BK9300

I like your updates, Paul - always so much detail to take in - very cool!

The work on your console is instructional - every part cleaned up and the edges slightly rounded - it’s that kind of attention that makes a scratch built part look so good when painted. Enjoying your progress!

Your styrene work is always as flawless as your metal work, Francis! And your pictures always have more details to find the longer they are looked at. Beautiful work on the roll cage - fish mouthed joins and those tiny gussets on the roof section (still looking - probably more I haven’t discovered yet!).

Very nice build, so far! I remember senior year in high school (1969!), the son of the local Ford dealer had a '66 Fairlane, with a blueprinted and balanced 429. Up front the car just hummed as it went by with a nice throat out back - quite the car!

Got the test painting underway - Two different styrene colours to cover One medium thick coat of grey primer (not worrying about painting sides of hood or fenders); pic taken in natural light coming through door, and . . an hour and a half later, a medium coat of white primer, bit over cast outside. Under the fluorescent light of my magnifying lamp Will leave it for a few days until giving it two coats of colour and then let it set for a week or so, to see what happens (thanks again for the heads up, Steve!)

Thanks, Jeff - not sure I'll be focused on topping it - just hope to find something interesting and have a go at it!

Your paint jobs are just killer, Luke - pleasure to see!

Another tedious item off the list today - the hood mount support halves that attach to the hood's inner brace. Spent some time looking at pics and finally figured the only way to make a up this portion of the mounts, and have them be solid, was to do a little surgery on the top portion of the inner brace. So, out with the razor saw and a new blade in the X-acto knife! A very low tech way of establishing the angle that the other half of the mounts need to be at, to meet up with halves on the firewall I ended up taping the 2mm x 2mm stock down and cut it along the 'vertical' line Then I needed to make two openings in the leading edge of the inner brace - I wanted the resulting mounts to be very solid and this would hopefully achieve that; marked the outside edges of cut with razor saw And trimmed out the balance of the openings with new, sharp #11 blade. The dots are my way of keeping track of which side goes where - one mount was a tick longer than the other and I likely wouldn't have remembered which was which any other way! 'Rubber' pads added to end of mounts - the mounts are just taped in place for now, to check alignment Cab and hood taped together once again. The mounts line up! I do not intend to have them actually touch - I'm sure paint will take up a bit of room in the gap that you see, but the mounts more give an impression of hood support than actually provide it! Next two pics are final test of alignment and unobstructed hood operation with mounts in place All good and hood closes up tight! Its a nice afternoon out and the studio shed has the heater on, so going out to do a primer test on that spare hood. Will see if I get to a colour coat later this afternoon and will post a pic, regardless of how it turns out! Thanks for having a look and I have appreciated your thoughts and comments! Take care.

Can't get over how big that engine is - nice progress so far!

Informative documentation along the way, Steve. A couple very interesting solutions to your tank strap rubbers - they both look great! Haven’t mentioned it yet, but your photography set-up is almost studio like - very neat, with no distractions in the photos, and easy to see your added details.

Steve, I can always use 'two cents' - appreciate the tip! Am definitely happy with the progress, and plan to get the test painting underway soon as it's dry. I hope that I get to show it to you in person someday! Thanks, Steve.

Wet and miserable here today and not much accomplished inside either. Spent a bit of time yesterday getting the spare hood and a scrap piece of white styrene ready to do the test painting, but that will need to wait for a drier day. Also got a bit done on underside of floor pan - not lots, just carrying on! Ready for the 'Rockford' test paint job! Cut, drilled and placed the remainder of what I wanted to do underneath the floor pan. I didn't think about taking many pics underneath the cab of the real truck, but I did get a few. A glimpse of some future detailing - Didn't finish the hood supports yet, because I finally glued the inner hood brace in place and have always (mostly!) let newly glued items set up over night. Perhaps tomorrow - take care!

Thanks, Victor! Was going to go out back today and see what would happen, but was raining all day - all ready to go, though!

Thanks, Randy - sure don't want to go through the 'Big One' they say could happen out here on the West Coast, if that was only a piddlin' 4.7! Glad how the cab worked out and, as I said a bit ago, sure can't discount a bit of luck was present! Thanks again.

Beautiful inspiration pic - going to be a great looking build!

So many quality enhancements to this little car - great progress so far!

Always liked a twin-steer anything, Ron - are your front suspensions made of white metal? Looks very sturdy!

Got to love it when paint starts going on - looking real good, Mark!

That's too funny! Not to worry - I'm actually glad you got me thinking about it. I'll definitely do some test painting before going ahead on the model itself.

I sure agree with Jeff - many of your builds have lots of extra details added in along the way, but this build seems to be the most detailed yet. Marvelous accomplishments being produced!

Great start to the forum, Mike! I like the aggressive tread on your truck's tires - where did you pick them up?

Beautiful detail work, Tim - being metal, and even at this scale, I would think that your Lenco has a noticeable 'heft' to it - looks great!

Well, Francis, Steve and you have me thinking much differently than I was yesterday. I don't have a good answer at the moment, but I am very glad to be directed to doing some tests, first, before making a potential mess on the cab and hood. I've been using Tamiya primers so far, both grey on the frame and white on the sander, so we'll see. Thanks!

I’m thankful things turned out well, too, Steve. There was a good bit of relief on this side as well! You make a good point about the paint - I hadn’t considered that. So, maybe some tests would be safe thing to do. I have two Constellation kits, and one has a very warped, blue hood. At the risk of too much paint, will paint the hood with grey primer, then white primer and a couple final coats of body colour and see what happens. Thanks for that!

Thanks, Jürgen - I appreciate that!