The Modeling Hermit

That's a classy build. I've got one in parts someplace around here. It's missing the dash and a wheel. You've inspired me, and I may have to get it out and see what I can do with it.

I sure hope Bill will be back. His artistry is quite welcome to me. This is a fantastic build.

This absolutely fantastic, and quite believable.

This is a 63 Mercury that I brought back from the junk pile. It had an extremely thick brush paint job on it, which was fortunate. The body was loaded with custom add-ons. The paint was so thick that they were only stuck to it, and under that paint was a perfect body. The grill is showing as blacked out, but that's just the light. I did blacken the background, but the bars are still in beautiful chrome, which is surprising after all these years.

This is a 74 Caprice that I rebuilt from a junker. The glass is not tinted. It's just picking up the color of the car for some reason. There's a slight warpage to the body around the windshield, but I didn't want to push my luck with this rare of a car.

I also play guitar, but only electric, with a preference for the blues. I've got a small N scale model railroad layout. I'm also into history, especially ancient Central America, and midevil Europe. When I lived in Iowa, I had a couple of 68 Impalas. One was a basically stock 4 door sedan. The other was a convertible that a friend from Peru helped me make it into a lowrider.

I could be wrong, but look at the amount of posts the initial poster has. At the time that I'm looking at this, he has two. Somebody comes on here in their first couple of posts, swearing and complaining, about some video site; it has all the appearances of somebody wanting to advertise the site. If I'm wrong, I do apologize, but this just appears very suspect to me.

I just tried to go to Hank's Truck Pictures, and got a warning that it was an attack site. is anybody but me getting that?

I know this isn't exactly what you're asking for, but a great place to learn weathering, check out the DVDs by Don Yost. I'm going to have to dig back into memories that have now become over thirty years old. There was surprising little mud that got onto the side of the car between the wheels. What there was started low behind the front wheels, came up to just under, and sometimes get to the bottom of the numbers, and then curved on down to the rear wheels. Behind the rear wheels, the dirt came up in a triangle to the top of the rear fenders. There was also 'spotting' on the left side of the car from clods picked up from cars ahead of yours as you would go into the corners. The front of the car had the stock bumpers removed and heavy round tubing replaced it. There was a screen placed in front of the radiator. At the end of a thirty lap main event, it was coated with mud. The hood and windshield got mud streaks on them. That's rather poor wording, but think if you threw a snowball or mudball onto a sidewalk, that's the kind of mess that I had to see through. The underside of the car would be almost totally coated with mud. That nasty stuff even got up onto the engine. Changing a sparkplug between races was dangerous. The mud would make everything slick, and with very little room to work with around the manifolds on a 454, well, I got my hands burned more than once. The real shocker, is that very little mud got into the interior. I wish I had some pictures, but maybe this will help.

Thanks for the compliments everybody. Tom, I'm not sure what the hubcaps came from as there were just from the parts bins. They closely resemble what Whitney advertised as 57 Dodge wheel covers. It does have the knob on the steering wheel, what in my area was referred to as a suicide knob, because they often became entangled on ones cloths during turning maneuvers.

Now that brings back memories. It looks so good that I feel like I climb in it, slam it into a broadside on the first turn, and throw mud all over the crowd.

Welcome to the forum. The Paystar sounds like fun. Are you going to use the blade from the Ford Dump, or use the one from AITM? You might be able to use gloss Orange and mist it with dull coat. This would give you areas where there is still mild shine, yet give you areas where the paint has completely dulled. A trip to a junk yard would give you some reference. This also can be done with a polishing kit. Going down through three or four grits will remove the shine, yet will also leave the surface varied in uniformity.

Quite some time back I saw a die cast Pink 55 or 56 Cadillac 4 door sedan. I think it was supposed to have something to do with Elvis Presley. That's the closest halfway decent model/toy that i've seen. I'm not sure whether it was a Fleetwood or standard DeVille.

I now have a digital camera, but at the time that I built this, I was still a "prisoner" of film.

I don't think that I've ever seen a creation from that kit look as good as yours, and the fact that you did this with a promo is even more amazing.

Some of you that frequent other boards may have seen this in the past, but I felt like showing it anyway. I call this a catalog custom, because I used a 1959 J.C. Whitney catalog to replicate a truck that somebody from that era could have built, using parts from that book. It might not be to many of today's viewer's taste, but at that time, it was at the height of style. It's loaded with spinner hubcaps, fender skirts, fog lights, spot lights, bed rails, bed cover, lake pipes, and has had curb feelers added after the picture was taken. The pictures were taken with a film style camera, and I didn't realize until after I had the truck constructed that the interior pictures didn't turn out, but inside it has bucket seats, console, tissue dispenser, and a record player (known to most people as a record destroyer). People actually did dress they're vehicles up like that. Actually, I have to admit that I kind of like it, as long as they didn't get carried away. I remember a 55 or 56 Buick the the owner went so far as to put on a huge horse hood ornament with a lighted nose. That was over the top, even for me.

I'm sure that you'll get much better cars than this, but I generally build stock or dirt track racers. I thought it might be kind of fun to build a custom from the box. This is a 65 Buick Riviera that i built a few years ago. I've never been able to build directly from the box, so this did end up with a couple of things from the parts bins.

I don't very often go to the extra work of having operational hoods, but when I do, I use the bent wire method. I think somebody has a tutorial on this site someplace. If I'm not concerned with an operational hood; I remove those pesky little protrudences (I think I just made a new word). That seems to solve the problem, at least to my satisfaction.

Po Folks Dollas; I love it.

I lump most of these 'pro-built' vendors in with the 'rare' vendors. They're just using those terms to draw attention to their ads. When I see those terms' red flags go up.

Both are impressive builds. The striping really helps to raise the detail another step.

This is a great thing that you're doing. Any time that law enforcement and the community, especially the youth, can do things together, bonds will be built. The Police in my hometown made a point of making friends with the youth. They'd come around and help us work on cars during their off time, and would stop by to see what we're working on when they were on duty. Their uniforms were not threatening to us, because we got to see them both on duty and off. They'd stop by our 'hangouts' and 'shoot the breeze' with us, often inviting one of us to ride around with them for a few minutes. We understood what was involved in their job, and had an increased respect for them. What you're doing will make a difference.

Ooops. Sorry guys. I forget that people that don't live here would have no idea what I'm talking about. That was an excited tired mind at work. Actually, I'm looking at the post now going...and this guy posted this..why? LOL Thanks to those who bailed me out on this. John Cole, I really like your response with all of the things PFD could stand for, especially the 'probability of failure on demand'. Some of the projects I've started lately would fit that one. I'll also have to find that episode of Man VS Food.

Our PFDs come out today, and after I get another guitar, I'm going to be stocking up on more models. I've also got to get some plastruct for some truck trailers I have to scratchbuild. I find it interesting that I used to look at magazines such as Car Modeler, and gape in awe at all the fantastic models. Now thanks to forums such as this, and the encouragement from everybody on them, and my wife pushing me, I'm now catching myself thinking, "I did that".

I'm going to grab another 59 Cadillac. I wasn't impressed with the results of the first one that I built. The kit was fine, but I decided that i was such a good builder that I didn't need "no stinkin' instructions". I got myself into a mess with that one. I'll have to break down and get a 72 Cutlass also. There are some others that will be making an appearance at my 20.