Andy Oldenburg

Hey Martin, unfortunately I can´t find any new exclamatory words for the beautiful 300B build of yours. It´s all been said by the others. A PERFECT build for the hall of fame (ha, I found a new expression!). I really hope we will see more of your builds in the future. And you are right about the Moebius kits. The 300B and the Hudson Hornet are really fun builds for a low stress level. I´m planning to build the 300B a second time as a stock. My first was a total reinterpretation. Your build has given me a big nudge!

Cool build, very nice details included and a perfect paint color match to this model?

Hello Mario, your conversion look beautiful, thumbs up! The garage scene makes a perfect impression.

Beautiful builds Mike, well done and perfect craftsmanship? I love that fenced in diorama! Taking the pics outdoors with the trees and the shifting sky, the sharp shadows make the models look like the real thing. You gave me a nudge to what´s missing in my collection of backdrops.

Cool project Steve? That lowrider looks awesome, but turning a Caddy into a racer sounds exiting. A stupid question: Did that model ever race? Because it seems to be a too big and heavy model to compete, let alone the poor aerodynamic. Looking forward to the progress!

Hey guys, I don´t mind a bit about your comments but find them extremely interesting! Imagine what I have learned about the model I´m building right now just through this thread, GREAT! @ Tony, sorry to have kept you up sleepless?

Hello Tony, thanks for all that input! You definitely know much more about those ages and this engine than I do. I really learned a lot! And I like how you treated your stovebolt. Considering everyday use and age that looks very much like a greasy old engine to me. I can imagine it in a rusty Bel Air in the to do corner of a shop, waiting for the mechanics to turn it into a driving gem. My concept is a ´51 Bel Air who´s engine cannot disguise its history. But the owner spends many hours and tender loving care to keep the engine clean and running, and much effort to keep the body and chrome shiny. Loves to go cruising on a sunny day and meet his friends at the classic car meetings.?? But your nudge did work! I will give the pan some more oily smudge before i eventually drop it into the bay.?

I´ve started with the body. I gotten hooked on hinges and with the knowledge of my last build I hope I will evade certain mistakes. So first I´ve cut up the body. Next a good sanding. There are a few spots that need a bit of putty when I slipped with my scalpel. My first primer coat is a matt white. The windows are missing a piece of frame, no big thing. But the front fenders are making me worry. They both have a heavy twist to the inside so that the bonnet won´t fit correctly. I glued a strut into the fenders to get it into shape, so I can test fit the bonnet. Next step was applying the lips (I think they are called so..) to the door, trunk and bonnet spaces. Last time I didn´t think about the paint layers that would add up. In the end, my doors and trunk wouldn´t close completely. This time I glued a 0.5mm layer of styrene along the edges, BEFORE I attached the lips. Hope that will make it fit and look better. The hinges are attached to the body. The wires are still a bit long, but are easier to handle at the start. I will cut them shorter before I finally connect the doors. If you are thinking of making hinged doors, make it a habit to cut the wires to a slightly different length. It is much easier to slip the doors onto the wires later. Now comes the tricky part of getting the doors into the exact right place. I use a 1mm brass rod for the hinges. Quite stiff, but still soft enough to bend into the correct shape. These wires I insert into 3mm styrene tubes that happen to have a 1mm center. Get the wires aligned to the rockers or else the doors might sag when opened. I slip tubes onto the open pieces for the doors and get the doors and trunk lid into the right place, secured with tape. Now I glue the tubes onto the doors and hope that they will look fine in a few hours, when I have let them dry completely. My next entry will show you how I get the doors into shape with the indoor panels. Thanks you staying tuned!

Hey Bruce, wonderful job on the Camaro! Everything looks perfect. Very nice interior and the paint job makes it look like the real thing? You chose just the right set of wheels for this car!

Thanks for your kind remarks! Getting all that feedback makes me realize how old some of us already are. I am 62 now and came back to model car building about 2 years ago, after almost 50 years pause. Some of you guys have been building models for decades and have acquired sooo much experience and built hundreds of models. I humbly tip my hat to you! Your response really means a lot to me.

I am getting real fond of the early ´50s and those 6 cylinder blocks. Started this classic Bel Air and have just gotten the engine finished. There are not many images of this car in the net but in those I did find, the engines all had a certain amount of patina. Very few had shiny restored engines, but the real spirit requires a used vintage look. The standard block color was orange, but there were a number of grey blocks built also. Which I like most. Here my block already has the mock spark plugs ( 1.5mm styrene rod) and some dirt of the decades. The pulley part is deconstructed and the wheels are rebuilt with styrene sheet. The alternator is connected with a 1mm brass rod. The distributor is home made with a 4mm aluminum tube filled with 2mm styrene rod. The ignition wires are glued into the gap. The plug boots are shrink tubes reduced to 1.5mm. Plus the coil, which isn´t a part of the kit, made of styrene rod. The fuel pump was only a structure on the block, which I sanded off. I happen to have a pump in my spare box and so adapted it to this engine. Plus the fuel lines to the tank and the carb. Exhaust and intake manifolds both got a good rusting. The original intake I lost while building (must be a black hole under my table...). So I had to cut up the 6x injection manifold for the drag version and carefully build myself a 4x carb manifold. Here the carb is attached, the fuel line got a filter and the throttle cable is attached also. The pulley belt is cut from a 0.8mm thin rubber mat. The filter box has a "filter" made of foam rubber. I added extra hoses for the AC. The radiator hoses will be attached when I drop the engine into the bay. The engine has just the right amount of grime now. Next comes the body, which will be a bit more shiny. Thanks for watching!

I love this `Cuda, one of the last real muscle cars. Your work looks very good and I like the effort your putting into the details. That gold will look great with a clear coat and a high shine??

Wow, so much to discover, great workmanship? Your going the long mile on this build and the results so far are wonderful. Applause!

you asked what we use for the ignition wires. I have an supplier for 0.5mm wires with just the right feeling to stay put once bent into place. Unfortunately he is here in Europe. I know how hard it is to get an hand on good wires that are not too thick. In the worst case I can recommend slashing an old LAN or HDMI cable. The wires in there are quite thin and match to our scale. Some wires are too colorful but there is enough usable stuff in a cable to last a while.

I love em all! Can´t choose a favorite...? Interesting hinges on your bonnets too. Can your show how you did it on the golden hot rod? Would really appreciate it!

Wonderful patina work. I can feel the salty crust and sand of the decades.

Great work so far and a pleasure to watch the progress! I´m very interested to see where this will end.

Very well executed build, perfectly done? I like the upgrading you did by reducing the trim, the engine bay is very clean and the customized engine fits perfect to the body.

Great paint job, best shine! And no polishing required?!! Foiling looks good too. I know that feeling when it comes to foil (and decals btw...) This is going to be a beautiful build.?

I´m always fascinated with 3d printing, don´t do it myself yet but who knows? It looks very interesting for a start and there is much room for detailing and customizing. Did you print it yourself?

Unboxing this AMT kit I knew I had some work ahead. I like this ´63 Chevy model but the kit is on a low level of detail. The undercarriage is basically just one piece of plastic with a simple array of details. I have been through this before so I had no inhibitions to chop up the floorboard. The x-frame keeps it all sturdy and in shape. Looks like a mess, but it will work out in the end. Next I filled the cavities with sheet styrene in 0.5 and 1mm. I extended the x-frame and filled the cracks with putty. Then sanding, filler spray and a second round of putty. Next came all the missing parts: Suspension, driveshaft, differential, exhaust system. The differential I modeled with FIMO plastic clay on an 6mm aluminum tube. All the other parts are cut and glued from styrene profiles or sheet. Shock springs are 1mm aluminum wire. The bumpy area in the middle will be covered again with the exhaust system so I refrained from investing too much time in getting it smooth. Here is what it ended up into. The mufflers I scavenged from my spare parts box, but the pipes I finger bent from 3mm styrene rod. Look like a fat 3 inch system. The V shaped front suspension parts I rescued from the deconstructed cut-outs. All the other rods and stuff are hand made from styrene. The interior is show car. I added a flock floor and the seatbelts. The doors had about no structure at all, so some detail work with styrene was necessary. Chrome is Bare Metal and Molotow pen. The kit engine is a joke. I had enough parts to build a 409 HEMI and just happened to have a leftover fuel injection from my last corvette. It took a while to get all the parts and lines to fit, but I´m very happy with the results. The belt is a thin strip of rubber on the deconstructed pulley system. And here we have the finished model. This AMT kit is something of a disappointment. You can feel that the mold must be 50 years old. The body has a few dents and the window line sags on one side. Many parts didn´t fit, but I discarded most parts anyway so that didn´t matter much. Funny how they include a TV-set, a bunny and other stuff, but no rear mirrors, no red taillights etc... If I had known ahead about the low level, I would still have bought this kit. The 1963 Impala was a beautiful car and I love to work the plastic and customize. The color coat is a Molotow black line graffiti spray. Very fine spray cap and a good flow, although a matt finish. The pink areas are Schmincke Aero Color mixed with metallic fluid. After that I carefully sprayed the whole body with slight touch of metallic to give it a sparkle. Next 2 coats of AK clear gloss and a good polish. The wheels and tires are from my scrapbox, the grill I cut open and inserted a mesh metal. All the chrome is Bare Metal under the last clear coat. Thanks for taking a look!

Beautiful build, very close to the original stock? Your paint job is perfect. What do you use to hold the ignition cables together? I´m still looking for a clamps like that.

Thanks for your kind response! Yes, the engine was a bummer I didn´t want to use in a model, but didn´t want to throw away either. The chrome work is with Molotow chrome markers, which come very close to the original thing. I use 2 and 3mm markers. The scoop had very bad mold edges that had to be sanded off, with the chrome gone too. The 3mm Molotow was good for this "big" surface. For the finer parts I use the 2mm directly or I pump the tip on my table to make it leak a bit. I take up the paint from the felt tip or table with a fine sable brush. Molotow also offers 1mm pens, which I cannot advise. The tips dry out easily or they will burp out a blob of paint while your doing your detailing, very aggravating! They also offer liquid chrome, that you can even airbrush with a 0.2mm nozzle. I met a guy who masks his whole model and does the body chrome work with an airbrush. The shine does not compare to bare metal though.

I had no kits on the shelf (imagine that!) and my order hadn´t arrived yet. But my fingers were getting itchy so I though of spending my time with a project, that I could use later. I dug into my spare parts box and found enough to build an engine. I will be building a hot rod in the near future so I decided to build a supercharged. Since I was getting some praise for my detailing (a big THANKS to everybody!) I would like to go through my steps. First, here is the finished project: The parts come from at least 4 kits, so I had to do some adapting. This is what I had to start with. To get ahead fast I like to use a solvent that I buy from an artist and craft store in my town. The shop also sells items for architecture modeling like styrene rods, sheet and other materials. And "Dichlormethan". Only takes about 30 seconds to stick and then I can move on, but it dosn´t work good for the fine stuff. The engine block is quite simple and in no time I had the major parts attached. The holes for the exhaust had to be filled and puttied. After sanding a coat of filler primer. The major holes for the sparkplug boots and the cooling hoses I drill before painting. The block is airbrush sprayed with Schmincke Aero Color acrylic artist paint and sealed with a semi matt coat. The transmission and the pan were sprayed next after masking the block. The charger parts I had to sand a bit to fit between the cylinder heads. The carbs were a triple that I reduced to double. The scoop didn´t match to the carbs so it had to get it made to fit and I added a metal grid to the front. Like many supercharged engines this one gets a secondary cooling system, which I had to prepare before I start building the pulley system. For the pulleys and belt I go the hard way and build it all new. Usually I deconstruct that part in the kit to save the wheels, some times I have to build the pulley wheels out of sheet styrene or short pieces of tube. Here´s what I started out with and the steps to the finished wheels: About now it´s time to build the ignition distributor. You guess it, I build it myself. I was tired of trying to connect the wires to that tiny bud. My distributor is made of 2mm brass rod, 4mm aluminum tube, a tiny piece of 2mm styrene tube and the wires. I use 0.5mm wires that fit between the tube and the rod. Sand the tube a bit to get the edges round. Getting the wires into the gap isn´t that hard with a little practice, use a superglue but don´t forget to spread the wires into a spider to keep the glue from running up the open wires. After the glue is dried you can cut off the prodruding wires. Insert that little tube piece for the coil line. To simulate a cap I wrap 2 layers of 1mm masking tape to the top end and then paint the cap black. Behold a distributor. Pulley time! This engine needed an alternator and fortunately I found one in my boxes (not the finest one, but I satisfied for it). I attached it to the block with a 1mm brass rod and glued all the pulley wheels to the block. The engine also needed a fuel pump, which I added to the front (built with pieces of styrene tubing). The belts are made of 1mm synthetic rubber sheet. I´m still looking for something thinner but have not found yet. Even bicycle inner tubes are 1mm thick. I cut a 0.5mm strip for the alternator and fuel pump and a 5mm strip for the charger. While moving on I enhance the pulleys fronts with tiny photo etched hex nuts. Now I connect the fuel lines. For cable and line ends in general I have become fond of beads. Yes, little glass or metal beads. You can get them in craft stores, but it´s hard to find the REALLY tiny ones, meaning 1.5-2mm diameter. Those smallest ones often come from Japan and I take every opportunity to visit new craft vendors to check their variety. In this case I thread them onto braided lines. Comes very close to those heavy duty connectors you seen on hot rods or drag racers. Now it´s time for the ignition system. The holes in the cylinder heads I fill with pieces of heat shrink tube that I found at a model fair. (Yes, shrink before inserting...) You can probably get it from electronic suppliers too. The thinnest size shrinks down to 1.6mm with a hole big enough for a 0.6mm wire. Here you can see the finished setup with the coil and also the a part of the throttle system. Attaching the heating hoses comes next. I´m not sure yet how the cooler will look like one day but the hoses are long enough to fit. And last but not least the exhaust manifolds. They received some hex nuts also. So, I hope this didn´t bore you. I will not say that it´s all easy, but a matter of time and lust. From all I can see in this forum, there is a lot of workmanship out there and I might have inspired someone to try this out, or maybe parts of it. Some details get lost once the engine is dropped into the bay, sad to say. But I love work like this. Thanks for watching and now the finished engine:

Looking HOT!?? Eager to see the finished model!