MarkJ

No sweat J.C. Like I said it was dumb of me to think that nobody could figure out which car I was doing. It's actually good because now I can show the paint part of the wip.

Now that the cats out of the bag. I was crazy to think I could keep the identity of this build a secret. It was probably the only 66 comet driven in 1966. Any who, I thought I would show you the body images I made to help with the decal creation and also to help cut out the wheel openings. You just tape them on the side of the model and use them as a pattern. It's surprising how close they get these model bodies to fit a 1/25 scale picture of a real car. it has to be a really good, centered profile shot which I was lucky to find both sides of the car. The pictures are of a museum car, but the guy says he used the real Bud Moore Comet to make it, and he has the serial numbers to prove it. I have the link to the article if anyone is interested.

Man, this cage is awesome, Pierre. Much better than trying to squeeze a cage for something else in this body. About as custom built as you can get.

The top photo J. C. posted is the Southern 500 car. The bottom photo has to be the Rebel 300 car because placement of the contingencies are completely different. the Southern 500 car does appear to me that the front is drooped a little. Mute point any way because this model mounts the Front bumper directly to the body and not a frame that is not even there on this kit. so I will just mount the bumper a little higher like I originally planned to. Plus the Rebel car had the fiberglass hood with scoops and the Southern 500 car had a standard Comet sheet metal hood.

Thanks, James. You have set me straight on how they did this now. They sloped the fenders down instead of reattaching the bumper in a higher location. Kind of like they did to the Ford Talladegas. I think I could model this by cutting the fenders at the front of the doors and then removing some material from the fenders and reattaching them to the doors. It would have to be a wedge shaped looking piece of material removed with a curve in it to match the curve of the front of the door. Might just have to give this a go of it. Stay tuned. I wont do it unless I know I won't destroy the model in the process.

Thanks, Pierre.

I added a pin and hole to the rear bumper area, to help locate the bumper to the new rear panel I had to model, so when I glue it after the painting is done, it will be in the right location, and at the right angle. This glue cures really fast.

I did a little more checking on my ref pictures of the front of the car I am modeling and have come to the conclusion that it probably had bright grilles in the grille enclosures. I'm thinking stamped aluminum, so I will probably paint my grilles that way. I believe in the pictures the grilles were just grimy and I mistaked them for being painted black. I also noticed that I believe the front bumper was installed a few inches higher than the stock location should be. The car did suffer some front-end damage during the race, but I don't think the bumper was involved. it appears to have no damage other then it looks a little high. Maybe they wanted less frontal area on the car for aerodynamic reasons.

Pierre, check your private messages.

Thanks, Pierre.

This is the right way to go about this chassis. Better than taking a chassis from another kit and making it fit into the body. that would be more of a dog's breakfast then what you are doing. You have the ref photos right there to build off of . What could be better than that.

I have one actual ref picture of the car I'm building from the front, and it is partially obscured by a pit crew member going from one side of the car to the other. If you blow up the picture, you can see that there has been some race damage to the grille and that some of the chrome had been removed from it prerace. Even the bar down the middle had a molding removed from it that would leave a valley with holes in it that I really did not want to model because I didn't know if that was prerace or happened after the front end damage, so I just came up with something that kind of looks like the grille might have looked like before the damage, but I'm not really sure. The main thing is that it does not look like a 67 comet grille. One thing it has over the amt grille is that air can flow through my grille which is no big deal. The amt grilles are one-piece castings.

No, I'm through with the grille. I have seen the amt comet grille. It doesn't look anything like the car I'm doing had.

Thanks, Ricky.

Thanks, Trevor and Bill.

Thanks, Jason.

Thanks, Pierre.

Thanks, Pierre. I think I'll just stay with this deal I'm doing. I could make a grille decal myself, but I think it might look like an old car trying to look like a modern car that is supposed to have decal headlights and grilles.

Yes, what is with the 429 C.I. I don't recall Pontiac having that size engine. Don't sweat the chassis too much. Just use the chassis in the box and add a few bars here and there. As long as you have something to carry the seat, cage, engine and have something to attach the tires and wheels to your good.

After studying my ref pictures more, I came to the realization that this Comet was a Comet Cyclone that came with a fiberglass hood with scoops and a grille with more of a horizontal bar look that was split in the middle. So, I had to make 4 separate grilles to fill in the grille cavities. The smallest material I could find was some .020 rod, so that's why it's not as accurate as I would want it to look, I would need .010 rod to do it justice. But I don't think they make it, and my finger dexterity is not what it use to be to pull that off anyway. And the glue would melt material that small. So, this will be close enough for me. The car I'm modeling had the hood changed to a metal stock comet hood for the race I'm representing. So that's why I'm having to remove the hood scoops. A lot of the chrome trim on the grille was also removed and they painted the grille black, so just so I have the basic look of a 66 Comet grille will have to suffice.

Excellent work, Pierre. All your mods look well thought out and will give you magnificent results. I will try the fender flares on my current project. I also like the windshield and back glass retention ideas. Really looking forward to the paint portion of the build.