OldNYJim

Thanks Pierre! I had a list of little jobs to complete this evening…and then this happened: It passed by without too much drama…but seriously curtailed my building time this evening. That said, got the interior mostly finished up ready for installation: I’m really excited to get this thing together now…got some little pieces to work on (radiator, mirrors, polish the glass, detail the battery) and then I’m just waiting on the body being polished out and the chrome added. Exciting! Thanks for looking - hopefully a ‘real’ update tomorrow!

Thanks fellas! I was planning on polishing out the body today, but I found a tiny little pinhole in the clear on the roof…no biggie, I just dotted a drop of clear on there and I’ll let it dry for a few days and have another try later in the week: Seeing as I didn’t end up doing a bunch of polishing, instead I wired the firewall (not that it’ll be particularly visible when this is done anyway…) Epoxied the gauge ‘glass’ and started detail painting the dash…need to do a little cleanup and a couple more steps before it’s ready to install: Painted the 3D printed license plates that I’ll be using: They need a coat of satin clear to dumb down the shine a little, but I’m pleased with the embossed-looking effect! They’ll look something like this, once installed… And finally, did some clean-up on the dealer sign frame and base and mocked it up…sure looks big next to the car! Thanks for looking - more soon!

I wondered if the space between the grille and the headlights needs to be filed down a little - although, admittedly, I haven’t studied one of these kits in person YET…

Been slowly building a Bug in my head for a couple of months now - started printing some parts for it today:

I was in the market for some rubber-black paint and found this set fairly cheap online…more and more Vallejo paints seem to be finding their way into my paint rack lately. I didn’t really NEED the rust or gunmetal colors right now - but metal tones and rust tones are always useful too!

Thanks David! The carpet is flocked sheet - I picked it up at Hobby Lobby. This particular variant is designed to be used with a Cricut for lettering on teeshirts and whatnot, but they have a bunch of similar products in the paper section too. I’m really enjoying using this stuff instead of regular flocking - super fast and easy, looks in-scale to me and it’s really clean. A little more progress today - working through some of the little projects that would normally slow me down come assembly time. Found some parts-box lens ‘glass’ for the headlights: Gave the lenses a wash of white pearl Createx paint and then installed the glass: Best way would’ve been to drill them out, but I didn’t have the heart to ‘ruin’ these old kit parts. Added some Molotow chrome to the rear taillights and installed those to the rear bumper: Replacement license plates are in progress…more on those soon…and today’s big (literally) project was printing the 1/25 dealer sign that I showed in the last post. I printed some much smaller test pieces last night, made some tweaks and then let the printer run for a few hours today to make the base, frame, cans and sign faces: As you can see, they still need to be cleaned up and then I can start test fitting the pieces before paint, but this is a fun little side-project…it’s in 1:25 scale and stands about 11 inches when assembled. Thanks for looking…tomorrow’s project is likely going to be polishing out the body - shiny Sunday!

Thank you! White piping probably wouldn’t be very practical for a floor in real life, but I agree, this kinda adds a little to the carpet! I like how it looks! Thanks brother Carl! Tying up some little bits and pieces this evening - some boring stuff…priming a few little parts and cleaning up some others - but I did work on one interesting thing today… Some of the Cadillac dealers would give away miniature signs along with promos - just some cool little things that matched the big signs out in their lots but designed to sit on your desk. They seem to fetch decent money online, but they’re not so complex that I couldn’t just redraw one in software and make a little mini kit of my own… above pic is the 3D model in software, and here’s a test print of a few of the parts: Need to mess with this a little more to get it perfect, but I think it’ll be a fun little companion piece to the car… Speaking of the car, quick test fit of the body on the rolling chassis just for my own amusement - excited to get this body polished out and to the point I can do some assembly ? (Excuse the long radiator hose…that’ll be cut to length in due course) Thanks for looking everyone - the weekend is upon us, so hopefully some good progress to come over the next couple of days!

What Carl said! Looks GREAT!

Thanks fellas! Didnt get a bunch of bench time tonight, my wife invited company over…but got the engine assembled and wired at least… I really wanted to keep close to box-stock with this build (ish), so I limited myself to adding a 3D printed distributor, plug wires and radiator hoses. If I was allowing myself to make the change, I would’ve gone with a darker color than factory Cadillac engine blue…the brightness relative to the body color bothers me a little…a white block would’ve looked sharp too with the white interior, but this IS meant to be a fairly stock looking build, so I showed restraint… That’s tonight little bits of progress - thanks for looking! More soon!

These Maseratis certainly attract the master builders don't they? I'd love to see a fresh-off-the-printer photo of that frame - I had no doubt it was POSSIBLE, but I'm sure it was no walk in the park either... (Sorry for the slight hijack of your thread Randy)

Vallejo does - I posted some photos of my first attempts at using it here: I tried shooting it like Alclad (misting it on gently), and that KINDA worked, but I've since discovered that shooting it nice and wet over a gloss enamel base gives a much better chrome look..

I suspect that trying to 3D print that frame would require so many supports and such careful cleanup, the 'old school' way is by far a better technique for something like this. A great example of a craftsman using the BEST way to achieve an end result, rather than the easiest or newest way. Really inspiring work Randy! I'd be happy to have HALF the skill you have working with brass!

Thanks everybody! Looks like I know what I'll be ordering! Those two builds look great, thanks for posting @Fat Brian and @Hard_2_Handle_454- doesn't look like there's much I'd need to mess with to get a nice looking build. Maybe replace those molded-in window and door cranks, but nothing too major... Appreciate the feedback!

I’d like to build a 64 1/2 Mustang convertible, and from what I can tell this is about the only game in town…anyone have any experience with building one of these?

Thank you! It’ll definitely need polishing, but it’s a good starting point anyway… Tiny bit of progress again today…first up I wanted to handle the wheels and tires because I normally get to the end of a build and then I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t do them sooner. Future me will thank me… I really didn’t want to strip the chrome on these, but they were kinda dirty and needed some attention - plus three of the four had some crusty glue smears on…did some very careful cleaning with Novus and they mostly came out good…one of the tires has a wonky white stripe on, but I can hide that by putting it on the back at least… A blackwash probably wouldn’t hurt these either - they’re nicely detailed and pretty accurate to the 1:1 Tonight’s other project was folding some Gopher racing seatbelt buckles and making some belts with a nice dark blue belt material that Hiroboy sells… Blue seatbelts like this were available from the factory in ‘66 - I think they make for a really nice looking interior! Love all that contrast with the white and blue. Conversely, I THINK the parcel shelf was normally black regardless of the color of all the other trim…but I’m pretending you could special order one to match the carpet ? Need to handle pedals next and some little bits of detailing to the tub itself (electric window buttons, primarily, but I think I have some nice photoetch that I’d like to use for those)…another couple of steps further along! Thanks for looking, and for all the nice comments so far!

That looks GREAT! Beautiful work so far! Love the wheels!

They’re starting to sell some of the parts trees separately too…$8 a tree seems VERY fair to me. Managed to pick up a couple of the Mooneyes kit for $18 each on eBay a while back, so I’m getting a nice stock of brand-new vintage parts pack parts myself now!

Thanks for the kind words everybody! Testor’s enamel, thinned with lacquer finish…my favorite route to a low-fuss shine! Thinned with the lacquer thinner it doesn’t end up too dipped-in-syrup-y looking (at least to my eyes) and it’s a nice tough clear that polishes out well. I’m starting to run low on my supplies of it…I’ll miss it when I get through the rest of my stash of it… Tiny bit of progress tonight - I wanted to get the carpet pieces into the interior tub…mostly because I thought it was going to be difficult and tedious to get them all laid down, so I wanted to get it out of the way… Actually went pretty smooth! I had some blue wire I was going to use for the trim, but it didn’t look as nice as the white (even though it would’ve been more correct…) Quick check with the seats in place to make sure I’ll still be able to snap them into place ok without the carpet interfering… Looks like that’ll work! Still a LOT to do on the interior, but I got the part I was least excited about out of the way…I think this white interior with the blue carpet and seatbelts is going to be a nice looking combination! Thanks for looking everybody…more soon!

So, as I understand it, their job isn't even to INSPECT the mail...just sort it, then hand off to customs so THEY can inspect it (if they so wish). Customs is actually relatively fast compared to the USPS side of things (at least, at this particular facility).

Yep - same message I've had for 5 or 6 weeks now. I miss living near the NY international sorting center - parcel would go in on say a Monday and almost always come back out by Wednesday at the latest. Now, if I order anything from overseas and it routes through Chicago (which makes sense, seeing as we're right by Chicago now) it'll take 6-8 weeks MINIMUM. I had a kit from Japan that took 3.5 MONTHS. I've been pondering that it would be a LOT quicker to have any overseas parcels sent to a friend in NY and have them forward them...but it would be better if the Chicago mail peeps would tidy up and move faster (and, optionally, get rid of the rodent infestation)...

I'd be interested to hear how fast your goods move through the Chicago sorting center - I've had a parcel (a kit from the UK) that was mailed on April 23rd, arrived at Chicago on April 28th...and hasn't moved since. Apparently the Postmaster General identified multiple problems at that hub that need addressing, including slow processing of mail, poor organization, garbage (and mail) all over the floors...and a rodent infestation.

Sounds like a fun project! And man, did they pick an awful color for that styrene ??

Interesting! I let my subscription lapse when it lapsed. I saw that they're cutting the number of issues per year in half, ongoing - people on the FSM forum had an thread going this afternoon to exchange email addresses in case the forum got turned off like Scale Auto's forum did...

Curious if anyone has ‘what’s in the box’ pics of this kit (or one of it’s earlier Revell incarnations? I’m weirdly tempted to pick one up, even though I already know it’ll be hard to build and there’s better options out there…

Has anyone seen a decent print file for a 66 Cadillac Coupe De Ville anywhere? Seems like something @MrObsessive might have come across at some point… I’m building a Johan ‘66 now… …and the kit comes with a bunch of custom parts (like a lot of the AMT kits did too). I’d really like to find a body that I can attach them all to without spending $150 on another rare old Johan kit…