Bernard Kron

Interesting point. I'll try it since otherwise I will accumulate a lot of rather useless wheels.

Thanx Dan! The Fisher setup from the '51 Bel Air is perfect! Fisher even bought the head patterns from Wayne Horning in late '51-early '52 so it fits my time period (no roll bar to keep the lines ultra clean). Now all I have to do is locate one without paying nose-bleed prices on flea-bay...

Thanx Curt. It's amazing how many times my choice of masking tape has determined the final paint scheme... For some reason I look at this car and suddenly feel very patriotic... Thanx CB. I noticed the chopped top effect, too. Of course, that instantly triggered another "future build" in the old memory banks... The inline 6 is most likely the way I'll go, but it probably means scratch building the intake and exhaust which is a concern...

I’ve been collecting parts and thinking about this build for more than a year. When the Revell 1/25 32 5-window was announced with its louvered rear deck I wondered if it could be made to fit a ’29 Ford Roadster. If it could then my mental picture would be complete and it would be time to start building. I bought the 5-window kit at my LHS last week and it turns out with a little cutting and plastic strip the louvered deck can be made to fit. This will be an early 50’s (circa ’53) drag car. The chassis is from the Revell ’32 series pinched and bobbed at the front and z’d and shortened at the rear, a resin hood and grill shell from the Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Md. A V-8 Roadster resin kit (Norm will sell you the hoods separately if you ask him nicely), the AMT ’29 A Roadster main body shell and the aforementioned Revell ’32 5-window louvered deck. The tonneau cover is scratch built. The motor will be period correct. I’m tempted to go with a Chevy Six but may run a flattie – I haven’t decided. Here’s a pic of the deck conversion. Material needs to be trimmed from the bottom and strips of .020 plastic added to the sides to add width And here’s a very rough mockup. Thanx for lookin’. B.

Very nice build! This is the first completion I've seen since the initial deliveries to the LHS market. You obviously took this toward the old-school side, very appropriate for the five-window body. The hairpins and new taillights really underscore this side of the kit. Of course the flattie doesn't hurt either! And a p/e grill is a virtual must with these kits IMHO! Nice idea to "sell" this feature with the license plate showing through the grill! But the overall success of this build underscores a constant weakness in this series of kits, the modern wider width of the wheels, regardless of style - they already made the Kelsey Hayes wires on the sedan questionable, and hurt the steelies on this kit. I'm sure many builders will ditch the kit wheels when going old-school!

I hadn't checked this in a while. I really like the Billetproof influence (a concept I thoroughly approve of BTW . The character of the "A" series Fords cries out for it. I'm glad it found you! And the '29 cowl is my all time favorite in the "upright" period of Ford styling. The taper it lends to the front of the car can't be beat. This one's defnitely headed in the right direction as far as I'm concerned!

Is this all metal or part plastic? In any case, it's convincingly to scale and beautifully done.

Fine OTB build. Very clean and with a well detailed interior. But those taillights, which are very nice, aren't from the kit if I recall. Like the aluminum exhausts, they improve the look. What are they from?

Niiiice!!! The chop and section job echoes the El Matador well on a totally different body shape. Hard to see the grille area which looks "different but the same". Any chances of seeing a front end view? In any case, the truck and trailer combo looks like it would be prize winner in its own right! I'm assuming it's mainly plastic since it appears to have been a relatively quick build compared to the epic masterwork the El Matador was.

Here are a few that should get you started: http://www.compresins.com/ http://www.alteredstatesmodels.com/ http://www.banditresins.com/ http://www.dragcitycasting.com/ http://www.scalemodelingbychris.com/ http://www.freewebs.com/resinslinger/index.htm

Glad to hear you can take this with your usual good humor! I'm sure everyone here is wishing you a rapid and complete recovery! Damaged digits are serious stuff when you're a modeler... B.

This build continues to go quite quickly. I keep waiting for something to go terribly wrong. I am having some trouble getting the paint on the grill shell to behave…. Hmmmm…. I completed the .interior panels and installed them. The dash is an AMT ’37 Chevy piece that was smoothed out to accept a Replicas & Miniatures p/e dash panel. The door handles and cranks are from Drag City Casting. The steering wheel is from an AMT ’49 Ford. The headliner and side panels were scratch built from Evergreen styrene panels and strips. The seat is from the ’30 A kit. The floor panel is from the AMT Phantom Vicky. I also shot some Testors DullCote on the Tamiya Pearl Green paint and this time I liked the final effect. It makes the underlying green really pop. And Raul, I think you’re right, the suede finish does serve to contrast with the polished bits on the motor. Next up will be steering gear and completing the front suspension, radiator and headlights, tailights, and further detailing of the engine while I wait for the headers to get here… Thanx for lookin’! B.

Wonderful! I always loved the final lay-down engined roadster with those gigantic Firestone Indy tires towering over the slim line body. Real end-of-an-era engineering. And when you get this sucker done you need to photgraph it in that classic Indianapolis front 3/4 view. They must have had the ground marked out and the tripod permanently mounted to the ground. Every picture is virtually identical! What is the basic donor kit you are using for the chassis and engine? That motor details out very nicely and the chassis looks pretty dang good. More, more, more!!!

I’ve made quite a lot of headway on this thing. I got the basic engine built, the bodywork cleaned up and painted and some of the interior panels structures started. The Revell Tommy Ivo Showboat shortblock really is great raw material. The transmission, accessory drive and oil pan are from the Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland conversion kit mentioned above. As you can see, they are beautifully detailed and complement the Ivo shortblock perfectly. The manifold, belt drive and carbs are from the AMT ’40 Ford Sedan Delivery. The carbs and belt drive are just mocked up for now. I’ll wire and detail the motor once I get the headers in. (Click on picture for larger image) The AMT Phantom Vicky chassis is really a pretty piece. In the future I’ll have to work on some more traditional rear end and k-member bits for it. I can only hope I keep running into cheap and ugly pre-painted versions! (Click on picture for larger image) And finally here are a couple of mockups in Pearl Green. The Pearl Green Tamiya paint looks good with the purple rails. The Tamiya paint covers so well that the color of primer has no impact on the how it looks. Right now though, the paint looks a little raw and needs some polishing. I’m thinking of going with a suede finish. I tried some matte clear over the pearl on a test panel and it’s just a little too dead flat., I’ll try to buff it out slightly to give it an even sheen. As you can see, I had to abandon my idea of keeping the stock firewall. With the channel the Nailhead just crowds in to the cowl area too much. Bummer… This thing is really coming together now. For all the enthusiasm for the upcoming Revell ’32 5-Window I really think nothing beats the greenhouse of the 5-window Model A when it comes to a chopped hot rod coupe. It just has so much more character. Next steps include doing the interior completing the steering and front suspension and then detailing the motor and installing an exhaust system, Can’t wait for that package from down under! Thanx for lookin’ B.

I can't recall if you mentioned it on the W.I.P., but what maroon did you use? Also, what was the source of those nice pie-crust slicks? I have a pair in my parts stash but fear using them in case I can't replace them (silly of me I know...). They were given to me so I don't know where they came from.

A kitbashing tour de force! Anyone who missed the W.I.P. is missing something very special. Dennis, you have kept your "eye on the prize" the whole way through and you deserve all the goofy grins you can muster. Your A-V8 captures the spirit of a monochrome world full of of young guys glad to be alive and in one piece, living at home and building their rods on $50.00 a month demobilization money, dressing in the clothes they brought back with them from the war. It was indeed a tiny window of time, perhaps 2-3 years at best, a world that changed almost immediately with the inflation of the end of the 40's and the prosperity of the 50's and 60's. A magical twilight time perhaps, but one that informs every hot rod that was ever built from then on. And this build has nailed the look and feel of this period big time! Corgrats! PS: I love this passage: "...this narrow window in the past, when hot rods were more than just a pretty face at a car show. These cars were often times the owners only mode of transportation and had to double as their race car on the weekends where they competed for top speed bragging rights on the dry-lake beds of Southern California. Within the next few years peoples priorities would change with the popularity of hot rod shows and magazine coverage. People started competing on an appearance level with fancy paint and lots of chrome, major racing interest shifted to drag racing and just like that the romance of the dry-lakes era was gone." An image worth repeating in one-two-five! PPS: "...Last but not least, a clean and simple Maroon paint job - not perfect, but not bad either." Yes indeed!

Now that was well put! Both parties share a little of the responsibility for the outcome of the interaction (just like in the non-virtual world!). Unfortunately sometimes we lose sight of that...

To a large degree most threads are self selecting so the issue you are raising, Harry, is less of a problem than those with the thinnest skins would make it out to be. What I mean is that in most cases if people comment it’s because what’s being posted is something that interests them and they already relate to. That’s why most replies tend to be along the lines of positive comments, even to the point of simplistic things like “Cool!â€, “Gorgeousâ€, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that. It offers encouragement and support. It also has the advantage of keeping things pleasant and on an even keel. Unfortunately, it's also unchallenging, not offering much in the way of expansion of knowledge and information. So, when something is posted that draws criticism, those criticisms, however well intentioned and kindly phrased they may be, are already a long ways away from the normal chit chat. So if you’re a poster who is participating in a forum on the level of this “normal chit chat†and that is all you want out of it, criticism can actually be a rather rude intrusion into what you showed up for in the first place Unfortunately, you don’t get any “points†for just showing up. But most of us aren’t here to collect “pointsâ€, just to find a welcoming environment for our participation in this hobby. As I said above, most of the time things work out fine. Most of the time, regardless of how excellent, amateurish, crude, meticulously executed, original, trite, glue-bombed, sanitary or whatever our model is, the worst that can possibly happen is that no one will care, and even this is very rare indeed. Otherwise there’s someone out there that will find value in what you did and say so with some kind words. People are quite often polite, sensitive, caring, supportive, perceptive and interested in what you’re attempting to do and how you’re doing it. But just as easily, people can be boorish, self-absorbed, egotistical and only interested in what they’re doing and what they already know. It’s the risk inherent in any public forum. Those managing the forum face a real challenge. Do they come down hard on the boors and louts for not being nice all the time, for being off-topic too often, for hijacking someone’s thread, etc.? But where exactly do you draw the line? No profanity? No harsh language or characterization? Every negative comment must be accompanied by an “atta-boyâ€? All comments must be narrowly cast based on the initial post? Obviously, an impossible task. And the problem is that if they were successful any meaningful interchange among participants would be “sanitized†away, eventually leading to the evolution of narrow little in-groups with little or nothing to offer other than their own self-satisfaction. I suspect this first option is something like what happened at the “other magazine’s†forum. They played policeman and scared away participants with something to say. The other option is to let the chips fall where they may and risk hostility, hurt feelings, chaotic postings and scaring away newbies and builders not easily pigeon-holed in your forum as it exists at the moment. Ironically, this, too, eventually leads to the evolution of narrow little in-groups with little or nothing to offer other than their own self-satisfaction. Like you, my own leaning is to risk the hurt feelings and opt for the more “libertarian†approach. We’re not all adults here, regardless of our calendar age. Immaturity comes in many forms. But I would hope we would attempt to treat each other as adults, again regardless of the calendar age of ourselves or our fellow forum members. I would think, for example, that for an enthusiastic young modeler just getting started, the opportunity to interact with seasoned builders might have a certain attraction. And we all know of the many “seasoned builders†who are only too happy to share their time and knowledge with fellow forum members. A few rough edges now and then is well worth the risk. So, ultimately, the challenge lies with every one of us as forum members to balance offering a meaningful opinion or point of view with respect for our fellow members' own reasons and motivations for participating in this wonderful hobby. I guess it's just basic good manners...

First off, thanx to Dennis for keeping me honest on the tire thing. Not a big deal to make the resin tires fit, but I definitely needed someone to kick my lazy derriere... Extra added benefit on the tire switch was that the larger rears added just a tiny bit more rake which I like... Yes, spoon tests are in order (actually fork tests since I'm almost out of plastic spoons). First off to make sure the color goes with the pre-painted frame color, and then, as always, to check the effect of different color primers, and finally, given the look of this build, to compare gloss against suede. Here's a color swatch courtesy of Tamiya USA: It's supposed to be hot and sunny tomorrow so things should go quickly. Meanwhile, lotsa bodywork to get done, an engine to build, and an interior to invent. Thanx for following along... B.

Gorgeous. One of my all-time favorite cars, and the Mica Blue creates a sort of idealized version of it. I like the choice of wheels, too. The styling of the A110 is so successful that these "un-authentic" details only serve to enhance its special beauty. Very nice photography, too. It really sets off this excellent, sanitary build.

Those pipes look sharp! The angle on the cuts is just right!

The tire thing bugged me a bunch so I went through my parts stash and found a nice set of resin Hot Rod Big ‘n’ Littles I bought last year from The Parts Box ( http://www.thepartsbox.com/ , Part No. 640), reamed out the centers a bit with my Dremel and I think this will be an improvement. The fronts on the resin tires are the same width as the other ones but slightly larger in diameter (it works out to approx 28 scale inches vs. 27.5 scale inches) but the sidewall detail is much more interesting. The rear resin tires are visually larger in diameter than the old tires (it works out to approx 30.125 scale inches vs. 28.75 scale inches) and have the right ribbed tire pattern. Below are some pics. Tell me what you all think… I bought some Tamiya TS-60 Pearl Green that looks like it might work. I’ll do some test shots and see if it’s a good alternative to Pea Green…(or did I just buy it ‘cause it’s spelling was almost Pea Green…) Thanx! B.

My LHS said today they are expecting the 5-window sometime in the middle of this coming week. I also have some on pre-order at Model Roundup where, even with shipping, they will still cost me less than at my LHS. Does anyone know if Model Roundup is an RPP? The website has a full description of the kit but does not yet show it as "in stock".

Innocence is bliss...