jaymcminn

Glad to see this one finished, Bill. that's a mean-looking little sucker.

Here's a couple for ya...

I'll bite the tip of a round toothpick to flatten it out and separate the fibers of the wood into a sort of "brush". It gets down into the panel lines and really lifts the polish/wax out.

Phil's is pretty good. He used to do a model car show until a few years ago. The local shop here (Naples) is an unfortunate combination of poorly-stocked and ridiculously expensive.

The Paasche VL is a good choice, but $109.99? You should be able to find that brush online for about half that. Paasche H is an excellent beginner's choice, too.

Peter, I'm only a couple of miles away- Golden Gate, off of Santa Barbara. With your scratchbuilding skills (that Timbs Streamliner is AMAZING) fabricating a Carson top should be a piece of cake!

Verrry nice- I like the stance. by "the bells are from Michael's" do you mean the intake trumpets? And if so, are they actual bells? Where do they have them?

Looking forward to this- that chrome trim up front is pretty intimidating, though!

I like the idea of doing a Tudor sedan- you never see that body style in scale.

Good job so far, Peter. I actually did something like this a few years back with the Revell kit- it's wearing a Modelhaus resin Carson top (with modifications, of course) for the '50 Ford. To get everything to work right, I grafted in the tulip panel and windshield header from the Ford. I like the idea of a modern custom for yours!

A little change of plan... I finessed out the remaining minor bodywork issues using Duplicolor red oxide primer and decided I really liked the color. It's still going to get painted flames in white and light blue or turquoise- in fact, I might get a little more ambitious on the flames than I had originally planned. Motor and wheels will be painted light blue or turquoise to match the flames. I've started mocking up the frame-to-engine fit and the ride height- pics on that later. In the meantime, here are some pics of the primered body. This was the first time I used the technique of brushing liquid cement over shaved moldings to prevent "ghosting"- I was amazed by how well it worked!

That's some amazing work. Really beautiful.

Gotta go with the '62 Bird here, although all of these are great builds. And I am so stealing that wet hood backdrop idea from the Ferrari F1 pic!

That pro-touring Volare might be my favorite model car of the year. Nice work on all of them!

Great weathering and decal work.. Your scratchbuilding skills are fantastic!

A few years back, I got into a bit of a slump where I would start doing initial bodywork on projects and get bored with them. One of those projects was this '49 Ford. I did the chop on the top and opened the rear wheelwells before filing it back into the box. Fast forward a few years- I'm out of my slump and starting to reopen a few of those boxes. Starting back to work on this Ford, I was a little disappointed with the look- I had gone a little too far in smoothing the body out and it looked a little... blah. I added the drip rails back on with styrene stock and added a thin trim strip to break up the slab-like body sides. Then I molded the front and rear pans and trimmed the stock front grille to work with the roll pan. It's looking better... I then attacked the engine bay. The basic idea of this car is to be "clean and mean". The paint will be gloss black with flames (my first painted flame job, should be fun!) and the motor will be the Hemi from the Revell '32 Ford, which will be sporting RMCM's 8-carb log. The engine bay will be sanitary- no battery, no clutter, just engine. The goal with this one is to look as good (or better!) with the hood off as with it on. To that end, I sanded off all the molded-in engine bay detail and filled the areas that needed to be cut out. Wheels will probably be Revell '40 Ford wide whites and steelies with beauty rings and bullet caps, painted red or orange. For the interior, I'm thinking of trying the Ken Hamilton Mexican blanket technique using different colored thread over masking tape. This would be used as inserts on the factory bench seats and door panels. I'm trying out a few new things on this build (the flames, the interior treatment) and am pretty excited to see where it winds up going. As always, any questions or comments are welcome!

That looks fantastic, but it's riding a little high there, don't ya think? (just kidding... it's perfect!)

Great work, Jim. That color's wild!

And a few more with different lighting...

So here are the pics of the finished Revell '58 Impala... here's the link to the build thread. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50895 Overall I was really pleased with this kit- the overall look is spot-on and the more unusual touches, such as the separate chrome trim, worked out pretty well (although I still used Bare-Metal Foil on the upper part of the rear-quarter trim, which was pretty badly scuffed). I wound up using the lowered mounting holes in the kit front suspension and jacking up the rear suspension by three scale inches, which required moving the axle back by a similar amount to space the wheel properly in the wheelwell. The dummy side pipes are aluminum tubing, but I'm not sure about the tailpipes- with the dummy sidepipes would the real exhausts be concealed? Anyway, on to the pics...

Got this one finished yesterday- here's a pic for you., More pics and overall building impressions of this kit in "Under Glass" soon!

Latest update... I finished the interior/engine bay/trunk unit. Next up is to mount this into the body shell. I foiled and applied the chrome trim pieces to the body (what a nightmare!) but don't have a pic of that up just yet. The chassis is nearly there- I used the lowered front suspension holes and had to raise the rear suspension by about 3 scale inches to give it the right rake. Final assembly should be tonight or tomorrow- in the meantime here are pics of the completed interior, with floor shift and parts-box steering wheel with "wood" rim.

I actually liked it without the "B" pillar and as a 2-door- kind of a phantom Nomad hardtop wagon. Seriously- that's really nice-looking.

Yes, the 409 was a bored/stroked 348. Externally they were nearly identical.

So I was actually able to get some work done over the last couple of days... the motor was painted Inca Gold. I debated replacing the undersized kit distributor but eventually wound up using it- drilled, with white plug wires. I scratchbuilt a coil and added a fuel line as well as finding a nice air filter in the parts box, but otherwise it's out of the box. Next I moved onto the interior. I mixed this creamy pale yellow base color with Testors acrylics... Then I masked the outline of the seat inserts with Bare-Metal Foil and painted the inserts white... and then I masked off the stripes, spraying them in bright yellow and brown. To be honest, I don't think an actual customizer in the '60's would have painstakingly reproduced the stock upholstery pattern in different colors, as tuck-n-roll upholstery was a lot more common back then, but I really like the effect and the colors really work with the exterior. Next step is to finish the interior and start on the chassis!