TonyW

Period perfect! The wheels and tires are spot on. I love the way that gold glows in the sunlight. Tony.

Thanks, I'm a sucker for a Monogram kit, the older the better! Here's the wooden kit the plastic one replaced... ... followed by the next two issues of PC1.

Here's a dealer display I created years back. It's built to show the three Model A Phaeton options shown on the box top of Monograms PC64 Phaeton. The stock model is built straight out the box, no paint, just the bare plastic Monogram provided. The other two were built from parts cars and wrecks to duplicate the two custom versions shown. The base was designed in Photoshop, using the box top as a source, and printed at home on an A3 printer. The prints were mounted on heavy card with sprayglue. The two round raised tables are plastic card with plastic tubes supporting them. It's just had a clean up and general bit of attention after years in storage.

Here's a 90's re-issue Midget Racer built to display alongside my unbuilt original kit. KIT No PC 1, Monograms very first plastic model. The re-issue is identical to the first but made in polystyrene. The original was acetate. Rattle can red, buffed out. Even after polishing the life out of the finish, it still isn't as glossy as the original acetate finish of the unbuilt kit! Monogram moulding was first class, right from the starting line. The original kit had no chrome parts. My build has the chrome supplied by Molotow pen. A fantastic product, it really does look like chrome. No racing number added for this build, the second issue kit got a number seven added, I wanted this build to replicate the first issue.

A proper Mini! It looks spot on. I had the real deal many years back. This build brought back happy memories. Tony.

That's a first class build of a favourite car and year of mine. I'm biased as I owned an early '63 galaxie 500XL, black on black, a while back. Mine was not a cop car, but I Hotrodded the hell out of it instead! After the 390 blew up, a 460 and C6 got slotted in along with ARE wheels and fat tires. I had more fun with that car than is legal. Happy days. Tony.

Wow, this thread was just waiting to happen! There's some great looking displays going on here. Here's a couple of shots of my old hobby room... I used to rotate different collections around. One week Monogram, next week Airfix and so on. I built the room to be flexible enough to do this. I used pegboard for the walls to give an old Hobby Shop look to the place. The shots above don't have many built models on show. The room was newly built at that point and I was trying out different setups. Happy days! Tony.

Here's a shot of some of my Surf/Fink stuff. We moved out of the apartment that display was in some time ago. Everything is in storage for now, awaiting me doing a bit of construction in the new place. Tony.

A very clean build. The forward rake and thinned out wheel spokes are subtle but very effective modifications. I'm really looking forward to seeing yours completed. I rebuilt the same car, from a glue bomb, years back. I also made it a store display to sit on. It's a close copy of the real thing, but with a slimmer base. Here's a shot of it, alongside a couple of others I made. I'm a big fan of early Monogram kits, they have a look all their own. Tony.

Now that's a good looking model. The Chargers pretty good as well! Tony.

I build and collect. Monogram and Airfix are a couple of brands that get my attention, along with a few others. I used to display a revolving selection of boxed kits and model builds in a spare room in a flat I lived in until recently. The displays changed fairly frequently and the models and boxes got a dusting when they went back into storage. The pictures here don't show too many built models but they do exist, honest, it's just these are the only pictures to hand. At my new place I have room to build a good sized shed in the garden to display a whole lot more. First I need to build the thing though! Tony.

Got me a copy of the Round Two MPC re-issue Stroker McGurk Hemi Surf Board. It turned up today, from the USA, after the UK Customs and Royal Mail kicking me right where it hurts with 'Handling charges' Greedy swine. Ho Hum, It's here now and I'm a happy bunny. More as it gets built. Tony.

Good looking, clean builds. Well done that man!.

I built that one back in nineteen hundred and frozen to death. It didn't look anywhere near as good as this one!! Thanks for posting the pictures.

A piece of your own history. Be proud of it, and be happy for your memories of it. I wish I had some of my early models, but they went years ago. Tony.

Here's a few of mine...

Well spotted! It is an original, complete with Jeffries crest on the front fender. It's been hit with my Molotow pen although I've drawn the line at painting in any detail! The Humbrol red used came from an old tin, one of the grey stripe ones. Old Humbrol seems to flow really well and the gloss has to be seen to be believed. I used a new brush, stirred the paint for ages and put the freshly painted car body inside a polythene cake container. It still attracted dust though One day I might get lucky.

After seeing Snakes restoration of his Monkeemobile further down the page, I got into gear and hit my own build. It's been stalled for ages so here's the excuse needed to do something about that! It's a three footer to be honest. : Little things just would not come together as I would have liked. The finish is brush painted Humbrol enamel and although it has a terrific shine and no brush marks, it does have a few bits of dust here and there. Enamel won't polish out like Cellulose, so that's it for the colour. The decals are damaged. They look OK, but no more than that. The top and interior have been painted more than once. The original car had a tan top and interior, although I remember it a white as a kid. The original cars had various colour changes over the years along with different tires and Monkee scripts on the doors. I ended up picking what looked best to me, rather than a historically accurate scheme. I added redbands to the original Goodyears as I like the look a lot. Mine are a bitoversized as I'm still getting the hang of using paint pens for this job. I've found pictures of the car with redbands, buebands and white letter Goodyears on the internet. Any would have looked good on the model. My kit was salvaged from a beat to death boxed model advertized on ebay a few years back, it was unbuilt but missing a few parts. There was only one exhaust pipe, out of eight, for instance. I built mine out of ally tube, flared by shoving the sharp end of my needle nose pliers into the pipe and twisting it around until the desired flare happened. They are slightly oversized but an improvement of the crude kit parts. I like them. About half the chrome plate was missing, from the engine parts as well as the Cragars. A Molotov pen sorted that out in short order. I've been a bit harsh with myself on this one. It should have turned out better. There's always the next kit though. Not to worry, it looks good to me placed alongside an original unbuilt Airfix issue, complete with Press Release letter and photo from the time. Just don't get too close, that's all. Tony.

That's a fine looking restoration. I like the idea of not going over the top with the rebuild. It's a piece of your modelling history with the memories attached every bit as important as the kit itself. I'm currently doing a rebuild of a Monkeemobile myself, it's on a slow burner but I'll post the results here once it's finished. I used these aftermarket decals... ... Very nice but very difficult to fit. They are incredibly thin and like to wrinkle up given half a chance.

Checking the tires I did last night I find the paint has dried hard and has a matt finish. Using a scientific spit test, I find the paint is water based. Probably an acrylic in that case. That should mean it can be used as a striping tool on just about any finish. I didn't check at the Art supplier for white pens in the range. If they do, I can see a whole load of wide whitewalls in my future. I'll take a look next time I'm over there.

I recently found these POSCA paint filled pens in a local Art and Craft shop. They are similar to Molotow Chrome Pens, only they hold paint instead of ink. A good shake, then push the tip down a few times and paint flows. I got the 0.7mm tip version. These were the brand my shop stocked, there are probably others out there. I tried them freehand on a couple of spare tires and got decent results by following a raised part of the sidewall on the tires. Excess paint was easily removed with a sharp knife. The results were better than my attempts at brush painting bands on tires but could do with yet more improvement. Loading up a tire onto the arbour attachment on a cheapo hobby bench grinder and then touching the spinning tire with a red pen got me a perfect Redline tire!! I love it when a plan comes together. Tony.

A few more...

After a day of trying to fit scale air into your models tires and paint the Champion makings on the spark plugs, you need a bit of a break. Dig out the silly stuff for an instant lighten up! Here's a few of mine...

I'm a fan of the old cardboard Dealer Displays hobby stores used to have in their windows. Being in the UK means they are a bit hard to find though. My solution was to build my own. Here's a few of them... ... the models are all restored originals. The displays were done in Photoshop and printed and mounted at home. I used catalog and boxtop images to build what I thought the displays might have looked like. When I built these there was very little info out there. Finding Dean Milano's Museum site was a huge help and the Monogram books now in print made life a whole lot easier as well. The Little T model was built by a very talented modeler, Harley Richards, and once combined with this display base made its first appearance on Daves Show Rod site many years ago. Where have all the years gone? Here's the page it appeared on... http://www.showrods.com/gallery_pages/little_t1.html Digging these displays out of storage has been a very enjoyable trip down Memory Lane.

I built this Monogram 1:8 '32 way back in time. Revell supplied the figures, a bit of Milliput here and there made them fit. I had a huge grin on my face right through the build! The model has done stirling duties as a display piece over the years at more than a few car shows. It's been repaired endlessly after all kinds of storage and transport disasters. One of my favorite models