bobss396

The AMT '49 Ford has one to consider, but lacks a stock intake and exhaust manifolds. The newer Revell '49 Mercury also has a Caddy engine with stock appearing exhaust manifolds. It builds up nicely. You can always swap a 4-barrel intake onto it.

I have more than a few '40 Ford kits. I like the AMT ones over the Revell kits. I call them a blank canvas. I have a blue box art one started, no others in the queue. I have an unused Y-block fro a '56 Ford kit that would be nice to use. I should start gathering parts for another one.

Ron Coon makes what I will call the best resin slick tires for the modifieds. Look at his T11 and T19 tires. Also his wheels and hubs are very good. I go with the 3/8" deep ones. They work well with the MPC modified backings. All of the above need to be cleaned/soaked before prime & paint. I use warm water and dish soap for a few hours. I then using the same soapy water, scrub with a toothbrush. The last ones I followed up with the toothbrush again and Soft Scrub. I'm sure Comet is just as good. I use what I have. One set I just painted with Tamiya TS63 or TS82, no primer. I had taped them to cardboard with 2-sided tape and when I stuck the finished side down, the paint came off when I took them off. Primer is highly recommended.

Thanks all. This was a consignment job in exchange for an old '32 Ford coupe kit. It was supposed to be "box stock", but I couldn't live with the kit wheels. I usually take about 5/16" out of the chassis, there is too much space between the engine and firewall. It will impact the motor mount and I also moved the entire crossmember assembly back a little. A big mistake I made was to extend the headers about 1/8". This I do on the Pinto and Vega, really messes with the rub-rail installation on the coupes. I had to do some surgery on those. I used real springs on the front and rear coilovers. A lot of work, but worth it for the realism. The front down-bars, the plastic kit ones were junk, I used .062" aluminum tubing. I made the entire roll cage from scratch. I made 2 actually and will see if I have pictures of it or can take some. I made up a plastic plate to use as a jig, so I can make the cage and know it will fit. One big thing to be aware of, the driver side bars have to be moved as much as possible to the left so there is room for the seat. I also make up a dash, the kit does not have one. So I tried out some new ideas on this one. I have another coupe going, it is on hold right now. I'm still gathering/making parts for it. The kit has great potential with a little... er... lot of work. Real bad things on the kits are how much clean-up the rear springs need, also the headers. Which are really not accurate at all. The existing roll cage is terrible. I make up blocks to locate the body to the chassis or else it is all over the place.

My 1st 40 was around 1963. Molded in black. The AMT 49 Ford has a nice tri power Caddy mill in it.

With the #13 Chevelle, a template was made up from a rental car. The #13 car passed the contour check easily. A couple of other Chevelles that were entered, they failed the check. Smokey Yunick did a lot of little subtle things to the car, exploiting the gray areas of the rule book. The seat was moved to the maximum left as possible. The bumpers were tucked in, holes were filled to direct air under the car. The bottom of the car was smoothed out. The glass was moved to the outside of the car too.

My closest store is a 20 mile hike... they had tons of AWB Nova kits, truck trailers, the old Ford roadsters, I picked up the Ford cop car kit. I'm not sure if it will be worth a 40 mile round trip.

More progress on the '56. Scratch built the radiator and support. The dash needed location help too. The cage is a parts box donation with added bars. Seat is from Ron Coon Resins.

Some earlier shots of the build. I always make up location blocks for pinning the body to the chassis, so it goes back together the same way. You can see how I closed up the wheel wells.

This was completed last month. Big Donkey resin body, NASCAR donor chassis. Tons of scratch built parts. Tires are from Big Donkey, wheels and hubs from Ron Coon. Paint is Tamiya #45 pearl white and #76 silver.

Found some un zoomed pics of the build.

I have this one super heavy positive cable on my Ford, it goes from the firewall solenoid to the starter. Black, it came off a junk car many years ago. It hung on a nail on my garage wall for about 35 years. The ones for my Ford I had made up by a speed shop while I waited, I went black and red.

I have an OG issue of this kit in the small box, with the tube of putty and the stick-on felt. I really should say, fork it and build it.

I never wanted to be the "best" at anything. I like to be respected, let someone else take the high honors. With stock cars, I was happy to take a 3rd or 4th place finish with a 10th place car. With models, I could go way out there and super-detail them. I have done it and it consumed me for 9 months on ONE build. My brother did an amazing rollback wrecker, that took a solid year out of his life. I see guys in my club build 4 or 5 models in a month, mostly out of the box and maybe some parts swapped around, but zero scratch built details. Making stuff out of nothing is where I am at. That is the fun part, honestly the build loses some of the fun once I start squirting paint on them. There is one modeler some of us may know, he is known as The Primer King. He rarely finishes anything in the 20 years I have known him. He is my spirit animal.

I did one about 12 years ago in black primer. They are great kits. The blue looks good on it.

Thanks. I have to find some pix that are not zoomed in.

This is made from the old MPC modified coupe kit. I built it late this year in exchange for an old rare kit. I tried out some new ideas on this build like using real springs in the coil overs. Paint is Tamiya TS98 orange, decals by Ace, wheels are from PPP.

IMO, the most crucial part of the build is the glass. If that is off... so is the rest of the car. You have done the car some real justice.

I built the convertible years ago. I put a roll cage in it and made it into a stock car, IIRC at age 11. I have some of the new '64 kits that were released maybe around 1996. They are always a fun build.

Word. I strive to build as best as possible, no matter where the car will wind up. ALL of my builds are contest-quality in theory. I don't let anyone see sub-standard work off my bench. If it shows in the finished model, it has to look good. I have a "few"... cough... cough... models that have gone back into storage. I finished up a '49 Ford that I started in 2008, a '64 Fairlane stock car started in 2010. I have a '60 Chevy wrecker that I put away at 80% completion in 2000. I have reached a burn-out state in the past, not a good place to be. I find myself dialing the detail level back a bit and it gets me past those slumps.

I like Ace Hardware enamels for stock car chassis and cage work. They dry fairly fast (faster in the dehydrator) and hold up better to handling. The Tamiya sprays wear through pretty quickly.

I used 2 pieces of .030 x .188 Evergreen stock and a piece of .020 x .188 to close it up more. I used Tamiya liquid glue and finished it off with thin CA glue, let it set up overnight. Then got out the sanding sticks... it took only a minor amount of spot putty to fix up some low areas. I have to get back into this soon. I'm close to doing the final cage and chassis assembly.

The old Hobby Heaven board was rife with disinformation and bourbon-legends regarding painting. My last visit there was like 15 years ago. Another hobby paint that sprays well from a can is the Model Master Extreme Lacquers. Their clear is also quite good. I have 3 or 4 airbrushes. I'm lazy and have a lack of space to contend with. So cans it is.

She wanted a bonded pair. One other place, too many flaming hoops to jump through. This place was close to us. I was surprised they were not scooped up already. There was another kitten, all over the place and very friendly and playful. For a single kitten, it would have been perfect.

My girlfriend wanted 2 kittens for Christmas. We went all over before finding these 2 sisters. We picked them up today. 10 weeks old. Names are Brie and Blue.