OldNYJim

My brother-in-law likes craft beers made by little obscure breweries, and at thanksgiving he brought a few cans that were completely unmarked except for a small peelable sticker - I made sure to save all those cans for future scratchbuilding projects. It’s nice to start with something that hasn’t got printing all over it that needs to be cleaned off!

I would guess that the bottom one has the clear over the foil..but I’m only 90% sure, if that...

And drink the soda before drilling the holes!

Ohh, that’s a GREAT looking build! The quad headlamps are cool, and the paint looks good! Nice job!

I don’t mind the occasional thread resurrection - they’re like episodes of my favorite show that I forgot I saw or never saw at all in the first place!

This looks like a fun build - thanks for the preview photos Tim! I’ll be grabbing one!

Oh, I forgot the shot that actually shows the benefit of that work ?? - kinda hard to visualize when it’s all messy and Bondo-y I know but I’m pleased with how it’s looking!

A little more (slow) progress on this one... After some time looking at the front end, I decided I wasn’t crazy about how the line of the hood intersected with the base of the windshield. As you can see from an overhead shot, the line gets broken where the hood meets the base of the pillar, and then the top of the pillar doesn’t meet the roof. I decided I’d narrow the windshield and fill the resulting gaps - the problem being that I needed to lose a different amount top and bottom to make it fit how I wanted. Some scale calculation later... I separated the windshield frame into four parts - left pillar, right pillar, upper center and lower center, and then repositioned the pillars inward of their original location by a scale 1.5 inches: Then, with the top corners angled in to meet the roof, I resized the center pieces to fit: You can see in the pics above that I’ve used a little styrene bar to help fill the resulting gaps on the edge of the windshield where it meets the fender and the door - I try and use as little Bondo as possible (despite appearances ??‍♂️) to reduce the risk of it shrinking over time. LOTS more cleanup to do, and we’ve got a lot more to do on the body, but another part roughed-in far enough that I can move forward with an idea of how the finished product will look. More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Two paragraphs for me too - but I’d really like to see what $5ks worth of model looks like!

Good tip! I love stuff like that! Im gonna have to buy a toothbrush! ??

I used to use one of these when I worked for a print store and always wanted one - a Pantone swatch book! Printers use them to precisely match colors, and there’s literally HUNDREDS of variations of every color...but how’s this model related? Well, photos aren’t a good reference to match paint to, as there’s a LOT of variables to factor in when you decide if the color is actually accurate. If you have access to a 1:1 vehicle though, a set of these makes it easy to compare, say, a body or interior color, make a note of which swatch it matches and you’ve got an accurate reference to work off. Not just big stuff like body or interior colors either, you can see exactly WHICH shade of black that plastic dash is, compared to the black leather seat compared to the rubber hoses under the hood. My wife’s boss was throwing it out so she brought it home for me - super useful!

I LOVE threads like this! The more detail the better, as far as I’m concerned - and I love seeing impressive scratch building like this! Beautiful work! Keep it coming!

I’m really enjoying seeing this come together. A buddy of mine had a shorter wheelbase version one of these that he drove around the Upper West Side of Manhattan for his business...he let me drive it once and it was FUN! Agricultural - VERY heavy steering, but great fun!

I love it! A red fringe might look good for the roof edges? This is a really cool and inventive build on a classic design - I’m really enjoying it! Thanks for sharing!

That battery is nice tho!

You’re a great dad for teaching her a skill - and she’s doing great at it! You must be very proud!

Your daughter paints better than a lot of people I see who’ve been doing it years! Nice work! Color really pops too!

Thanks Dino - and cool build Speedy! Paint looks GREAT! Just a tiny update, as I’m replying anyway... smoothed out the hood today...before: And after: Removed the center trim, filled the hole for the emblem and the on the front too. Ready for a little Bondo, which is drying now and then I’ll finish that off tomorrow. The top side anyway...the underside is kind of a disaster so that’ll take some additional work... Smoothed out the fenders I was messing with yesterday too - I’m sure they’ll need some fiddling once they get a coat of primer but it’s a start anyway: More soon!

Luckily enough I’m close enough to Coney Island that I eat there pretty regularly - I’m a big fan of their fries too! I noticed the other day that they sell frogs legs now (maybe they always did) but I think I’ll stick with the hot dogs for now...

I actually saw the Weinermobile driving through New York one day - I went to meet my wife at her offices and it drove right past from behind me - sure is eye catching when you see a huge sausage coming at ya! ?

Way cool! Love the color scheme

Apologies for the multiple replies - was getting the dreaded 404 error so had to break it down into chucks so I could load - of course by which time there were some new ones! Thanks for all the pics and tips fellas, appreciate the feedback and showing me your builds! Just a quick look at the body on this kit and you can see, as noted above, it’s an old tool that’s definitely showing it’s age a little. I started make a mental checklist of things I wanted to do and it soon became long enough that I thought “you know what, I need to start at the front and work back”. So, starting at the front... The headlamps on this mould are a little “crusty” to say the least: Viewed from the side they’re not so bad, and I like that little rounded edge, but it doesn’t continue all the way around and resolves in those nasty recesses at the top: So, in a effort to keep that thin lip that I liked but to fix the top of the fenders I make a couple of brass inserts and opened up the holes carefully until they were a friction fit: The areas of the fender around the headlamps will still need some work, but I’ll be able to sand, Bondo and sand again that whole area without losing that lip that I liked on the edges. I could’ve used styrene tube, but my thinking was that the brass would be a lot tougher and harder to accidentally sand away. I opened the holes up with a reamer, working super slowly to take off just enough material that the inserts would fit in the holes tightly, so I could adjust them a little before gluing and they’d hold their position, and once I was happy with where they were located I added a little Bondo spot glaze to smooth out the fenders and blend them in nicely; I need to let the Bondo setup over night now - well, actually I don’t NEED to, but it’s fairly humid here today so I’d rather let it set a while to make sure it does most of it’s shrinking now rather than after I’ve sanded. Tomorrow I can level it out, blend everything in how I imagined (there’s a particular shape inside of the headlamps on the top of the fender that I don’t like and I’d like to address) and then see what I need to do to get the grill to fit. Thanks for looking everyone, and thanks for the feedback!

Good tip on the 49, thank you! I’ll take a look! This one comes with a full length soft top, and a VERY 60s (and odd) half length semi-hardtop one that you see on the box art...I’m going with the long version because the short one looks like it would rip itself off if you drove the car at anything above crawling speed

What a great looking build Claude! That color isn’t too far off the color I had in mind for that, although mine won’t be quite so radical - really cool tho! Nice job! Interesting about the body length - I’ll have to do some careful measuring and see if I’m about to open another can of worms or not

That’s really useful to know - thanks Alan! I already figured that part was going to give me trouble - there’s about a scale 1” gap all around it where it attaches to the body and another 1” gap at the top where it meets the roof. That’s definitely going to need some attention