OldNYJim

Thanks buddy! Good question! The chrome on the steering wheel is still nice and intact, at least where it needs to be, so I think I’ll try just painting the hoop and leave the spokes in the kit chrome. The valve covers, fan, carb and air filter aren’t chrome on the 1:1s, so I stripped those tonight. Which brings me onto tonight’s update… Stripped the chrome, and another mock-up of the engine: As you can see from that one yellow piece, the fan belt was broken and a piece missing…but luckily there was a spare (also broken, but in a different spot) in the box. I’ve just tacked the two together with some white glue for now, but if I can salvage those two into one good piece that matches what was in the kit originally I’ll be happy… In other progress, I’m prepping everything that will be body-colored ready for paint this weekend - so I cleaned up the dash and got that ready to roll. The top of the dash will be body colored, and the lower portions white and chrome… And finally, a light coat of primer on the body to see if anything immediately pops out to rectify…nothing major so far! Will wet sand this tomorrow to see how straight I’ve got those big long sides… Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

That’s super helpful - thank you sir! Working on an old Johan kit which I’ll be painting with a Scale Finishes lacquer, and I’d really like to not ‘crinkle’ anything! Appreciate the reply!

An old topic Bill, but I respect your opinion…do you like to use the Future right over the plastic if you’re using it as a sealer, and then prime and paint as normal?

Black India ink (ask at Michael's or Hobby Lobby) works great, can be cleaned up with water, covers well and is cheap...and it's thinned to the right consistency already!

Great idea! I'd buy it! I never picked up the Scale Auto one - apparently it didn't work right on a Mac, and I've had Macs for years, so...but I would've if it had worked!

That’s a GREAT start! Nice work on the tires! Already transformed it into something better!

That’s REALLY cool!

You know, I’ve kinda been struggling with the stance…it LOOKS too high, but then I like building little low hot rods. Then I look at reference pictures and compare…and it’s MARGINALLY too low, if anything ?. Comparing where the wheel centers sit on a real one versus this build, I could add a hair to the ride height and have it correct, but it looks kinda high to me right now. If this wasn’t a relatively rare kit, and an incredibly generous gift from a friend, I’d be getting it much lower… Thank you sir! Keeping the productivity streak going again tonight - did some un-interesting work like drilling holes for brake lines so that I can get the frame in primer, and cleaned up a bunch of parts - nothing worth photographing, but worked on a couple of interesting mini-projects… First up, I wanted to check fitment with the glass and interior in place so I mocked up the interior tub with the dash, steering wheel and seats - the dash especially has some really nice fine detailed engraving on it: I believe I’m missing a seat back, so that’ll be something to tackle before I get too far - but it’s a pretty simple little piece… Figured out a clean way to run all the lines and hoses on the firewall that wont look like a bird’s nest…I want to add this detail to the build but I don’t want a hundred little wires making a mess back there either. Drilled holes now before I get this part in paint along with the body, hood and dash… And finally, I knew I had plenty of room under that big old hood for the engine so I hadn’t really mocked it up properly - I ground off the moulded-in distributor so that I could add a more realistic 3D printed part but otherwise I’d like to keep it roughly as Johan made it… Will need to figure out what to do about this broken fan belt though… More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Also - it seems these long nose builds were something of a trend at the time - from the same magazine that Tim posted the cover of:

Every time I look at this thread I get a little more interested in building one of these of my own…should I be concerned?

Thanks fellas! Keepjng this train rolling - finished up the front end tonight… Made some little brass inserts to fit into the kit pieces so that I can fit matching brakes to the front end too: That gray 3D printed piece replaces the standard kit wheel backer and sits the wheel in the same spot once the brake is on there. Bonus - still got possible steering! And with the brake drum on for a test-fit: Looks like we almost got a roller! Time for a test fit with the body… The nose sits a little low here, but the window glass and the dash bump it up about a scale inch so I think it’s going to work itself out just fine…cleaning up the dash and test fitting the glass is tomorrow’s adventure. Really like how this thing looks though…that view! ? Next jobs to do - make sure everything’s still copacetic with the dash and glass in place and then onto the engine and interior. More soon!

Apparently the Muira that got wrecked WAS real…but it had already been crashed and was one of two supplied to the movie by Lamborghini as a rolling shell with no engine. The second (main) car used for filming was immaculate and escaped unscathed, before going missing for a while. They DID destroy SIXTEEN Minis though, but they were presumably plentiful enough at the time that they weren’t too concerned with NOT ruining a bunch of them…

I’m quite enjoying making a special effort to make some good progress every day on this thing…but tonight I took a nap because my wife told me I was getting cranky. To keep the ball rolling though, couple of tiny projects achieved and off the list. First up, these Coupe De Villes ran really nice finned brake drums which may or may not be the same as the Buick (I think?) finned drums in the Revell 29/30 Ford kits. Either way; they look close enough to me so all I needed to do to add this missing detail to this kit was sand the lug-nuts off the kit Revell pieces and they’re good to go: I printed some wheel backs this evening too - I didn’t want to ruin the kit pieces if I could just make some that didn’t need to be modified. With the back end mostly handled, next job is to mock-up the front suspension and steering. I stripped the chrome from the front clip - it was a nice pink under there! Who woulda thought! The steering linkage was broken, and rather than try and reglue that tricky little piece I just replaced the broken center bar with some brass rod - a little more in-scale and a stronger piece as a result… Just a small update - but I’m trying to keep making good progress on this! Tomorrow I’m hoping to modify the drum brakes to fit the front end properly and start to prepare the frame for paint. More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Nice patina - that looks awesome!

Great start Scott! It'll look great with a Quickchange poking out from under the back of the body there

SUPER helpful - thank you Claude! Yep, those Caddy drivers were living the dream - they even had seatbelts in these things! ?

Wonder if it whistles when you drive it down the street?

No one specifically answered this question, but yes, it’s the bigger variation. I assume (but don’t KNOW) that the block sizes are the same for all three displacements?

Thanks fellas! A little work on the chassis this evening. It’s your standard one-piece type deal with everything moulded-in, and I’m not intending to hack up a somewhat rare old kit to redo it all (tempting as it is…), but I had a couple of little tweaks that I wanted to make to add some realism - or at least to improve what you’d see if you were standing at a curb looking at this thing. Unmolested frame: Most obvious thing that was missing was a tip for the rear exhaust, and if you peek underneath the rear of one of these cars you see the back edge of the frame a little so I wanted to fix a gap that shouldn’t be there too: Looking forward to the rear axle; this kit doesn’t include any brakes, and there’s a decent sized gap visible where the axle, trailing arms and shocks disappear into thin air so I made some little filler pieces and printed some rod ends to make that a little more realistic: Starting to look more like the 1:1 already! Tomorrow’s job will be figuring out brake drums and then the front end… Meanwhile, whilst glue was drying, I worked on the firewall a little. I wanted to remove the moulded-in wiring and replace it, but I really didn’t want to ruin that nice kit piece either. Lucky this kit came with an extra firewall (allegedly for the same kit, but different enough that I had to modify it some). Kit part top, modified part bottom: I know that, from left to right, we’re seeing the heater, then the brake master - but what are the two parts to the left? Coil maybe, for the smaller part? Not sure what the pill-shaped part represents, and haven’t fully researched…if anyone knows I’d be interested to know too! And that’s about all I got done this evening, aside from starting some clean-up on the engine…more to come on that when I’ve actually made some progress. Thanks for looking!

Acrylics, I THINK - never tried with enamels or lacquers, in honestly…

A cheap (or likely free, if you have a wife or girlfriend) alternative to that chipping medium is regular hairspray. Shoot the 'base' color first (in this case, the metal tone. Then, once it's good and dry, shoot hairspray and let THAT dry. Then, paint your top color (that dark gray / black in this case). Then, using a toothpick, a brush, or whatever else you have to hand and some water, gentlypick at the paint. The water will dissolve the hairspray (which has to be water soluble, or you'd never be able to wash it out of your hair), loosening up the paint on top in a controllable way so you can add chips, scratches, or achieve that 'scaling' look. Simple!

Thanks buddy!

This is really awesome. Honestly, when I saw that 3D file online for one of these I HAD to have it, and ordered and started printing it right away. Never occurred to me that there might have been an actual kit I could buy instead ??

Thanks guys - and thanks @Repstockfor those REALLY helpful links! I’ve been referring to those all day! A little more progress today… First job was finishing up the cleanup on those pieces of window trim behind the door. Took WAY longer than it should’ve but it’s a tricky spot to sand without damaging anything or sanding a dip where I didn’t want one… Worked through and scribed all the panel lines - if I was going with a lighter color I would’ve gone deeper to help add more depth to them, but honestly with a dark color the difference won’t be as noticeable… 3D printed raised-print license plates…went for era correct NY plates (unsurprisingly) ? The chrome on these bumpers is still pretty nice so I’m hoping to keep it that way and not have to refinish them… I don’t know if it’s something particular to this car, but all the reference pics I found of this particular generation Caddy only have a drivers door mirror - nothing on the passenger side. Regardless, my kit didn’t have one so I made one… And then final job of the day was checking the fit of those bumpers to see how they’re going to work out. Front is pretty good, not perfect but close… …and the rear looks pretty good to me - won’t need much finessing at all: Should be a handsome car when it’s done! Still a little more fine detailing to do on the body before I’m ready to lay down primer (which is when we’ll REALLY see how straight this is…) but it’s closer than it was! More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

There’s a decent sized car show here a couple of times a year, and this was e. First of the season…bunch of cool hot rods and classic iron, plus some weird stuff…gallery of pics here, if anyone’s interested: https://public.fotki.com/NewYorkSpeedShop/11-cars/car-shows/valpo-car-show-swap/