SfanGoch

I gotta plead guilty to what Bill said. I'm sorry I didn't check out this thread earlier. That is magnificent workmanship, Doug. Jaw-droppingly magnificent. This is the best reengineered Pocher kit I've ever seen.

Thanks, Bruce. Wesco Enterprises manufactures the stuff. I don't believe that Michaels carries it. It seems that Canadian art supply stores only carry Apoxie Epoxy Clay which, although somewhat similar, isn't as good as Magic-Sculpt. You can order Magic-Sculpt from The Compleat Sculptor , located here in NYC. There are other art supplies that sell it; but, they sell colors other than gray and white, which are available in 1 lb. sets for around 20 bucks, in 1/2 lb. sets for the same price. Ripoff, brother. Compleat Sculptor sells all available colors as 1 lb. sets for $18.99.

The UPS guy wouldn't have a clue as to what happened. That's not his pay grade to know. He loads up at the terminal and makes his delivery/pickup rounds. Contact UPS customer service and listen to the canned music while you're on hold for the next hour or so.

Thanks, Bill. I know Steve at Star Models offers a resin '52 Ford Club Coupe. I just wanted to see for myself how hard it would be to convert the Lindberg body into one. So far, much easier than I expected. A '49 Ford NYPD RMP is going to be a breeze. The AMT '49 Ford straight OOB nails it. I was looking over pics of a '35 Ford 5 window Coupe and the AMT '36 kit would work with a backdated grille. Anybody know if a resin '35 Ford grille is available? I'm also on the prowl for an R&R Resin '50 Plymouth 2 Dr Sedan. With a bit of roof surgery, it can be converted into a Plymouth Concord Business Coupe.The rub here is that R&R closed shop when the owner died four years ago and no other casters have purchased the masters and molds. This kit, like every other R&R item, is just about impossible to find on ebay, or anywhere else. That's a shame because R&R produced some very obscure and interesting subjects which are still ignored by other resin casters. Take that as more than a hint, resin dudes. BTW, if anyone has this tucked away and doesn't intend to build it, PM me. Perhaps we can work out something.

So how come why saying upstairs above? No engine, full kit not so much. Yes.

Thanks Carl. I try to explain my approach as concisely as possible. That way, people won't think I'm making stuff up.

What is The Law? Not say problem we see! What is the penalty for breaking The Law! Go to House of Pain!

No prob, Chris. I'm happy that it will work with minimum agita.

Hokay, I didn't have any spinners to use as bases for the parking lamp lenses, per Steve's suggestion. Sooooooo, I had to go through the tedious process of making one and casting a pair. I used a '58 Impala tail light lens and glued the stem into a 3/32" OD aluminum tube. I then cut the mess down to measure 3 mm (don't you hate it when some stronzo uses both standard and metric measurements interchangeably? If I were me, I'd pop me right in the wazoo, but good, and I'm just the guy to do it.) and CA'ed three styrene fins to the tube. Using Magic-Sculpt (No, I'm not a compensated spokesman shilling for the company. This is really great stuff!) I made a mold and used fiberglass resin to make the copies. Lemme tell you, they are small! This is the grille with the lenses temporarily installed. I coated the grille with Model Master Semi Gloss Black followed with Metalizer Stainless Steel applied with a cotton swab. I don't bother with the airbrush (too much of a hassle, maaaaaaan!) because this is done to check the overall look and to highlight any imperfections I might have missed. The deal on using the swab is to dip the tip of the swab directly into the Metalizer and let the solvent evaporate completely. When it is completely dry, lightly rub the swab on the part. You'll see a gradual buildup of Metalizer on the surface. The more you rub, the brighter it gets. A trick I learned years ago is to follow up the Metalizer application by buffing the part with powdered graphite, which really imparts a realistic chrome look.

I find "up" an offensive, microaggressive term. Someone once called me illiterate. Of course, I smugly informed him that me ma and pa were married.

I just received an important message from the Big Stupid Bullyman word monitoring group. Every word in your reply has been added to the banned list.

As primarily an armor modeler, RoG's current selection of armor kits sucks big time. Ditto with cars, planes, etc.

The way RoG's parts replacement service is currently set up, if you don't live in the EU, you're SOL.

Checking out the meager selection of kits of any genre available on the RoG website, we be in some deep poop if they maintain the status quo regarding their inventory.

I was looking at the MCW '60 Catalina/Ventura HT and, aside from the roof and hood spear, the Trumpeter body compares favorably. The MCG '60 Bonneville PE set will correct any other shortcomings in the Trumpeter kit. MCW '60 Catalina Trumpeter '60 Bonneville. Notice the difference between hood spears on these two models. What a coincidence that I happened to post pics of two different versions of the same car with identical paint jobs. It makes more sense for me to pay fifty bucks for a complete resin car kit and copy the hood than $60+ for a builder/junkyard special. I'll also add MCW's '59 Catalina HT, the '63 and '64 Catalina and Grand Prix HT's and SMH's Johan recasts of early '60s Mopars to my "gotta get'em" list. All of those bodies/models combined will cost less than a single, unbuilt AMT '63 Bonneville. I need the extra dough I'd save to get parts for a modulated light beam powered optical telephone I want to build.

It's not a matter of availability, Bill. It comes down to two things. Most of the AMT '60 Bonnevilles I've checked out on ebay (I have it on saved search) are, for the most part, pretty ratty. To call any of them builders would be a stretch. I can't justify the cost, nor the amount of work involved to rebuild, to make one presentable. Then, there's the problem of missing chrome, tail lights, etc. which, at chop shop prices, ends up jacking the total to over a hundred bucks to restore a junk model. I would rather invest the time in correcting the faults in what is already a pretty decent kit. If I can find a junk AMT body at what I consider a reasonable price, I'll grab it so I can make fiberglass copies of the hood. That weird looking hood spear on the Trumpeter kit annoys the living hell out of me. That hood spear is a deal breaker if it it's missing from any AMT Bonny I see.

You're not kidding about obscure pics, Bill. I scoured the net for months before I came across a resto parts supply site which had pics of the trunk lid stood up vertically, perfect for tracing the ribbing. I ordered a couple sets of Detail Master PE door hinges. The smaller ones can be used as trunk hinges. All that needs to be done is to grind them down along the top and inner portions of the "U" part so they'll fit. One thing that crossed my mind was adding torsion bars. You mentioned that you originally planned on doing that for your '59 Impala.

Yup. The '60 Impala has an almost imperceptible inward taper near the C pillars. I need to get my hands on an AMT '60 Bonneville HT or ragtop, a junk body or even a gluebomb. Trumpeter screwed up with the length (too short) and overall look (too wide) of the hood spear. I'd like to make a copy of the entire hood and use it on this kit.

Yeah Bill, that taper is annoyingly obvious. Tell me what you think of this solution: Remove the trim all the way back to the C pillars. File the inner vertical surface enough to straighten it and make it parallel with the door skin. Cement .50 x 1.5 mm stock on the inner lip, flush with the door top and then glue a piece of 1 x .75 or 1 mm strip stock to make a new window trim. Thanks Marty and Patrick. I hope the information will be of some use to anyone building these kits. Trunk lid from the '59 Impala. I traced a template from a scaled down photo of the underside ribbing and used that to make the ribbing from two single pieces of 1 mm sheet styrene and .25 mm sheet to fabricate the inserts. It actually looks better than the photo would indicate. The dark lines in the recesses are residue from the Revell Aqua Color 36137 Ziegelrot I use to detect defects. I credit my time in Catholic school carving .45 automatics from a bar of soap during art class for my somewhat questionable scratchbuilding skills. The screws.....uh....nuns turned a blind eye to this kind of artistic expression since they were armed with the dreaded "Board of Education", three heavy wooden rulers wrapped in rubber bands. They were some tough broads, I'll tell ya. The way that the trunk lid is modeled on the kit is odd. On the 1:1 lid, there is a vee shaped piece of trimwork which is attached to the trunk edge and is very prominent. When the trunk lid is separated from the body, there is a gaping hole in the shape of that trim. After making the inner lip for the lid opening, I taped the the lid on the body and used Magic-Sculpt to fabricate the trim piece. The Magic-Sculpt was pressed between the trunk lid and the rear panel. When it reached sufficient hardness, it was smoothed down with water and gently scraped flat to perfectly match the the angle and fit between the trunk lid and the body. Once completely hardened, the trim part was removed from the trunk lid and was sanded into its final form. This part is only 1 mm thick and is solid. Magic-Sculpt is a must-have item in any modeler's bag o'tricks. The finished trim piece was then epoxied in place. The trunk emblem will be replaced with the PE part from the MCG '59 Impala set.

Among some of the WIPs presently on my assembly line are three GM vehicles: A Revellogram '59 Impala HT A Revellogram '60 Impala HT A Trumpeter '60 Bonneville HT There has been a lot of discussion here about the problems with the roofs of the '59 Impala and Trumpeter kits; basically, that they are inaccurate. All three of these cars shared the same roof sheet metal so they should be identical in all aspects. I'll concede that the Bonneville is inaccurate.........to a point. The main issue with the Bonneville roof is that it is 2 mm shorter than it's supposed to be, which is 51 mm measured front-to rear. Also, the A pillars don't have the distinctive, graceful and noticeable curve as they meet the forward edge of the roof. This is error is shared with the RM '59 Impala. What I want to do here is dispel the theory that the roofs of all three kit bodies vary in shape, contour and overall accuracy. The '59 Impala was the first that I tweaked. Using reference photos, I saw what was required. I shaved off the outermost trim at the edge of the A pillars, leaving the second and third trim sections. The upper part of the pillars was filed and shaped to match the contours of the 1:1 car. It's that simple. No hacking off the roof of a '60 Impala and having to go through the process of grafting it onto the '59. Now, I'll explain what was done to the Bonneville. As I stated, The main issue with the Bonneville is that the length of the roof is 2 mm too short. This makes the tulip panel wide enough to park a car on. To correct this glaring error, I sawed the roof 5 mm from the rear window trim, made a cut 12 mm from the front edge of the trunk opening and a cut 2 mm in front of the base of the C pillars. 2 mm of styrene was added to the roof, the cut roof section was reattached and everything was filled and smoothed in. The piece of trim on the C pillars which is closest to the rear glass was shaved off and worked to match the shape of the pillars on the Revellogram bodies. The A pillars were next. The frontmost piece of trim was removed all the way to the roof joint, leaving the second and third pieces intact. I then used a diamond burr bit to form the curve as found on the '60 Impala. Finally, .025 styrene rod was glued to the front of the A pillars and the lower portion of the rod was blended into the lower windshield trim/cowl panel. This beats the heck out of the hack and graft for three reasons. First, I consider decapitating a perfectly good model car body an unnecessary and extravagant waste. You're destroying one kit to enhance another. Secondly, the work involved is extremely time consuming and labor intensive.You have to worry about cutting the cowl off the sacrificial donor body and that the area removed from the recipient body matches within very close tolerance. Unless you can make the cuts absolutely perfect, you'll end up spending a lot of time and effort filling and sanding around the entire perimeter of the upper body to blend everything seamlessly. For the average schmo, that means you're guaranteed to screw up somewhere along the process and the results will look like a U.S.D.A. Grade A turd and you'll only end up with two useless and destroyed bodies. Third reason, and one that should be of major importance to rivet counting builders who want absolute accuracy, is that you won't get that picture perfect, on-the-money-just-like-the-real-car-only-smaller 100% replication by grafting the '60 Impala roof onto the poor, allegedly inaccurate '59. Why, you may ask? Because the cowl on the '60 Impala is completely different.There are three vents and the wiper arms are located on the grilles of the outer ones, whereas, there is only one vent grille running across the '59's cowl and the wiper arms are located on the outside of the vent, on the cowl itself. You couldn't use the '60 roof on the Bonneville for the same reason because the Bonneville and '59 Impala cowls are identical. Now, let me bring up the contentious subject of the roofs on these three kit bodies. I had discussions regarding the shape and accuracy of the '59 Impala and the Trumpeter Bonneville. I always said that, aside from the shape of the '59 Impala's A pillars, its roof, and that of the '60, were 100% identical in every respect. Now, I'll prove my assertion. Thanks to the posts on fiberglass replacement parts by the inimitable resident automotive expert nonpareil, Bill Engwer, I was prompted to prove my point that there is no difference. So, I made a fiberglass mold of the '60 Impala roof This is the mold fitted on the '60 Impala Notice the fit along the roofline above and the C pillars in the photo below Next, I placed the mold on the '59 Impala Now, please observe that the fit is exactly as seen on the '60 roof, including the the fit on the windshield and backlight and both the A and C pillars. It lays perfectly flat. with no rocking front-to-rear or side-to-side. Zero difference. All contours match. Pictures don't lie; and, neither does the mold. If anyone still believes that there is a difference, what can I tell you? One might perceive something which is or isn't there and that is the case with the roofs of these two kits. I also checked the accuracy of the corrective surgery performed on Bonny. I slapped the mold on it and the fit was 100% identical to the '59 and '60 Impalas. Dead on match on all three cars. I'll pat myself on the back for getting this right the first time. I hope I was able to provide convincing evidence which changes any perception of difference or inaccuracy in the '59 Impala roof. I'll post more updates on these three as work progresses. If you feel like posting comments, criticisms, critiques, care to dispute my findings and/or methods or tell me you want to bust my beak for being a smartass wiseguy, feel free to do so.

Of course I know that the Mopars go for large amounts of cash. But, as I said, you can find them at great prices if you scour the internet long enough.I recently missed the opportunity to snag an unbuilt Polara for $49.99, an unbuilt Marlin for $39 and unbuilt '66 and '68 300s for $45 and $49 respectively. Those I saw listed at hobby store sites, not ebay. I was slow in inquiring about those kits and they were gone by the time I did.

The only time quoting some comment is convenient is when there are a few responses between the quoted post and your reply when it is posted on the board. This directs your comment to a specific person and you don't look like Rain Man answering to no one in particular with non sequiturs.

Revell paints, both enamel and acrylic, are fantastic. I still have about forty still good tins of 1981 vintage enamels I bought when I was stationed in FRG last century.

Nice rescue work. Have you decided if you'll go for the "broken in" look or total makeover?

Are you kidding?!? You Fords are fantastic. It's always great to see what else you have up your sleeve.