Custom Mike

I was hoping you'd pick this one back up Bill, it's a beautiful design! I like the original rims more, but I've been known to change rims at the last second....on just about every build I've ever done!

If you need or want some of that foil, PM me your address, I've got a bunch of it here for future use!

If you or someone you know smokes, get the embossed foil from a pack of cigarettes and put a piece of it behind them, it really makes the tail lights pop! It won't make them super bright like normal foil does either! Scratch-made tail lights with cigarette pack foil behind them...

Thanks John, but i still need to master Alclad like you have...and my scratch building is getting better, but I'm not even in the ballpark with you!

And some quick mock-ups. I added in the stainless mesh, in silver and black, then slapped some foil on it real quick and tried the brass mesh. It actually looks better in person, but the camera shows how rough it is, so the foil will be removed and the corners smoothed out. But it does show that the idea worked, and looks pretty good to boot! The upper grille is gonna kill me, but it's gonna get done, I have no choice now!

Finishing off the quarter-round strips, once they were all in place, I removed the excess angle from the frame so it was flush with the quarter-round... Yeah, I've got to tighten up those corners really bad!

Next was adding the quarter-round strips around the edges of the new "grille shell"...

Thanks Doc, let's see what you think of this! Since Fotki is back up and running, I can do some updates! I made up the lower grille surround Saturday, and it came out great! I've still got to get the corners looking better on the top sides, but I can do that (Hopefully) pretty easily! On with the update! I started with some angle-shaped styrene, cutting four pieces to fill in the lower grille. Once they were all ready, a bit of Tamiya liquid cement was applied! And what it looks like from the inside. The channel will allow me to cut a flat piece of mesh to fit, and give me something to glue it too! It also makes the grille assembly completely removable!

Charlie, I just noticed your question about the blue paint. It's a Nail Polish, I can't recall the name, but it's a Pearl Blue that I got from Claire's Boutique...sorry I can't give you any more information on it. In my defense, it's been almost two years since I finished it, so I get a pass, right?

Well, I want to do an update, since I got the grille surround for the lower grille made up Saturday, but Fotki is still down, so I can't. Trust me, it came out looking cool, but it was a long process to say the least, about 10 hours worth of work in all. The upper grille is gonna be a real pain, I already tried once and scrapped it, so I know I'm in for a fight! As soon as Fotki gets their stuff together, I'll post the pics!

Awesome work as usual Bill, I love watching your builds! And I still can't get Fotki to work here, I've got updates to make, this is killing me!

I say finish it as it is Chris. It's an easy to get kit, so it's not like you'll never be able to get you hands on another one. I think it's pretty cool, even if it's something I wouldn't have done, I like seeing other people's custom work!

This is about as crazy as one of my customs will ever get, a 6-wheeled Dodge Sidewinder.

Thanks Ray! Dennis, thanks for the high praise, but I just try out new stuff and hope for the best. Doing a custom is hard, but after you get a successful one under your belt, they get easier and easier. It's all about building your confidence with each successful custom you build. I'm at the point now where I can "see" what I want in my head, and I have no doubt I can pull it off. It doesn't work every time, but I'll keep trying until I force my skills to match my vision! It's also made me a better scratch-builder than I ever thought I could be, I have to make things that don't exist all the time on my customs, so now I can make what I need on my other builds with a confidence I never had before! One day I'll drop my Jo-Han Javelin chassis/interior/engine bay re-engineering project here. If I had never done a custom, I wouldn't have tried tackling this project, but so far, the plan to improve all the flaws in that old Jo-Han kit is coming along beautifully! Maybe that'll be the one that gets attention from a resin caster, who knows?

Robert, this is a massive undertaking, but it looks like you've got a great plan so far, I feel like my stuff is pretty tame compared to something like this, I've got a long way to go before I try to scratch build a body like you and Jeremy Jon are doing!

Jim, you're doing some stellar work on all the details, now we need to get you a better camera with a great Macro feature so we can see all that awesome work in sharp focus!

Jonathan, that is simply wicked looking!

Greg, I'm not sure about the round bumperettes myself, but I can always mock something up. I talked to a buddy of mine today who does nothing but Military stuff about some Photo-Etched gunsights to go in the upper grille, we'll see how that looks too! Glenn, all the stuff posted right now is purely mock-ups, but if I like the looks of something, I'll keep it. Right now I'm just trying different styles of mesh and looking for the one style that I like the most with this model. Color doesn't matter yet, that comes later! But the '57 Chevy and Nomad had Gold grilles..... Pat, if you can get some pics of that car, I'd love to see it! James, thanks brother, now get back to work on that killer '53 Panel! Dan, I'm leaning toward that stainless mesh just for that reason, it's a match for the original grille! Chris, I had never heard of the Stagea, but after a quick Google search, I've gotta say, that one cool little wagon!

Thanks for the compliment Wayne, I appreciate it! Maybe it's just me being a glutton for punishment, but I just couldn't do a decal, an open grille looks so much better! Yeah, it's a pain, and yeah, I screwed up twice, but it'll look better being able to see through it in the end!

And now I show the second crack. I did this when trying to shape the stainless mesh to fit in the lower grille opening. The stainless is much harder than the brass mesh I used on my '32 5-Window, so it took a bit more force on the basswood buck I made to get it to form properly. After a hearty whack on the basswood buck, a loud crack rang out, but I had a pretty stainless mesh grille at least! The good news is, it's already fixed, so no big worry there. The stainless mesh grille...and the crack. The good part was, the cracked area on both this and the hood were 90% Acrylic Filler, so a drop of superglue put them both back together good as new! And the lower grille in brass mesh. I still don't know which one I'm going with at this point, they're just here so I can look at 'em and decide which way I'm gonna go. And now a couple of shots of the upper and lower grilles in brass. I'll make up and upper grille in stainless tomorrow night if I get the time, just so I can see how it compares to the brass mesh. Right now the only thing I'm concerned with is getting the upper grille opening finished off, and making a quarter-round surround for both grilles. then I'll start worrying about which one looks right!

The crack in the hood was glued back together, sanded smooth, and some more sanding stick work was done to smooth everything out and square-up the new hole in the hood... And now a few shots to see how it looks at different angles... After getting the hood cleaned up, I removed all the parts from the body that didn't need to be there. Side mirrors, headlight and tail light buckets, and side windows are all now sitting in the interior so I hopefully don't lose them! The Photo-Etched '57 Chevy side trim can't be removed without damaging it, it's epoxied in place, so I'll just have to mask over it and be very careful working on the side window modifications.

OK, here we go! A buddy over on Scale Avenue did a quick couple of MS Paint versions of an upper grille in the hood, and hit on one that really does the trick! Here's what Jeremy came up with, the Momad script won't be there, but the grille idea itself is solid, so I'm going for it! I started out marking the area I wanted to remove with a pencil.... Two small holes were drilled at each corner, and larger holes were drilled across the top and bottom edges.... Now the fun part begins, cutting the opening. I used a Photo-Etched saw blade in an X-Acto handle to do this part, and proceeded carefully... Here's where the first problem popped up. As I was removing the center section, I heard a crack. If you look on the lower left side of the hood, you can see where it's not lined up anymore. I got it glued back together cleanly though, so that little disaster was averted... A couple of quick passes with a 180 grit sanding stick got it looking like this. The hood's crack still has not been glued back together at this point, so it's still a bit off.

Tom, I'm in the Alarm industry, and I can tell you, unless that phone is part of a business and you can write it off on your taxes, get rid of it and go with a cellular communicator. When you figure in the cost of monitoring for your alarm system, add in the monthly cost for the phone line. It usually ends up in the $70-$80 dollar a month range with a phone line. We charge $30 a month for a cellular communicator, saving most customers at least $40 a month!

I've had this kit for years, I'll be watching to see if there's any issues I need to watch out for! Great color choice too!

Jim, these two are the original issue of the Baldwin-Motion Camaro, and both are built straight out of the box with no problems of any kind...well, the red one's paint is a problem, but that's my fault. This is the ride height out of the box, and I could have easily dropped the nose on this kit, but I liked the stance level. It's a beautifully done kit that screams for tons of detailing, and now that it actually has a full decal set, I'm gonna buy another couple of 'em!