kind of project to use that on.

That paint's pretty shiny for out of the can. What kind is it? Brand/color?

Sweet! I'd be proud to have built that myself. You are a Glue Bomb Savior! Model on!