tim boyd

What Steven and Bob said! Thanks guys for putting my own thoughts into words....TIM

Kit....great choice on the door panels. ***** It's really fun to see Dennis' original build thread expand to include similar projects by all you who are following this thread! As for me, now thinking maybe this will be the year I finish up my early 1980's project of a scale replica of the Jim Jacobs Model A pickup that I posted much earlier in this thread... ******** Meanwhile, looking forward to seeing all the other 1980's inspired Model A Hot Rod projects posted here continue to move forward! TIM

Alan...very cool stuff! Would you believe that I used almost exactly the same approach when I first built my MPC/Dodge/Car Model funny car entry back in 1968? Here's my photos, showing the same type of props, that I took when restoring this old car a couple of years ago in 2019... I had to create two mask, one for the front as you used, and a second one to apply the paint over the rear canopy area.... ...and the final result after a few finish coats of old Testors Ed Roth Mysterion Candy Yellow ... By the way, yours came out great! Hopefully your post will encourage others to give this technique a try....TIM

Anyone reading this thread who has not clicked on the link in the first post from Patrick, take it from me and do so now! My favorite among all these? Steve's '64 300J. Exceptional work on display throughout this album.... TIM

Doug Whyte's '53 Studebaker from around 1990.....TIM

Heh Jim....thanks for the note and glad you like those Fotki how-tos.... As a writer and cheerlead for the model car hobby....I love to hear stories where a project I did inspired others to do their version of the same general theme. Would love to see yours when you deem appropriate! Best regards, and thanks again for the feedback.....TIM

JC.....killer job on that engine. Looks so real.....TIM PS - Jeff, the engine in the AMT Shelby Cobra Roadster Trophy Series kit is thought to be a 260 V8 as that is what was put in the early Cobra roadsters built by Shelby....TB

Chuck....Guilty as charged....smile. Best ...TIM

How Mike did it is exactly how I did it as well It is actually pretty doable for those of us who have some experience with BareMetal, which is exactly what it sounds like you Chuck already have a good deal of. By the way, the molding depth/layout looked exactly the same to my eyes on the original AMT annual kit body and the new Round 2 body. Here's how mine turned out....TIM

Hi Mike...glad you found the info useful... As for the exhaust tips - really interesting point you make here. Turns out that metal exhaust tips were part of designerJohn Mueller's original kit proposal (I've seen his parts layout blueprint that called them out), but between the original proposal and final production of the kit, the metal tips were dropped. Instead, the exhaust tips are plated styrene; they're part of the small chrome tree with the front axle and the two sets of wishbone radius rods. They are very small, molded with exhaust tips opened, and very easy to overlook on the parts tree. I just checked my second release kit version, and they're there. Hope that helps.....Best....TIM

Very, very nice! Congrats big time....TIM

Steve....I can't recall for sure, but I think both the yellow and brown drop tops were featured in a magazine article. May have been Truckin' magazine, or Scale Auto. In any case, it appeared in print sometime around 1985-86 I believe....TIM

There are different views on this depending on the restorer.....in recent years most of the restorations I have seen suggest that the exhaust manifolds were exposed steel, but were painted on the assembly line when already installed on the engine block and thus some paint overspray landed on the exhaust manifolds, particularly near where they attach to the cylinder heads. Here are two examples of how iI replicated how it looks on a freshly restored (vs. driver) Mopar performance era engine .... These were done by misting a 1/1 scale Hemi Orange spray bomb on from a distance....using an airbrush would yield an even more accurate scale appearance.... ***** And Steven....your engine build is simply spectacular. It is probably the most and best detailed Mopar performance era replica in 1/25th scale that i have ever seen in 50+ years of building and participating in this hobby. Best....TIM

I am sure Mike is going to do an excellent buildup of the kit in this thread. But for others of you who may be visiting this kit for the first time, here's a link to an on-line buildup I did of the original version of the kit released about six years ago. The only difference is that the new release adds a second wheel choice, new decals, and the small block Chevy in place of the of the nailhead Buick shown here. In addition to Tom's suggestions above (which I handled by painting the underbody floor flat black and then making sure to touch up the exposed interior wall tabs with flat black during final assembly), the single thing I see in most buildups of this kit that begs for further detail is to paint the parts of the front split wishbone radius rods, rear traction bars, and front shock mounts which on real cars attach to the frame and rear axle. These parts are molded in chrome in the kit. The model at the link shows this upgrade on the front shock absorber mounts and the frame mounted portion of the split front wishbones,,,,but omits this step on the portion of the rear traction bars that mounts to the axle (ooopppppsss! :)). Good luck Mike with your build. Particularly interested in seeing the finished paint scheme! Cool......TIM

Agreed! TIM

OK guys....this is what slammed (relatively speaking) pickup models looked like in the late 1970's/early 1980's.... MPC 1978 Chevy annual kit with accessories from the Pickups and Vans Revell Parts Packs issued around the same time.... After living in Nor-Cal for a couple of years, including weekly day trips to LA, I was influenced by several later model pickups with the roof removed.... ...and.... Still have a 1963 Unibody, to be combined with the chassis from the Chip Foose F150, and possibly a Coyote V8 powertrain....in the future build files. Many more pix posted here should you be interested....TIM

Roger....those are way, way cool! Particularly the unibodies.....great job. TIM

Bringing this thread back to the front of the forum pages to go along with the other thread on the '64 Cutlass Convertible. If you didn't see this one first time around, the first post in this thread includes a link to a detailed "what's inside the box" look and commentary.... Best,,,,TIM

Another easy solution to the slight tire/wheel misfit is to wrap one or two rotations of a thin strip of masking tape around the wheel rim before placing it into the tire....on my build, I didn't discover this until I had already started final assembly so I finished the model without making any changes. The tires are a little loose on the finished model, but the model still appears presentable. Not a big deal and easily fixed as described above... TIM

There is a full kit review and buildup (36 images and captions) of the new Round 2 1964 Olds Cutlass kit posted at the FineScale.com website. As I (and others) have pointed out many times in the past, the only way to get a true and complete read on a model kit is to actually build it and look at the finished result..... The online article includes info on factory correct exterior/interior colors, filling the axle holes in the engine block/oil pan, tweaking the minor sink marks (at least they were very minor in my kit), finding and addressing the mold parting lines, detailing the interior, bringing life to the one-piece chassis plate, specific hints on adding visual realism to the front and rear grille inserts, etc. It's the equivalent of what would have been an "expanded kit review/buildup" 4-5 page article in Kalmbach's old model car magazine or today's Model Cars mag. Virtually all the content would also apply for Round 2's upcoming Cutlass hardtop kit. Yes, there are indeed some minor areas of the new kit that can be legitimately criticized (some which are addressed in the thread comments above, and others in the expanded kit review content), but overall, this was a very fun kit to build and it yields a very sharp 1960's type annual kit type replica of the real car. Not to mention it sells for about $170 LESS than an original issue 1964 annual that has essentially the same minor annoyances found in the new kit. If you are a FineScale Subscriber (it's posted behind their subscriber firewall) and are thinking about buying or building the kit, recommend you check out the review posted here... Build review of the AMT 1964 Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass Convertible Customizing Kit scale model car | FineScale Modeler Magazine Best regards all....TIM

Thanks Carl.....cool, cool project! TIM

Model built with the original Revell Parts Pack frame due for reissue by Gofer,,,,TIM

Carl.....looks really, really intriguing, ….can we see any more pix of it? Cheers....TIM

Very, very cool idea! Thanks for posting....TIM

Heh Tom....you absolutely nailed that one! Great concept, delivered with quality and style. Way to go! TIM