Bernard Kron

Now that's exciting! And I'd love to know how you know that they know...! lol

Likewise for me, it's really rather ugly, but were it to be done to resemble the TV car it would be a serious and much needed update. But the 5-window came up short in several respects so I'm not holding my breath. It's interesting, none the less, that in the case of the Rat Roaster they have stuck their necks seriously into the wind by featuring a large photo, allying themselves with the show itself via the contest, etc. Frankly, if they just got the motor and wheels right I'd be very pleased and, as you point out, would be bought in quatity as a donor car. (Still, I can dream about a proper I-beam front axle, stock firewall, deleted air bags and single bar grill brace, etc., etc. can't I?) Also worth noting, as I have before, how Revell's new releases are numerically dominated by cars and trucks .

Thanx Brett. I'll update the sheet as confirmations come in. Pretty exciting stuff I'd say! One thing I'm a bit cynical about is the Stacey David car. The 1/25 Revell Deuce Roadster has needed updating for a long time now, but I find it hard to imagine it will actually have narrow front tires and new wheels to more contemporary tastes, let alone a stock firewall and a BBC!

Here's a summary for reference. Please point out any errors. I'm no expert on model kit history...

Once more, thanx guys! I'm glad you like the results! These FEDs are addictive. I just don't get around to them often enough (other styles are addictive, too, and I could say the same thing about them, I guess). These are the kit wires and found in all the old AMT Tommy Ivo FED based 1/25 rail kits like the Too Much, Digger 'Cuda, etc. They are among my least favorite, especially as the tooling has gotten to be quite old now. The best styrene front wire wheels, IMHO, are those in the Revell Tony Nancy Double Dragster kit. This is, generally speaking, an incredible parts kit, even if you never build either of the dragsters. However, when it comes to Front Engine Dragsters I'm coming to the conclusion that the best approach may very well be to scratch build much of the project. I think Shane Ganz (Fuel Coupe) just proved that once again with his fabulous Surfers digger. Certainly this is true when it comes to the chassis and wire front wheels. I'm sure I'll be exploring this way of doing things in the future!

Thanx for all the props, guys. It's especially welcome from some of my favorite builders! I am humbled and flattered. The encouragement is always much appreciated. Dominik, How I missed that during photography I'll never know. The right rear fender popped out slightly. Probably as a result of the thicker Flintstone resin body dropping down the interior shell and putting the body in tension against the fenders. Time to get out the heavy rubber bands and epoxy,,,, Fingers crossed I don't mess up the paint - and that it hasn't spoiled it too badly for folks looking at it...

Very coooolll!!! I dig the differences between the two, the different stances (both very nice), wheel treatments, etc. I also like the "organic" two-tone paint jobs. My preference is for the Ford-grilled job. So Dyna Panhard don'tcha think?

Oh yeah!!! Lovely, just lovely, the tasty details and the straight-up, no b.s. purposefulness of this iconic car - it's all there... I really enjoyed following the w.i.p. and the results delivered on everything it promised. A tour-de-force of scratch building. Congrats on doing justice to this important dragster. Biiigggg thumzupz:

I can't recall if I said this elsewhere, but I think this model shows off all the best of what you do: originality of concept and clarity of vision, a tremendous sense of realism and what it takes to achieve it, and the skills to execute such detail. What a totally cool model!

Nothin' like Expert Knowledge to help things along! Sweet, sweet little build!

The car is completed and has been posted Under Glass: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49006 Thanx for all the kind words and interest! B.

Frank Baron's Chopped '36 Ford 3-Window Coupe Shop Car - A flight of fancy First off, this car never existed; it’s a pure flight of fancy. But Frank Baron and Bob Tattersfield did exist, and they were the first to successfully market a 4 carburetor manifold for the Ford Flathead, along with an innovative set of cylinder heads which utilized unique pop up pistons for increased efficiency and compression. All this was in 1948 while they ran their immaculately turned out and beautiful belly tank at the dry lakes. Bob Tattersfield came from a well to do family which manufactured auto parts (that’s how he got involved with Frank in their speed equipment enterprise). Bob was, to use an expression of the period, “Hollywood”, a flashy guy who liked fast, flashy cars and the lifestyle to go with it. Frank Baron came from a more modest background. He was all business and liked to keep a low profile, although he liked to go very fast just as much as Bob did. Nobody makes a scale 4 carb setup for the flathead, either in kit form or in the aftermarket. I’ve always wanted one and last year a modeling friend was kind enough to cast up a few and give me some (he will remain anonymous because he doesn’t want to go into the resin business). So, with the manifold in hand, I wondered what if a little of Bob Tattersfield had rubbed off on Frank Baron and he had built a shop car that was as slick as the lakester he shared with Bob. This model is the result. The historical Frank Baron wouldn’t be caught dead in a car like this, but it sure would have been an eye-catcher running around L.A. in 1948. The address for Baron Automobile Service is real, BTW. It’s where you went to have your Tattersfield-Baron hop up equipment installed after you bought it from the factory that Bob’s dad owned. The car is based on an AMT ’36 Ford 5-window kit with a Jimmy Flintstone chopped 3-window body. Here are the details along with more pictures. Basic kit: All parts from an AMT ’36 Ford 5 window coupe except as noted below. Jimmy Flintstone chopped ’36 Ford 3-window coupe body. ’40 Ford bumpers from AMT kit. Stock hubcaps with AMT ’49 Ford trim rings. Whitewall tires by Modelhaus Resin 4 carburetor manifold Model Car Garage resin Offenhauser cylinder heads. Stromberg 97 carburetors by Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland. Air cleaners are taillights from 2 AMT ’34 Ford 5-window coupe kits. Tail pipes and water pipes were scratch built from polished aluminum tubing. Exterior paint is Duplicolor Oxford White with home made decals, sealed with Krylon Crystal Clear acrylic. Interior colors are Testors Acryl Leather and British Crimson. Thanx for lookin, B.

Thanx Ed. I wish I could take credit for the chop but this is Jimmy Flinstone's resin casting of the original AMT chopped top. They did a super job back in the day! Thanx Curt. Yeah, Mystery Resins sure casts up a mean manifold! There’s very little left to be done on this build, only the rear bumper, tail lights, tail pipes and license plate. Below are some pictures of the engine compartment and front end, The front end work included cutting down some sealed beam headlight lenses from a pair taken from an AMT ‘29 Ford kit, and changing out the earlier grill for a finer meshed screen. The engine compartment features a beehive oil filter, voltage regulator and some scratch built coolant pipes made from insulated wire and aluminum tubing buffed out with Simichrome. These are the last W.I.P. pictures. Next time I’ll post “beauty shots” Under Glass. Thanx to everyone for following along, B.

Thanx everyone! The engine is now complete and ready for installation. This was a good example of a false economy of time and effort. I had decided to use the kit flathead because I knew it was an exact fit and would simplify installation issues. I knew that these early AMT engines are pretty “soft”, lacking much in the way of detail, and this one is no exception. The headers are molded into the block sides and the distributor lump is pretty vague. But I figured the motor would be buried in the engine compartment so the lower half detail wouldn’t be very important. I was going to change out the heads for high-compression finned aluminum jobs, and of course I’d have the four carbs up top. Plenty of eye-candy, I figured. But…the heads I had that most resembled actual Tattersfield-Baron types were a set of Model Car Garage Offenhauser heads; very nice with crisp fins and lots of bolt detail. Unfortunately, they are of the center water outlet variety, the sort first seen in 1938 on the 59A style engines when Ford did away with the water outlets and water pumps at the front of the heads. While quite appropriate for the showpiece high performance mill that Frank Baron would want to put in his shop car, this necessitated converting the early 21 stud style AMT engine to something that looked like a 59A. Work I had to do included mounting the lateral belt pulleys low down on the block instead of up by the heads, cutting new drivebelts from styrene stock, and even fabricating an offset generator drive to accommodate the extra length of the four-carb manifold. So much for a shortcut! I’d have been better of adapting a Revell flathead… Anyway, below is the result. The carbs are courtesy of Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland, the manifold is the mystery resin piece mentioned earlier, and the air cleaners are actually tail lights from some AMT ’34 Ford 5-window kits. Next up, final assembly! Thanx for lookin’, B.

The fellow on the left is John Teresi, and the fellow on the right is Gene Winfield, customizer and hot rodder extraordinaire, still going strong at 84 after a lifetime of creativity and innovation spanning virtually the entire history of the rod & custom world. Here's are some links FYI: http://www.c-we.com/piranha/GeneWinfield.htm http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_car_photos/beautiful_custom_cars/gene_winfield/ http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Gene_Winfield

Very nice so far. I agree about the stance and the cool wheels. What is the body you are using as the basis? It doesn't look like the Flintstone Bonneville racer you used on you earlier (and very nice) blue, flamed Alloway style build.

Here’s a small update. I’ve gotten the interior completed. It’s basically stock with a Testors Leather acrylic “leatherette” seat and door panels and reddish dashboard and other interior surfaces (Testors British Crimson acrylic). I printed out and applied the decals. I added small “Tatterfield-Baron Racing Equipment” logos to the hood side panels, proportioned and placed to mimic the effect of the stock hood vents. Then I sealed them several coats of Krylon Crystal Clear Gloss. I’ll let the clear coat cure for a few days and then polish out the paint. I’m always slightly surprised (and relieved!) when the actual real decals look so much like the Photoshop mockups. In the meantime, with the wheels and tires and chassis all completed, it’s time to finish up the engine. Final assembly can’t be too far away now… Thanx for lookin’, B.

Yeah, lovely stance and great proportions... and sanitary, too! Keep it comin'!

I just received an e-mail from Alan a few minutes ago. I had sent him an e-mail about three weeks ago inquiring about an order I had coming. I hadn't heard from him since. Alan explains that his e-mail has been down for the last 3 weeks or so. He sounds fine. I would assume any of you who have messages outstanding should be hearing from him shortly.

I've been using the louvers from Archer's for quite some time now. I use the O scale (1/48) item # 37 to equate to approx. 3" louvers in 1/24 or 1/25 scales. I like them a lot and have used them on several builds. Here is a link to my product review last year: http://www.modelcars...rs&fromsearch=1 . The review spells out some of the limitations and benefits of this approach. My most recent use has been on a replica of The Challenger's A-V8 from Deuce of Spades. The w.i.p. on that build (see http://www.modelcars...showtopic=39392 ) spells out some additional details on how to get the best results from them. Here are some pics: Another great use of Archer products was on Curt Raitz's incredible Bugatti Type 32 "Tank" which made liberal use of Archer Rivets to great effect. Here's link to the Under Glass post ( http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=25634&hl=bugatti&fromsearch=1 )and here are some pics:

Ditto on the Caddy V8 in the Revell '49 Merc. And for a cool extra detail you might consider the super-nice Cadillac script valve covers from Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland:

The camera your considering looks like a fine one. Your budget allows you to choose among a large range of excellent cameras and you should have no trouble finding a great one. However, I agree with Gregg regarding model car photography and getting at least an F-8 aperture. Manual mode or aperture priority with the smallest aperture (largest F-stop number) you can get is what works for me. That and plenty of light on your subject.l This ensures the greatest depth of field and sharp detail of even the smallest objects in your image. Also, as mentioned by several folks already, macro mode is critical for the closeup work that model car photography demands. And finally, as was also mentioned, manually setting your white balance is vital - otherwise you can be pretty sure you'll get strange colors a lot of the time. I use a point and shoot camera, a 9 mega-pixel Fujifilm E900 which I've had for about a year. It was already discontinued when I bought it, but I had used a 5-mega-pixel Fuji for several years with good results and this model was affordable and had similar controls and features, including a range-finder which I wanted. Not a real fancy camera, but it had one feature I wanted and is increasingly hard to find. It shoots in RAW mode. RAW is the basic digital format with no compression of either the color information or the individual pixel data. This means the files are HUGE, but my camera, for example, shoots at 270 mega-pixels per inch resolution in RAW and 72 mega-pixels per inch resolution in JPEG mode. In RAW mode the color reproduction is much closer to what I see naturally as well. I'm really glad I made sure to get RAW mode capability. However, this is only important if you plan on cropping and manipulating your images, which I do in Photoshop. Otherwise get a camera with the truest color and smallest aperture (highest F-stop number) you can get within your budget, and make sure it allows you to take advantage of the high F-stop number by shooting either in manual mode or aperture priority mode. A good review site like the one Dr. Cranky provided a link to will usually supply excellent guidance on these matters. Like I said, your budget pretty much assures you that you can get a superb camera that will provide great results.

I got caught out by the 5 picture per post limit when I tried to edit the title, so here are two key pictures from my first post I had to remove… The Pierson ’36: Photoshop mockup of decal scheme:

Thanx everyone! I got the color coats down, and also completed the wheels and tires. The tires are from Modelhaus. The wheels are replicas of those found on the Pierson ’38. They’re stock ’36 wheels with chrome rings. I used rings from the AMT ’49 Ford. I also fabricated a mesh grill and painted it red. The simple grill is in keeping with the notion of the car being a streetable lakes car. Here’s a picture of the manifold. Not too fancy but it’ll do the job under a quartet of 97’s! Next up on the to-do list are the motor, chassis finishing, interior, decals, clear coats and ultimately final assembly and engine compartment detailing. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Very cool gasser. Looking forward to more. But an AWB would be pretty hip, too :