Bernard Kron

Beautifully done. Exceptional engine compartment. Where did you get the air cleaners?

Mild Custom? Full Custom? Factory Prototype? (More pictures below) The '57 Thunderbird is one of several iconic 50's American cars that I've wanted to customize from the perspective of cleaning up and simplifying the underlying design. Obviously heavily influenced by the Pininfarina Ferraris, I thought I'd do this one from that point of view. The car is lowered about 3" all around. I removed all the bumpers, fake vents, door handles and trim, straightened the accent line in front of the front door, and integrated the grill into the front end using brass mesh from K&S. The Lucas spots are from my parts box. I added a more aggressive and functional looking hood scoop from the AMT '49 Ford kit. The rear pan is rolled and the taillights are cut down pieces from the AMT '50 Ford kit. For a racing car keynote I used Halibrand 4-hole kidney bean mags of the type seen on the '57 Reventlow Scarabs. I got them a couple of years ago from Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland. They're finished in Aluminum Plate Testors Metalizer and buffed out bright. But for a custom flavor I ran a set of white pinners from Modelhaus. Exterior paint is Duplicolor Orange Mist Metallic over a gold base for a Kandy Kopper effect sealed with Krylon Crystal Clear acrylic. The interior is done in Duplicolor Wimbledon White and Cayenne Red with Matte Aluminum BMF. Everything else is from the kit. Thanx for lookin', B.

Thanx for following along. It's all done now. I went with the white pinners, they made more sense with the overall look. Beauty shots and wrap-up in Under Glass later today! (Update - Got the pics up in Under Glass here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34503 )In the meantime here's a teaser from the March, '56 issue:

Thanx guys. I'll have to wait 'til i put the whole thing together to decide on the pinners, but that' comin' right up! In the meantime... I've finished up most of the major details on this project. The grill, lights, interior, and motor are all done. The grill is made from K&S brass mesh, the driving lights Lucas style units from my parts box, and the taillights are'50 Ford cut down to fit the stock buckets for a frenched look. The motor comes fully chromed in the kit. I left most of the major pieces chromed but painted the block and heads. The interior is stock with the wrap-around panel finished in matte aluminum BMF. Colors are Duplicolor Wimbledon White and Cayenne Red. All that's left now is final assembly. Here are some workbench shots. Thanx for lookin', B.

What's not to like! It's a really fine model, beautifully executed. This stock style build isn't something I would have expected to see from Danno, but so glad you shared it with us. The story about the hinge is sad but neat nonetheless.

Stunning indeed! Not only beautifully exceuted but in many ways a unique style straddling the line between realism and fantasy. And the details reward repeated and careful viewing. Thanx again for sharing another of your great models with us.

Glad to see this back. With all the ambitious detail you want to put into this thing no wonder you couldn't get it done in time for the build off. That's the problem with deadlines, sometimes.... Same thing happened with mine - I got hung up duplicating a set of injectors and then lost enthusiasm as the build off came and went. I will return to it, however. As the expression goes, keep it comin'!

As I would say "over there" (and have), !!!

Gorgeous, just gorgeous!

Thanx guys! Got the color down and work done on the interior. Here's an outdoor picture of the body with a true representation of the color: I think I'm sticking with the stock windshield, it goes with the conservative modifications I've made. Unfortunately the interior needs to be fully assembled and glued together in order to sit properly in the body and I don't want to do that yet because I have to foil the dashboard section. As result the windshield, which rests on the dash, sits a bit cockeyed in my mockups. Here are a coupla indoor pics, front and rear: And for some reason I'm still considering the red pinners even though my eye tells me they just won't show like the white ones. So here is another, by now ritualistic, comparison. Opinions welcome... Thanx for lookin', B.

Thanx Raul. This is turning out to be a pretty mild custom, just a reduction to the basic lines. I agree, it's mighty tempting to cobble up some sort of tonneau cover and a low screen and call it good! Just a minor update. First a test shot. The Duplicolor Orange Mist Metallic is on the left and is the color I'll be using. The one on the the right was my other choice, Duplicolor Cayenne Red but I've already got too many red cars. Both are shot over Duplicolor Gold and have two coats of Krylon Crystal Clear acrylic. And some progress shots with the gold base finessed and polished. As is obvious there are still some spots that are being worked. Gold paint shows up absolutely everything! I also painted the wheels in Testors Buffable Plate Aluminum and mocked up the stock windshield with the chrome surround. It actually looks pretty good to my eyes, but I'm still considering a cut down windscreen. I would like to find a way to preserve the chrome frame, however. Thanx for lookin', B.

At first I thought "What's with the blurry first photo?" until I noticed the very much in-focus and lovely hold-down strap. Gorgeous and thoroughly convincing detail work throught and the one front 3/4 view shows what a terrific build this is overall. Perhaps you have some more all-over shots from other angles you could share with us? Not that I'm complaining about all that wonderful eye-candy mind you! Really a stunning model!

Thanx everyone! Thanx Hans. I am spending some time getting the last of the imperfections out of the gold base. Gold is very unforgiving. It shows absolutely everything. It's almost as if you get the base coat right you are very far along towards getting the rest of the paint right. I'm also shooting some test color shots which I'll post later.

Thanx for all the input, guys. I may not have agreed with every detail, but it really helped me in deciding what I wanted to do with this build. Looks like I'm settled on a path now. I finished the bodywork on this thing and shot the base coat of gold for what will be a candy orange mist paint job. There are still some scratches and blemishes on the base coat to work through but, weather permitting, I should start on the color coats in the next day or two. Even though there’s quite a bit of cutting and chopping and molding on this build, the approach I’ve taken is actually quite conservative. As a result I’ve decided to go with more of a competition/custom look, almost as if this was the prototype Ford would have shown in ’56 before releasing the ’57 facelift. For the racing car keynote I’m using a set of Halibrand 4-hole kidney bean mags of the type seen on the ’57 Reventlow Scarab. I got them a couple of years ago from Replicas and Miniature of Maryland. They’ll be finished in Aluminum Plate Testors Metalizer and buffed out bright. But for a custom flavor I’ve decided to run a set of pinners. The question is red or white. The white shows up better but the red has a more sober competition vibe. I’m thinking white but I could be talked into the reds… Here are some pics of the car in gold basecoat with the molding work in the nose and tail finished up, showing the overall lines of the car the way it will look with the final color coat. I will be running a cut down windscreen and some sort of variation on the stock interior. The motor will be the stock motor with a mild hop up. Thanx for lookin’ B.

Mikey, thanx for this link. I have immediately ordered 300 cu. ft. of Violent Bass Air (http://kalecoauto.co...&products_id=48) for the trunk, so that I can improve the social performance of my ride. While I was at it I loaded up on the Lowering Kit (what an amazingly simple approach - pure genius) ( http://kalecoauto.co...&products_id=11 ), a pair of Perfectly Clear Tailights (http://kalecoauto.co...products_id=37) and a set of Redhead Headlights so that my car will look as hip as it sounds. Again, I can't thank you enough for this tip. I can hardly wait to install these life-changing modifications to my car!

Cool. Looks like a 1/24 scale wing tank, perhaps from the Trumpeter kit? That's the smaller of the commonly used tanks, in the neghborhood of 180-200 gallons I think. Bill Burke's first tanker used this one, and like your build, things were pretty cramped. The larger tanks (300 gallons?) were quickly adopted soon after. George, Early Years Resin carries a very nice vacuum formed tank (the larger one) which is very reasonably priced. Here's a link: http://earlyyearsres...om/lsrparts.htm I've got one on my bench waiting for some attention...

Curt, The chassis work is stunning, so straight and clean, ditto the door panels. Yum, yum... Re: the numbers. The color matched outline will work and probably is a better way to go with these very thin characters since it would result in a slightly thicker font. I considered it but I didn't want to risk a non-match on the outline and so chose the backwards-on-the-back approach. The result is extremely realistic, but I went through more than a dozen "7" decals to get one down properly because the top part wanted to tear or curl over on itself. Multiple tries were only feasible because I was printing my own decals. Anything you can do to broaden the character will help. The major advantage of a clear background is that you pre-position the characters in relation to each other in addition to getting a large stable decal to lay down. B.

Curt, I recently did borderless, plain white numbers for my Pre-War '29 Lakes car. I have an inkjet printer and the method I used was to flip the numbers horizontally so they made a mirror image, then print them on the back of some white decal stock and cut them out. If you're a real glutton for punishment you can use that method (your numbers are very thin) or have your friend with the Alps print white on clear. The font is almost certainly Century Gothic, although the letter "C" is slightly different than the version I have. Other substitutions are Myriad Pro (virtually identical) and Eras Medium ITC (pretty darn close). I'm sure there are others, too, since Century Gothic is an extremely common font. I'd be surprised you don't have it on your computer. If you want me to do the art for you just shoot me a PM. I can scale them from your pictures or you could send me the edge dimension of the area you want them in. Here's an example of the Century Gothic I have. B.

Nice builds, both of them. I particularly like the chop and the stance on the Deuce. Looks nice in the front 3/4 view I stole from your Fotki:

Thanx for the great ride on the W.I.P., a real inspiration. It resulted in a.... great ride!!! A truly massive thumbz up on this one P.S. Don't forget to show us the 1:1 on completion!

I post for the benefits I get putting my builds in context, in the world of one of my obsessions, car modeling. It's impossible for me to do that with any frequency any other way. I also post for the camraderie that comes with sharing that obsession with fellow inmates, and for the comments and discussion that, with luck, might ensue. I also post for the beer and for the girls...

Fabulous thread. Great topic that took guts to initiate for the reasons already stated. But maybe this issue can be somewhat overstated. It's certainly true that there are groups of builders who have formed little self-congratulatory circles for what are quite obviously poor to mediocre builds and it can have the effect of perpetuating this level of modeling. I feel most of those situations are pretty obvious. It's a choice those modelers have made and they are pretty easy to ignore or skip over. But the very thing that we all seem to be so concerned about, our silence, can be deafening. Believe me, the collective disinterest of the forum tells you a lot about what you've managed to achieve. And I'd bet that most of the time that's how things happen, rather than the certainty of a circle of friends standing ready to distribute the Atta-Boys. If someone takes the time to comment that's a plus, let alone to offer constructive criticism (which happens only rarely). I think on balance most of us post our builds for the benefit we get from seeing them in context, surrounded by models that are everything from ones we know are clearly inferior to our own extending to those built to a level of technique and creativity we feel we may never achieve. Certainly it's why I started posting here. I remember being surprised when I got a few compliments since I certainly didn't expect them, I just wanted to see my build "on the page" (and I wasn't exactly sure I liked what I saw...). The complements served as encouragement since I obviously had made a connection with my build. It helped me get a clearer picture of what was right with my model and consider ways to get better at it. But I was lucky, because some of compliments actually said something about what the viewer liked, not just Atta-Boy. On my next post, a build I had done too hastily and which was way over my head at the time, I received my first two criticisms. I had left a glue smudge on a rear tire and I had used front suspension links which were incorrect for the period of car I claimed to be modeling. I felt a little miffed, primarily because I knew about them in advance and has simply been too lazy to correct them. Secretly I had hoped they would slip by. Sadly, many other errors (the aforementioned glue on the windshield among others) skated by without a peep. It reminded me that it was all there on the page for everyone to see, so who was I kidding - only myself. Both criticisms were served up with grace and humor so I survived the ordeal. The act of exposing my work to my fellow modelers served urge me to seek to avoid those issues in the future. I think it matters how we say things as well as what we say. A vapid, empty "great build", while pleasant enough, is less useful than a complement where we share with the builder more specifically what it is about their work that we like. Similarily, a cruel laundry list of flaws and errors without an indication of how the builder might redeem themselves is a pretty bitter pill to swallow and not very constructive. I continue to post for the camraderie that comes with sharing in a hobby we all love, in order to assess my progress in context, and for the comments and discussion that, with luck, might ensue.

I think everyone pretty much has it right so far. I recently followed a discussion about contest judging on another forum, one whose members primarily pride craft, detail and authenticity above all else, often much to their frustration when seeing the. shall we say, "less disciplined" manifestations of the automotive modeler's art. One of the participants contrasted judging automotive models to judging armored vehicles and military aircraft. There is certainly a broader tradition of "imaginative" building in the automobile sector than in these other areas where he pointed out that there is a strong tradition of replica building. For this person it was sometimes frustrating to them to have to acknowledge brilliant model building that was far from technically or historically correct. But this broad range from replica to fantasy that is such an important aspect of the automobile modeling world is why I build cars as opposed to other things. For myself I enjoy textures and finishes that scale correctly (like the discussion above about turned aluminum parts - wonderful "eye candy" pics BTW), get massive enjoyment out of a truly great factory stock build, and love all the incredible super detailed NASCAR and drag car builds featured in the magazines and shown here. But at the same time I'm a huge fan of imagination-based builds like those we have seen from CB, Chopper, Geezerman, Treehugger, Cranky and Peter Lombardo, among others. For me it's a matter of how successfully the idea in the builder's head has translated to the model. I have my personal preferences but when a model is truly "hooked up", you've got me. From what's been written so far I think it's obvious that's what most builders strive for. The frustration, personal or otherwise, comes when, out of inability, fatigue, or laziness, we fail to achieve that successful translation from idea to finished build. That isn't "fun"... Bottom line, if the idea requires technical authenticity and correctness to translate successfully then these elements must be striven for, but when they become an end in themselves the build is in danger of becoming sterile, formal and bland. On the other extreme, an automobile that has "radical" visual elements and building techniques which have been adopted merely to shock and amaze is in danger of becoming a confused heap of disparate "things" which fail to communicate any sort of vision the builder may have had.