tim boyd

Craig, Chuck, and Bob: Today I checked on the Roadster (built in 2015) and the Five Window Coupe (built in 2021?) that used the whitewall decals. On the 2015 build (where I had to use a ton of MicroSol to get the rar whitewalls to settle down), there were a few spots where the decal had pulled away ever so slightly from the tire, and the front whitewall decals had some minute wrinkles that were not there originally, but it both cases you had to look really hard to see them. In the 2021 build, the decals looked fine but in handling the model, the rear whitewalls have developed a sticky surface of sorts. Neither situation would be enough to keep me from doing this process again, but does suggest that there may be a few mid-long term tradeoffs of sorts....TIM

Hey Dan, yes I'm out here, and yes I just watched the video. So, so cool that you chose to do this project, and share it with us. Honestly, when I did this one some 35 years ago, I never, never even remotely dreamed it would inspire someone to do a such an exact duplicate so many years later. As far as the colors go, I think your choices are actually closer to the original than you give yourself credit for, particularly when seen at the end of the video under bright lighting. I also think your choice of front tires is actually more era-appropriate than what i did. And, of course, you are spot on with regards to your substitution of the front suspension for the modern era Revell '32 Ford components, as i recall getting the front end stance right was the biggest pain of that whole build, and the new parts take away that problem as your results show. The resulting finsihed model is truly a tribute to the original, and a very fine one at that. Anyway, great job, and it is hard to convey exactly how I feel right now, so just let me sum up by saying a very big "thank you"!!!! TIM

Mike....terrific family of Jo-Hans. My favorites are your '64 Polara convert and your '65 300 hardop....thanks for sharing! TB

LOOKIN' really good, Bill....steady as she goes! Cheers....TIM

After having Phil add photos of his intended GSL same kit entry to this thread, anyone else who built a model for this event but was not able to attend is welcome to add photos of your project in this thread....have at it, guys!!!! TIm

What Hector said just above. Also very, very cool that you fixed the rear wheel well openings back to factory stock too! Thanks for posting, Phil! TB

Martin...that is one fine, fine project you just finished. Very envious of your underhood detail in particular. And you photos/backdrop are spectacular, too! Way to go! TIM

Great job, all. Anyone else have a '29A closed cab hot rod project inspired by Dennis' build thread you'd like to share with us here? Thanks in advance.... TIM

MW....terrific build and conversion! As you may have heard, I was the 1/1 scale Ford SVT Sales and Marketing Manager and overall team leader when the 1996 SVT Mystic Cobra was announced and produced. It was a really interesting project, as you might have guessed. Team Mustang, Ford Dearborn Assembly, Ford Division, our SVT certified dealers, and of course, BASF all contributed to make this project a success. I remember driving our SVT marketing team crazy with my insistence that they photograph the car in such a way to show the degree of color shift. In the end, mission was accomplished, but I have to say your photos do a great job of doing that as well... (For those of you unfamiliar with the SVT Mystic Cobra project, there is a whole passionate internet group these days who research, celebrate, and in some cases, collect/own these cars. They have uncovered countless factoids about these cars, and while I wouldn't claim to know otherwise, some of them go well beyond my own understanding of the project at the time. Including the info that Saleen ran a few cars before the SVT factory effort. Not saying it didn't happen that way, just saying that i, and our SVT team to the best of my knowledge, did not know about this at the time. And the stories about the paint being closely tracked for body shop repairs are true, although I do not recall hearing personally that it went to the extent of government agents being involved in overseeing body shop repairs...) Back to this model, MW you should be (and I suspect you are) tremendously proud of your replica of this rare and valued 1/1 scale project at Ford/SVT....TIM

Marcos, that is one fine, fine piece of modeling work. Big kudos from this corner....TIM

Dave...this is a great looking model that really does a fine job showing the potentials for this new Round 2 AMT kit. Cool!!!! TB

Jay....great job putting together this terrific new kit. FWIW, as you may have read previously, I too had difficulty with the side graphics and hood decals. Looks to me like you did a fine job overcoming that issue as well. Big congrats, and also glad to hear you too think this is a kit well worth purchasing if the subject interests the buyer...TIM

That looks really, really sharp! TB

Claude, you are so, so on the money with your statement at the start of this thread. While I've used parts from many JoHan kits over the years, there are very few that I've actually built mostly or completely straight from the box. Here are a few... - 1961 Chrysler New Yorker annual kit: - 1963 Chrysler 300 annual kit (restoration of a model previously built by someone else: 1963 Plymouth Fury (built from the 99 cents one version only annual kit): 1970 Gene Snow Rambunctious Funny Car: 1972 Mickey Thompson Funny Car: 1935 Mercedes 500K Coupe: There may be one or two more, both these are the ones top of mind...TB

Really, really nice completion of a model subject I never ever dreamed would appear in 1/25th scale! Cheers....TIM

I recall hearing that the internal effort to create the 35 years of Scale Auto CD took at least a couple of years of effort by the Kalmbach staff. Not working on it full time, of course, but as part of overall ongoing job responsibilities. It's a very cool idea, but my point and counsel is to not underestimate the amount of work such an endeavor would require. I'm not part of MCM's internal magazine staff, but if I was, I'd agree with Dan's post above that right now there are higher priorities given the both the financial and human resources at the MCM enterprise. TB

Phil...sorry you couldn't make it there (believe me, I understand how that happens!), but would you consider sharing photos of your planned entry here with the rest of us here in this thread? That is, if you want to.... Best....TB

Craig and Chuck....I did shoot clear (I think it was Tamiya Semi-Gloss) before applying the whitewalls, primarily to give the decals a panted surface to adhere to. I'm not aware of any degradation...it's been nine years since I built it - but I will check it out and get back to you all....TB

Thanks Russell...I have updated the original post accordingly. And a little bit of humor and fun is always a good thing for the model car hobby! Cheers...TB

The images below were photographed at the Common Kit Class table at the last-ever GSL International Model Car Championship in Salt Lake City this past May...everything from super-clean box stock builds to wild conversions....great work by all involved! Enjoy....TIM Terrance Kordash ***** Pryor Passarino II ***** Joe Porche ***** Joe Porche ***** Joe Porche ***** Paul Tolonen ***** Wes Hofferber ***** Wes Hofferber ***** Chuck Failner (is this the correct spelling of Chuck's last name?) ***** John Teresi ***** Robert George ***** Mike Felix ***** Karl Betterton ***** Russell Cook ***** Bernard Kron ***** Curt Raitz ***** Dale Mickley ***** Gary Moore ***** Ken Leslie ***** Tim Kolankiewicz - ....this one was probably my own personal favorite out of all these great builds....Sure hoping Tim features this project in a future issue of MCM!!!! ***** Marty Coffel (is this the correct spelling?) ****** Mike Kenney ***** Ryan Rice ***** Vince LoBosco....modern Ford in a Ford! YEAH Vince!!!! ***** Robert George ***** Marc Weller ***** Kurt Womack **** Brandon Boyd (not a relative of mine) ***** Michael Apodaca ***** Again, any help in identifying models without the builder's name or any misspelled names would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for checking this out and again, great work by all involved. TIM

Here follows a collage of photos of my buildup of the original issue of Heller's 1/24th scale Ferrari P4 kit. I built this kit box stock way back in 1974, with Pactra Red as the paint color. While many feel this kit was/is difficult to assemble, to the best of my memories from 49 (Ouch!) years ago, I did not encounter any real issues with this kit. (Now as to Heller's 917K, that's a whole 'nother story!) Thanks for checking this out...TIM

Dennis and all of you,,,,I really am so humbled by all of this. To think that a project hammered out in my home in Farmington Hills, MI, back sometime in 1989, would have such an impact then and now is really incomprehensible to me today. (And it sure would have been back then - 34 years ago - too!) As I recall....then Street Rodder Editor Tom Vogele (who does not get enough credit in the modeling community for all he did for us - his predecessors Geoff Carter and Pat Ganahl as well), told me he wanted to do an issue of the mag that had extra coverage of model cars. During the prior decade, the Modeler's Corner column had grown to become the second most popular recurring feature in the mag (Biil Burnham's "In Bill's Eye" op-ed was the tops each month). Although it wasn't entirely evident to me at the time (I knew Budd Anderson had been talking to the McMullen Publishing team about how he could do work for them), it turned out that the entire issue was a bit of a trial balloon as to whether a full-on model car rag was a business venture worth trying there (McMullen had a history of successful trail balloons like this - most famously, Truckin' magazine, which at one time was among the top selling newsstand car mags ever). Anyway, I recall telling Tom that he was risking a big blowback from the 1/1 scale readers with this idea, but in his own humble way he told me to let him worry about that. From what I recall, the broadly related model car coverage in that issue eventually ran to 36 pages, with me contributing about 1/2 the content. Included was a Jerry Weesner interview of Budd, a "state of the hobby" article, a list of model car related sources and suppliers, features on hot rod modelers including Jack Davis and Pryor Passorino, and a pictorial of some of the best hot rod models of the era. I had already submitted a three-part "how to" feature for upcoming (yet to be published) Modeler's Corner columns - we had enjoyed success with multi-column model builds in the mag before - and Tom decided to run all three columns as a single feature in the special issue to wrap up all the other modeling related content. I do recall the issue prompting some nasty-grams in the Letters column in the following issues - I never asked whether this was the only negative feedback or just a portion of the letters on the topic (I suspect it may have been more of the latter...). As it turned out, according to Budd (if I am remembering this correctly - I did not hear it from Tom), Budd had been dealing with Ken Yee - who was essentially running McMullen at that time - about a full-time model mag. According to Budd, Ken said that he would publish the mag - but only if Budd fronted the funds for the trail issue, which Budd was not in a position to do. Of course, Budd is not around today to explain this further, but I do recall him writing about this in one of the model related pubs before he passed. Anyway, that issue of Street Rodder was the first and only one to carry that level of coverage of non-1/1 scale hot rodding - pretty amazing when you think about it. Back to today, learning it had the impact on some of you that is seen here, is well, just something else... Back to the specific subject directly at hand, here are some shots of the completed Modeler's Corner project model, which is as Dennis (and Johnny Winter) says, is "still alive and well". And like Dennis, I really encourage any others of you to post here your related projects of a similar theme - whether they were inspired by my build or not - but especially if they are recent model projects inspired by Dennis' "On the Bench" project and forum thread. Speaking for both Dennis and I, there really is no greater reward for a model car journalist and builder then to see his ideas and work inspire others to interpret it in their own ways. So, enjoy looking at all the incredible model projects posted here, and once again - thanks to you all!!!! TIM ********************** S ************************************************************

Dennis....I sure will sometime this weekend. Needless to say, extremely excited about your idea and will do whatever I can to support it. Meanwhile, great to see all these builds once again alogether....way to go, guys! TIM

x3!!!! tb

Yeah! Another completed build of this excellent model kit! Way to go, Rex. My fervent hope is that the enthusiasm for this kit on this board (not only the initial reactions, but the quantity and quality of the completed builds posted here) is indicative of a strongly positive hobby market reaction (e.g., strong sales results) to this kit. An overwhelming market success for this kit would go a long way in building confidence at Revell's ownership group that fully detailed kits (including complete standalone powertrains) and replicas of first generation musclecars are a genre worthy of additional investments of time and money for future kit product choices...TIM