papajohn97

I cut the snap-fit tabs off the rear lower edges of the hood and filled in the mating notches in the body with styrene strips and putty. No idea why Revell thought these features were necessary to begin with… ?

Beautiful job on an ancient kit! I’m really impressed that you were able to get the roof retraction mechanism working. I remember looking down into the rear roof storage bay in a 1:1 Ford Retractable at a car show years ago and being mystified by all the linkages, relays and wiring. Looked like a nightmare to do repairs on.

Very clean build. I like the sleeper look you achieved with the steelies and the dog dish wheel caps. I noticed you removed the mid portions of the stock exhausts but left the mufflers in place - are the mufflers molded into the chassis?

That’s pretty cool! The lace paint effect on the top is very well done!

Beautiful clean build. I like the understated champagne and black, a nice change from the brighter colors you usually see for these (grabber blue, mint green, bright orange or red). The wheels are my favorite part.

Great job David! I love that you used different shades of blue for each. That Galaxie is particularly stunning with the white roof and interior. I thought about getting this re-release for the Falcon but read that it uses the old AMT Mustang funny car chassis and engine which is disappointing. Your Falcon actually looks much better over this chassis than the Mustang IMO.

Okay, this has got to be one of the most boring looking drag cars ever posted on here but I needed an early Ford super stocker to round out my 1/25 collection of early 60's super stockers and in '61 - '62 they were all pretty unsexy. This model was intended to reproduce 1 of the 11 "factory lightweight" super stock cars with the new 406 cu. in. V-8's and dual Holley carbs that Ford had Dearborn Steel Tubing Corp. make from bone stock stripped-down Galaxy sedans. NHRA made them classify these cars as factory experimental because of all the non-factory-optional mods such as the fiberglass and aluminum body parts. Here's a good link on the background history: https://www.dragzine.com/features/muscle-cars-you-should-know-62-ford-galaxie-406-lightweight/ I used this Mecum auction posting as a"walk-around" reference: https://www.mecum.com/lots/FL0118-312672/1962-ford-galaxie-500-lightweight/ This is my first attempt at kit bashing a resin body (Jimmy Flintstone) to an injection molded kit, in this case the ‘60 Ford Starliner. This is also my first attempt at DIY decals and I made a point of selecting a monochrome decal subject due to the cheap HP inkjet printer I had available. It’s been an education for me working with resin and I have even greater appreciation now for the beautiful resin builds I see posted here - it’s not easy! Lot's of casting flash, very rough uneven inside surfaces, really heavy and variable wall thicknesses, it's a testament to the strength of these Flintstone cast parts that I didn't break anything while cleaning them up. The AMT '60 Starliner interior and chassis fit this resin body with very little required in the way of modifications. I scratch built the windows using .005” clear styrene sheet and it worked out okay for this subject, at least for the two sides and the rear, the front windshield ended up a little too recessed. I used Tamiya TS-54 light metallic blue lacquer for the interior and airbrushed the base paint on the body using an original factory color, Corinthian White, which I ordered from Scalefinishes.com and clear coated it with Tamiya TS-13. Far from perfect but good enough to provide an early example to add to my early sixties super stock collection. I promise to build a prettier one next time! Still not tired of building these classic old SS'ers! Cheers, John

Thanks Bogger44, I removed the rear quarter windows by drilling out the inside profiles with a small drill (1/16”?) cutting the remaining connections with an X-acto, cleaning up the rough edges with the same X-acto and then taking a course, medium snd fine sanding sticks to clean up the final frame. It’s an easy mod to do. I used the kit part for the front/ rear glass and .005” thick clear styrene sheet for the sides.

Hey Bill72sj, you’re on, let’s go! May the faster cammer win! Love the amazing job you’re doing on that sweet ‘67, keep going please! I have the Revell 1/24 ‘65 2+2 kit in the stash with an extra Moebius ‘65 Comet Dyno Don A/FX kit for the donor SOHC that I want to use to build Les Richey’s non-AWB car: Hoping the 1/25 wide cammer engine will fit into the 1/24 engine bay with a minimal amount of mods. A pair of big Fireball Holley’s on the top should help fool the eyes that it’s all of one scale. I’m just waiting for some custom decals before I start.

Thanks everyone for the compliments, so nice to share builds here and not just add them to the big plastic storage box in the top of my side of the bedroom closet to be forgotten! The injector velocity stacks and front leaf springs are from speedcityresin.com. The distributor, plug wires and looms are from Detail Master. The fuel lines are made from 0.5 mm solder and the fuel pump and fuel log junction is scratch built from styrene rod and sheet. I used a round piece of photo etch from my spares box for the front bulkhead detail on the fuel pump, this piece probably coming from an Eduard 1/32 aircraft PE set. I did replace the kit supplied straight axle with a scratch-built one I made from styrene rod that allowed me to lower the front of the car. I also had to incorporate scratch-built engine mount brackets from .04” sheet styrene onto the kit supplied tubular front clip to adjust the engine position relative to the front axle to support the final stance.

Gorgeous meticulous super-clean build Harry! Hard to believe this one is only your fifth effort, you obviously pick up skills and learn fast! I think the ability to research techniques and learn from each other over the web has made us all much better builders than we were as kids. I love the engine detail you achieveed on this fuelie. I built the Revell ‘57 Chev black window a few years ago and the 283 FI engine compartment didn’t come anywhere near as nice as yours. Your metalixing on the mechanicals is A+. And that interior is so realistic and sweet! I’ve been airbrushing cars/ planes/ ships for years but I still find “shiny” to be the most challenging and still use Tamiya Lacquer color and TS-13 Clear coat rattle cans for most of my car builds. Thanks for posting! Build & post more please!

Excellent clean stunning build Tony! (of what must be a relatively rare kit?) Is this 1/32? If so, I would love to have one this nice in the form of a Scalectrix or Revell slot car to race against my Chaparral! That spare tire on the dash of the actual 1:1 must have been a bear to extract if it was ever needed!

Fixed the decals on the left side to match the actual car (reversed the “Ford” and “Stark-Hickey”) and added ‘427’ emblems to front fender (from Revell ‘64 Ford Thunderbolt kit, love it when they give you extra decals!).

This was built from the less-than-stellar old AMT 1/25 Mustang “Funny Car” kit containing parts that don’t quite look like the actual Brannan car shown on the box: I attempted to build a Hilborn injected “match racer” version of this car (not complying with A/FX rules) and so I took a lots of liberties, particularly with the front end (solid axle with leaf springs) and omission of the radiator and belts (kind of an early pre-flipper funny car build). My goal was to try to approximate the stance shown on the box photo which I really liked. I thought about replacing the toy-like cammer SOHC kit engine with one of the new tooled engines out of the excellent Moebius ‘65 Comet A/FX kits but decided to try to make the best of it with the kit engine. The decal graphics supplied with the kit were quite inaccurate so Joe Curtis at Fremont Racing Specialties came to my rescue and made a fabulous set of replacements for me. Joe is incredibly talented and a great guy! This is not one of my better efforts, lots of errors and screw-ups, particularly on the paint and windows, but I’ve been bogged down for a few months on this and decided to wrap it up and move on. I didn’t list all the details above on changes/additions I did on this kit but shoot me any questions you might have and I’ll be happy to supply more details.Thanks for looking! John

Great job Curt! I love the subject. Your home-made decals are fabulous, wish I could buy a set to copy your build (highest form of complement, right?). There’s is an excellent 1:1 reproduction of this car at the NHRA museum in Pomona. CA which I happened to take a photo of during a visit last month:

Hey Mike, this kit is on my wish list so much thanks to you for posting your build. Engine looks great so far. I love these early to mid 60’s GM full size hard tops, they still look stunning to my eyes sixty years later. If you’re looking for factory original paints and if you have access to an airbrush, I highly recommend Scalefinishes.com flat base paints. Jameston offers all the original ‘62 Chevy colors and his paint is a joy to use. It does require a clearcoat (I use TS-13).

That’s coming out really nice John. Beautiful foil job and I like the black-out you did on the front grill. I love this Moebius kit and had fun building a white Hayden Proffitt version of it a few years ago before I was able to post on here. These ‘65 Comets look like they’re screaming down the strip when they’re standing still. And that 427 cammer is one of the coolest looking drag engines of all time. I bought a second one of these kits to build this same red Dyno Don version, an iconic car raced by a legend!

From my read of the MSDS’s for 2K two-part urethane clear coats, you need a “closed” ventilation system (essentially a breathing tube connected to outside air that is physically separated from the mixing/ spraying area). You also need to probably wear long sleeves, gloves and a face mask to prevent any skin or eye contact as well. I don’t believe anyone is safe using a cartridge type ventilator mask with any type of available filters, even outside. I don’t care how wonderful the final finish is on a car model, it’s just not worth the health risk for me. Be safe.

Beautiful job Brian! I have a 1/32 slot version of this same car and wish there was a 1/24 -1/25 kit for this car that you built. Despite the shorter nose, your build looks “right” to my eyes. With this year’s releases of the new tooled XKE kits, I’m hoping Revell has plans to issue a lightweight XKE racing coupe. It probably won’t happen but I also believe a new tooled D would sell like hot cakes.

Very impressive job Rich on the front end mechanicals, interior and all of the engine detailing. On the Webber carb inlet screens, are those decals or actual metal screen or PE? If $$$ was no object and I could have any 1:1 Cobra I wanted, it would be one of these earlier small block cars (without the wide flared fender 427 look).

I also like the look of the yellow steelies with the dull green, look’s like an authentic early 60’s gasser that was driven to the strip. I would add a few small sponser decals and a class decal to the right side of the windshield (A/GS?) to complete. Nice job!

Great job, especially on the paint. I’ve always found black shiny paint jobs to be the most difficult to pull off, your nephew nailed it! Careful uncle Fantom, a few more of these and he’ll be hooked and your best tools and supplies will start to mysteriously disappear!

Great job on a unusual drag car subject. Your engine detailing is really… detailed! This build inspires me want to find a 50’s subject kit and parts for a 6 cylinder stocker drag car. Would love to see some more images of the 1:1 engine you posted.

This build is amazing to watch. What you are doing sir is literally “advanced plastic surgery”! Thanks for doing these posts!

I feel your pain David. I have tried BMF on several projects and experienced what I like to call the “Ouija Board X-acto knife misfortune”, particularly around curved features. I’ve seen some amazing foil jobs on this board as well as on models at contests but even on areas where my knife doesn’t slip, my finished foil ends up with micro wrinkles or bumpy surface due to imperfect base paint. I only use foil now on interior features (door handles, dash, seat surrounds) or to repair kit chrome and have gone back to masking and airbrushing body trim and window frames with Alclad over black enamel. It’s much more time (and masking tape) consuming but much easier to control and I never get that wrinkled Hershey’s Kisses foil wrap look. Hoping you can master BMF but if you can’t, don’t feel bad, you’re not the only one!