tim boyd

Lee....no worries....always feel free to hijack away anything that I post. The showroom stock version of this kit is arguably among the finest pre-WW II Ford model kits ever, and your model does full and complete justice to the AMT-Ertl effort. And I echo what others have said; I'm a hot rod builder to the core but it is very refreshing to see a "restored" model in scale. Congrats on a very cool model project! TIM

I agree with Mark. I''ve got some cans of Pactra Pealustre enamel, only produced in 1962-63, that still work. Amazing, especially when one sees the seals breaking on less that ten year old cans of Testors One Coat and Muscle Car Lacquer cans....TB

Richard....if all goes to plan, should be done by a week from now.....thx....TB

Richard.....great idea! The 56 pages of responses suggested you really hit the nail on the head with this one. Here's mine.... This one began as a "how-to" project showing how easy it was to redesign and restyle a 1932 Ford street rod body in 1/24th scale styrene, vs. doing the same thing in 1/1 scale metal or fiberglass. My recollection is that this one has appeared twice in print - a long-ago,detailed step-by-step on the body mods, and then a very brief appearance many years later in an article on an unrelated subject. Anybody wanna guess when and where these appeared??? And anyone wanna try to take a stab at listing some of the body mods (some of which admittedly can't be seen in this image, and others which are very subtle unless you have an original body nearby to compare to)? I've spent the last several weeks working on taking it from its most recent state as a painted body and a bunch of parts in a box that presumably could be used to complete the model, to the state pictured below where the model is now reading for final assembly, only three plus decades after first carving some styrene. Thanks for looking! TIM

As of 5pm today, (Friday, 9-22-10) Amazon.com when accessed here in the States, shows 8 copies left for delivery between September 21 and 24, and unlimited amount available for delivery from October 7-23, which will be at least their third reorder so far from the publisher. Not sure how that plays or if it is even relevant to those of you in Canada, but wanted to pass along nonetheless. For a couple of times in the last several days it has shown at Amazon as the "#1 New Release in Automotive History", ahead of new books on the 1/1 scale C8 Corvette, the cars of the Bond movies, and so forth. A victory for model car enthusiasts and a profound "NOPE" to those who insist our hobby is dying....just imagine.....a book on models that is outselling a book on the new Corvette C8! Still, my Publisher tells me that these Amazon rankings are a bit of a mystery from their point of view, and Amazon says the rankings change hourly, so take it all with a very big grain of salt for what it's worth.... Book is also available directly from the publisher, CarTechBooks.com, from AutoWorld.com, from Model Roundup, from ModelCave in Ypsi, Michigan, and from Pasteiner's in Birmingham, Michigan. Most of these have the book in stock now for immediate delivery. Thanks guys for all your support and interest....and hope that those of you who buy it find it to be entertaining and a good reference for your kit collecting efforts. Best Regards....TIM .

Thanks Bill....TIM

For anyone who missed my earlier post in the subject....my preview of the kit with 34 photos and comments is at this link.........TIM

Adam....sharp buildup of an undersung car in real life. Looked at your WordPress presentation, and really liked that last combo picture with the T-Bird Turbo Coupe and the SVO Mustang. Can't recall if I've commented before, but that Dark Sage paint color on your SVO was super-rare in real life. I recall looking that up when I worked at Ford back in 1986 and seeing that we built only 6 SVO's (or something close to that) in the Dark Sage color. So your model replicates a real collectible car in real life. Best Regards....TIM

All.....really, really pleased to hear your interest in 1/25th scale boat and drag models. Try as I might, I could never get the former Editor of the other model car mag to even consider running a 1/25th scale ski/drag boat project, but Gregg and Harry not only indulged me in running my ski/drag boat kit history article (around 2007 or so) but also ran several how-to articles on some of the boat projects shown above. If you are considering building an actual model of these, and you have a Model Cars mag back issue collection, may be worth looking up those old articles for some ideas and inspiration. In the meantime, you can see 175 images of my entire 1/25th scale ski and drag boat collection of completed models here....both overall and detail shots, and some in-progress shots of several of the projects like the Turbine boat and the Allison V12 boat (and yes, not only was there a real one, but it was a winner at the Salton Sea 500 races in SoCal... Thanks again for your comments and thoughts on this....TIM

David...very cool to hear you were inspired to build this one. Really liking the matching paint layouts, and the matching Chevy Rallye wheels on the trailer, too. Your boat engine looks like a Chevy Rat Motor, yes? And the Jet Drive, was that Steve Perry's Calnaga Castings version or something else? Anyway, really well done! Cheers...TIM

Eddie....there's a story there....(yeah, I know, there's always a story with my model projects, right? ). Anyway, the kit box shown was a one-time AMT release back in 1968. The Firebird was actually a "guess" by AMT as to what the 1968 Firebird would look like, because MPC had scooped up the Firebird promo contract and AMT was denied the design information from GM that year. The kit was itself was adapted from AMT''s prior 1967 Camaro annual kit, and yes it contained those hidden headlights, but other than that the kit was a real zero. In addition to the regular annual kit release, AMT paired the same kit with their newly retooled "Hull Raiser" drag/ski boat kit , which itself was a major revision of their c. 1963 Rayson Craft Trophy Series kits (the lavender metallic and candy blue boats in the pictures at the beginning of the thread). While that's the story on the kit box, the model car pictured was actually the Revell 1968 Firebird 400 Ram Air kit introduced around 2000, built showroom stock other than the wheels and tires, and painted MCW Automotive Finishes 1967 1/2 & 1968 Pontiac Verdero Greeen Metallic. The boat was the Hull Raiser kit (actually, the same kit but sourced from the c. 2005 Model King 1970 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible/Ski Boat combo kit). It too was built largely box stock, but with a Pontiac 421 Parts Pack engine (can't recall if it was the AMT or Revell Parts Pack version) replacing the boat kit's 427 SOHC Ford, to better match up with the tow vehicle. Yep, way too much info, but since you asked.....and thx for the comments on the models! TIM

Tom....I've bought several of the Dumas 1/24th scale boats over the years..... building up one of those would be a major project and one requiring a whole new set of modeling skills....still.....the boat topics they've chosen are so, so cool. I could see you building the original 1960 AMT Trophy Series Chris Craft kit....lotsa potential for adding character to that kit and a pretty easy (read quick!) project too....TIM

Jim....your memory is right on the money. The how-to was in the other model car magazine, around 2007 or so...it was inspired in part by one of the Mark Morton era "Hop UP Annuals".....his car was a '25T and more traditional in flavor (as you'd expect from him), but very inspirational. More photos of that one here...(scroll down to images #100-105)...TB

Tom...that sounds like a great project. Which boat were you thinking of pairing up with this? TB

Hah! Ray, right you are! Imagine that boat and trailer would have that '27T wandering all over the road.....TB

Heh guys...thanks for the comments....and thanks to those of you who posted your similar model projects. Glad to know I'm not the only one out there in modelcarville who thinks this kit has potential. ************** Rodney....I've had the '33/'34 Ford on my hit list for Revell projects ever since the late 1980's when they did the 1/16th scale kits, which I tried very hard - unsuccessfully - to convince them at the time that doing them in 1/16th would be the kiss of death...and it was. Also suggested several years later that they use the wood masters for that project and pantograph the design down to 1/24th (or 1/25th)....later on they agreed that would have been a good idea but the wood patterns were history by then. Then around 2007 or so, they asked for my top ten kit ideas again, and the '33/'34 Ford was near the top of that list (most of that list has been kitted by now, but some of those kits came from Moebius instead of Revell!) They always had the '33/'34 on their project list, but it never made it high enough on the list to cut metal. Not likely at all now given the overseas ownership of the company. Thus, the focus on the AMT-Ertl 5W as the best full detail alternative.... Thanks again everyone....TIM

Randy....saw your project post today. Good luck with it, and make sure to keep us up to date on progress as it occurs....TIM

Thank you Mr. Woodruff!!!! TB PS - for the rest of you, more than any other person on the face of this earth, Tom is responsible for my 50 years of hot rod/street rod style model car projects....thanks guy!!!! TB

Mark...one of the east coast model clubs has pictured many of the Replicas and Miniatures products on their club web site; can't recall which one exactly but I bet somebody on this forum knows.... Also, Norm has a catalog with a pretty good description of products, and some photos. It's not a professionally laid out catalog, but gets the job done. Norm priortizes his efforts on his products rather than merchandising of same; seems to work for him as he has been crazy busy for years now taking care of orders.... TIM PS - thx for the comments on the project!

Heh Alan....surprisingly close guess, my friend. The rear tires are planned to be the '41 Lincoln kit whitewalls, the fronts the showroom stock whitewalls from the most recent AMT-Ertl '34 Ford Five Window Coupe kit. But haven't zeroed in on the right set of wheels for those, so may switch down the road. But never was a fan of Baby Moons, so one ain't gonna happen! And yes to the '32 Ford grille; the shell was painted at the same time as the main body..... Best....TIM

https://public.fotki.com/funman1712/tim-boyd-on-line-mo/tim-boyd-on-line-ho-7/hot-rod-hints-1/ This is a somewhat simplified execution....if you want to all the way, check out Fred Farrand's images of his wood roof bows from his '30 A Five Window project posts from a couple of years ago in the On the Bench section of the forum....TIM

Here's that c.1963 Revell Parts Pack Harley Chopper, built up and assembled. It is 1/25th, and the only two domestic releases ever were the original Parts Pack version, and the 1982 "Grease" issue shown above. Over the years I have seen images of several different releases of this kit for overseas markets, though. The Harley Parts Pack kit, both in the original and Grease releases, can bring anywhere from $50 to $150 in the collector market here in the States these days.....TIM

Back...way back in the day when Ertl had bought the AMT tooling bank and brand.....after settling in and getting the existing catalog in shape, they began to introduce newly tooled kits starting around 1985 or so. One of the new kits was a 1934 Ford Tudor, in both stock/trad hot rod and contemporary mod street rod forms, the latter with a 1933 grille shell and hood sides, too. The kits were quickly trashed in the model car world, heavily criticized for unrealistic body proportions, and to a lesser extent, also the out of scale front suspension A-arms in the street rod version. Roughly ten years later, AMT-Ertl tried again, this time with a much greater degree of success, with their 1934 Ford Five Window Coupe kit. AMT'-Ertl's product development staff greatly benefitted from the real car of the same vintage and build style sitting in the home garage of one of their top kit development engineers, and the results were much, much better. But the kit seemed at the time to be - and remains to this day - under the radar screen of most model car enthusiasts. Truth be known, the highly mediocre kit box art, so typical of AMT-Ertl back then, certainly did not help, and most reissues to date have just reiterated versions of the same box appearance. When the kit came out, I immediately built a couple of versions, including the one here. This is mostly the street rod version, modified with more aggressive rubber and wheels, and paired with some killer flame decals from (IIRC) one of the street machine kit reissues of Monogram's 1/24th scale 1971 Hemi 'cuda street machine. And yes, I also ash-canned the oh-so-generic SBC for an SEFI 5.0L Ford from one of the many kit sources of same these days (and back then, too), and added the "Super-Trapp" exhaust pipes and front and rear nerfs from the AMT 1936 Ford kits. The out of scale A-Arms persisted from the mid 1980's chassis tooling, but other than that, I think this was a very presentable kit that really comes alive with some modest kitbashing modsl. I'll bet you can find copies of this kit and its reissues available at all the usual old kit sources, for a very reasonable price today. Just sayin'....and thanks for looking. TIM

This was mostly a box stock buildup, but painted with real Harley 2001 Concord Purple paint. The main change was cutting away the engine from the frame pieces and assembling it as a stand-alone component. Super easy to do and made a big difference in the appearance. This bike model was included with the Revell Ford 150/Harley Anniversary edition combo kit....these were pricey when new, but last I checked they were pretty affordable as old kit purchases....and the pickup itself is a pretty nice kit, too. This buildup was featured in Model Cars magazine back around 2007 or so.....thx for looking....TIM PS - I tried to get Revell to later reissue the bike as a stand-alone kit, and they reportedly liked the idea, but it never made it to the market. Perhaps the licensing costs made it an unaffordable business proposition, but that's just my guess; no facts to back it up.

Claude...thx for the comments! I need to dig that issue out RJ and look at it. Little, hardly known fact: One of Revell's top executives pushed very hard for a 1/25th scale Chris Craft barrel-back boat model; it was to have been marketed with the Revell 1948 Ford Woody kit. Others at Revell were not too supportive, and the idea died. Not too sure it would have been a great seller for them, but boy would it have been a cool model kit! Best....TIM