Bernard Kron

Thanks a lot for the nice words, everybody! I understand that the black background pics aren't necessarily to everyone's liking so I thought I'd do a set of more conventional white background photos as well. I still have a ways to go fine tuning the black background technique... Also, here are some frame pics I couldn't fit in the original post:

The Lo-Boy is done! Thanx to everyone who followed along, for all the kind comments, and for the constructive input. The reveal and the "beauty shots" can be found Under Glass here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=59662

Early 60’s style Ford ’27 T Low-Boy hot rod (More pictures below) I’ve been wanting to build one of these for a long time now, but wondered if I had the chops to pull it off. There’s no kit for this type of car and it’s strictly a question of kit bashing and scratch building your way to completion. I wanted a show car vibe so there’s a ton of chrome which turned out to be a real challenge when it came to finding and preserving the appropriate parts. In some cases, like the side pipes and drive shaft, I landed up using aluminum tubing and polishing it with Simichrome to a chrome-like shine. The w.ip. can be found here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=57098 Here’s the breakdown on what went into this build: Body: Jimmy Flintstone resin, cut down grill, headlights and taillights from a Revell Deuce kit. Motor: Revell Parts Pack Cadillac, 4 barrel carb from a Revell Deuce kit, Modelhaus Cadillac air cleaner, headers from a Revell ’49 Merc kit, La Salle transmission from Early Years Resin, side pipes made from aluminum tubing. Chassis & suspension: Chassis scratch built from styrene strip, front and rear suspension modified from Revell ’29 Ford parts. Front shocks ,from an AMT ’25 T kit, rear shocks from an AMT ’29 Ford kit. Wheels & Tires from Modelhaus Interior: Scratch built from styrene sheet and strip, AMT ’58 Chevy steering wheel, Model Car Garage p/e dash, chromed steering column from and AMT ’29 Ford kit. Paint and finishes: Testors Inca Gold and Testors Pearl White, gold flocked carpeting. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Thanx everyone! I'm about done. Some cleanup and detail work left to do but basically the look is complete. Here's a detail pic of the interior and a couple of old-timey color pics with the windshield and lights in place as a teaser. Thanx for lookin', B.

I use e-bay for price discovery. If what I want is commonly sold cheaper than locally I will use BIN for stuff I want immediately (not just modeling stuff - for example printer supplies, home items, etc.). I also keep a list of searches that notify me when stuff I'm on the lookout for comes up. If the price, time of day, bidding, etc. seem promising I will put a reminder in Outlook that comes up immediately prior to bidding close. If the price is still OK I snipe, entering my max bid in the final few seconds. I had never heard of the expression "snipe" before seeing this thread, nor new about the sniping robot services. Seems like they might be appropriate for the way I use e-bay... And yes, sellers who construct their desired price by low-balling the asking price and jacking up the shipping price far beyond the actual shipping costs annoy the heck out of me. I think sellers should add something on for materials and handling but some sellers really abuse that.

Thanx again, guys! The '27 Lo-Boy is nearly done. I'm down to the final thrash, fitting details like the headlights and taillights, license plate, steering wheel, dash gauges. grill, and windshield. The stuff that starts to generate flaws and fit issues. This one's no exception. I will say that the windshield and headlights in particular really change the look of the car, but I'll save that for the reveal! And , much to my relief, it does look like I intended it to. All the suggestions, observations, and fine tuning regarding the wheelbase, motor position and stance really paid off. Thanx to all who spoke up! In the meantime here's a pic with the grill shell painted and mocked up in place. I continue to experiment with black bases and backgrounds in my photography and this picture is part of that. I should have the car done by next weekend unless I screw something up real bad... Thanx for lookin', B.

Thanx everyone (except Raul ... wiseguy... ). I had a set back which at first I thought was major, but which turned out to be minor. The parts pack headers I used were nice and shiny and fit the chassis OK, but when I tried the floor pan assembly it turned out the headers forced the engine a little too far back to allow the transmission to fit in the floor tunnel. Short of moving the engine mounts or rebuilding the floor pan, neither of which I wanted to do since they're fully painted out and had required a great deal of work to fabricate, I needed headers with a rearward exit on the driver's side. The solution was to use the set from the Revell '49 Merc. The good news is a friend of mine had some to spare which he sent me. The bad news is that I lost the chrome plating. If I finished them in Metalizer aluminum plate and gave them a good buffing, with the headers tight against the engine block the overall look would still be acceptable. The headers arrived (Thanx Raul.... ). I shot them with plate aluminum metalizer, gave them a good buffing and got down to making the side pipes from aluminum tubing. The pipes were then polished out to a chrome like shine using polishing cloths and a final polish with Simichrome. Here's the result. Thanx for lookin', B.

Thanx James. Got the motor done. Here are some pics. Thanx for lookin', B.

I have watched Indy all my life, so, despite the fact that over the past two decades it has becomes hopelessly homogenized and the driving talent totally dominated by a very specific generation or two of drivers, I watched it again yesterday. I must admit, however, that, as has been my habit for many years now, I recorded it and fast forwarded through the advertisements and yellow flag laps. All three of the top racing formulae as seen from American eyes (NASCAR, F1, Indycar) have suffered badly from the effects of late-stage evolution as the rapidly inflating costs and tremendous efforts put into making the racing immeasurably safer (it will never be "safe") have created formulae which either have become "silhouette car" series (NASCAR, clearly, and Indycar, with it's common chassis and heavily legislated engine rules, as practiced and despite their recent efforts) or are in constant danger of becoming so. The only thing that has saved F1 from this fate is the knowledge by Formula One's teams and series rights owners that if they ever let it actually happen to them it will be the death of their enormously successful business enterprise. So, for the moment, F1 is actually saved by its enormous budgets and overblown global corporate gladiator wars aura. But with the next international corporate financial meltdown this too could be put at grave risk - it has happened to Grand Prix racing before. The days when a George Saleh, Mickey Thompson, or Colin Chapman, could revolutionise the sport overnight are long gone, as are the days of the larger-than-life hero drivers, often brilliant practitioners across multiple motorsport disciplines (i.e. AJ Foyt, Cale Yarborough, Mark Donohue, Dan Gurney, Jim Clark and even Roger Ward). But at least now careers are measured in decades, instead of months and years, and anyone with a big enough checkbook can buy their way into being a major player, ensuring an artificially sustained form of competitive racing. This is what allows George "Dario" Franchitti and his two close friends to win 3 Indys each and not only be around to have done it but know that if they play the well-defined game skillfully they might exceed the record. But they also know their sport is dying and, as equally real and heroic drivers as those who came before them, I dare say they would give it all up for just a taste of the Golden Age.

Thanx guys. I continue to make progress, although I'm moving pretty slowly because almost everything needs to be tweaked, modified, or built from scratch. The fact that I want lots of chrome means that hunting through my parts stash for the proper bits is especially demanding, since much of what I'm looking for has to be plated. Here are pictures of the completed chassis. The bulk of the suspension parts are from the Revellogram '30 Ford Sedan kit with the front shocks from an AMT '25 T and the rear shocks from an AMT '29 T kit (the hot rod parts). The AMT '34 rear spring has been foiled. I decided against the posable steering feature of the '30 Ford because I had to move the tie rod in front of the front axle and the whole affair was getting too fragile and fiddly. Also in the pics are the chrome front wheels from Modelhaus. The chassis will get a chrome drive shaft cut to length during final assembly, along with the steering box and shaft. I'm at the point where I can start final assembly and selection of the remaining detail parts such as the gear shift level, headlights and taillights. The most difficult part remaining will most likely be the fabrication of a pair of lakes pipes. Thanx for lookin', B.

Ken Kitchen at Kitchen Tables Resins has done a very nice one: http://public.fotki....bile-j2-engine/ "This engine was built by Daniel Robinson using some parts not included in the kit. The headers came from Revell Special Edition 69 Nova kit as well as the air cleaners. Daniel says the carbs came from his parts box but he believes they originally came from the Monogram 65 GTO kit."

I think Harry has his finger on it. Your definitiopn of the "purpose" or goal of modeling is one of many. While I would probably not build in this style, I am an unabashed admirer of those who can and do. It's a form of automotive charicature that's often humorous and can be insightful and enormously creative. In particular, I'm quite a fan of those who either "perfect" the kit original through paint, parts substitution and detail, or who adopt the style for their own and kitbash and scratch-build their way to whole new creations. Obviously, this could just as easily be said about modelers who work in the replica style, and I admire those builders as well. I hope this gives you an insight into what might be appealing about this style outside of the more obvious areas of slump-busting nostalgia and light-hearted fun.

1) Nice to see you over here, Ace. 2) Nice to see a completed build. Your starts are always so spectacularly promising and your skills so tantalizingly apparent. 3) Which leads me to 3 - This build really struts its stuff; beautiful proportions, highly original and out-of-the-box within this idiom, and fine, fine, super-fine on the technical level. Oh yeah, and the color is nice, too! What was it about the Gearz contest that prompted this?!

Thanx guys! Giant sigh of relief!!! I got the basic painting done, but not without some heavy melodrama. I started by shooting the frame and body in Duplicolor white primer. Then I masked the main body surfaces, leaving the upholstery exposed. The interior colors (Duplicolor Ivory White covered with Testors White Lightning pearl white) went on OK. Then I removed the main body masking and masked the upholstery surfaces in preparation for shooting the main body color of Testors Inca Gold. So far so good... Unfortunately I got a defective can of Inca Gold which spattered as I sprayed the first coat. The damage was done, setting the basis for a bad case of orange peel. So I shot more color to fill in the gaps in the spatter. Then I waited 10 days for the paint to get good and hard and wet sanded with 1500 grit and 2000 grit and polished out the result. The paint surface was now nice and smooth but the uniformity of the metallic pattern was gone and there were spots where the primer showed through. So I got a replacement can of Inca Gold and hoped it was a good one. This time I test shot it on some scrap bodywork. It was good! And it went down smooth on the body!!! Then I applied 4 coats of Duplicolor clear. The moment of truth came with removing the masking tape. The paint, it turns out, will require no touch up and has nice crisp edges. Here's a color check picture taken in bright sunlight. The contrast between the white upholstery surfaces and the flaked gold paint is what I was after. Major relief on my part... I'll wait a few days to polish out the clear. Meanwhile I'll paint the grill shell and some frame bits and begin assembly work.

Thanx again, everyone. This was a very enjoyable diversion from more ambitious projects I have going. Now that I know this kit in some depth I have more ambitious plans to do other variations, some of which will respect the curbside aspect and others of which will involve cutting up the body and chassis pan and going greater detail with a separate chassis and engine. Overall, I think Revell did a good job creating a kit with "great bones". For the heck of it, before I started this project I assembled the complete car minus the interior and timed it to see how long it would take. It took me less than 5 minutes! This is due to the fact the everything fit so well.

Thanx guys! I'm glad you all like it! Here are some photos which are somewhat less stylized than the previous group, and which emphasize the detail changes I made a bit more.

’34 Ford 3-Window Coupe based on the Revell SnapTite kit. (more pictures below) This was a quick and casual build to take a break from my anything but quick and casual 27 T project. It was inspired by a pair of builds over on the TRaK board: Bryce Michelmore’s Jake’s Tribute ’34 Ford 3-window which was derived from the Revell Snaptite kit, and by Dakota John White’s super simple and clean white chopped Deuce Sedan highboy. Of course this build isn’t as detailed, ambitious or finely executed as either of those great models. My thought was to keep the number of changes to a minimum and use as many parts as possible from the Revell ’34 Ford SnapTite kit that was the basis for this project. At the same time I wanted to avoid much of the contemporary street rod flavor of the kit. I started by removing the gas tank. Then I lowered the front axle about 4 scale inches and lowered the rear axle about 2 scale inches. I replaced the rear tires and wheels with a pair of mag wheels from an AMT ’36 Ford kit, capped with some 10.5” M&H Dragmaster slicks courtesy of Ma’s Resin. At the front I used a pair of MPC Funny Car kidney beans with Modelhaus spider caps and really sweet skinny funny car front tires from Speed City Resin. I liked the kit bench seat so I thought I‘d keep it for my parts box and swapped in a pair of bench style bucket seats I had lying around. The headlights are Revell ’32 Ford items and the taillights are from an AMT’49 Ford. Other than that the build is OTB SnapTite all the way, except I glued everything together. When I started building it I had all kinds of ambitious plans, but as I went along I kept simplifying and homing in on what I thought was right about the basic kit. Once I had the stance dialed in and had chosen the wheels I remembered Dakota John’s “less is more” Deuce sedan and how much Bryce had gotten out of the basic SnapTite kit with his Jake’s Tribute car and decided I would take a minimalist approach. I had already painted the car Duplicolor Wimbledon White with plans for louvers, contrasting trim paint and various decal schemes. But suddenly, confronted with the clean look of the white-with-chrome-and-black combination I decided to keep it basic. I’ll go for far more ambitious builds with future projects based on this kit since I like the overall look of the body and think it makes great raw material. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Nice write-up on a more than "nice" model. A knockout, in fact. Right up there with the Bugatti Tank. I really dig it when you strut your stuff like that!

Beautiful! Great details and an absolutely convincing replica in every way. It's a shame about the warpage, but the display idea really works and with all that tasty interior stuff actually requires it. For future reference, do you think it would have helped to clamp or pin the body parts into position as the paint cured?

I remember this one from the TRaK site and have always liked it. Very cool and very traditional... Technically, this is an extremely demanding build, too. Congrats on a nice one!

And here's a rough and ready 50's Altered sedan...

Rust and dust aren't necessarily something I do much but low and Old Skool certainly are. Here are the closest I've come to rodent-like builds... The only conscious attempt I've done at ratness - The Tube Rat: But here's something that's low, old skool and matte:

Yeah, it;s pretty cool collaborating with RP - and you might be surprised, but he's workin' fast!!! It's a real treat watching a master at work.

This stage of doing the interior is now complete. I made the dashboard and windshield, both of which will receive more work as the build progresses. I’m accustomed to making complete interiors in advance of final assembly, including all paint and finish work. But that’s not possible here because of the bolster which runs all the way around the interior. It needs to be glued into the body before final sanding and filling to shape. After everything is primered using white primer I’ll mask the body and finish out the interior in Testors Pearl White. Then I’ll mask the interior, remove the body masking and paint the body Testors Inca Gold. The dashboard turned out to be a very simple affair, with the continuation of the bolster across the front of the cabin and a simple rectangular dash with an oval extension dropping slightly below the lower edge containing a Model Car Garage photo-etch instrument cluster. The windshield is a narrowed AMT ’32 Ford Phaeton piece which is held in place currently with rubber cement. It will most likely be chopped and have the upper cross piece removed. For now it’s onwards to chassis, suspension, and body finish work in preparation for paint. Here are a coupla pics. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Thanx everyone!!! Hiya Curt! I hope things are well with you. This isn't the only thing I've got goin' - RP and I have a radical chopped and sectioned '39 Ford Tudor happenin' done somewhat in the style of Raul's '40 Ford Coupe Street Rod of a coupla years back except with my ol' skool influence as well. Needless to say Raul's providing all the physical work but it's cool to be collaborating with him. You should check it out. It's on Raul's fotki.