Bernard Kron

I completed the artwork and got a lot of the decals applied. Now to build out the chassis and motor… Here is final the art work I created for this project. The scallops are based on the kit decals but were modified to fit the paint scheme I put together. The front and rear panels are modified versions of the kit decals. I added the Boss 429 to the rear panel area. I also made Boss 429 logos to go on the hood scoop. Here are the decals applied to the paint work. Once the final decals, including trade decals, are applied the whole shebang will get clear coated and polished. Unfortunately I ran out of decal paper before I could apply the grill and rear taillight area panels and Boss 429 logos so the last 2 pictures are Photoshopped mockups of what thatll look like, the other 2 shots are real. Thanx for lookin’, B.

Hot sunny weather isn’t something we take for granted here in the Pacific Northwest where it rains 8 months out of the year. It’s perfect rattle can weather so I’m painting while I can. Got the candy red (Duplicolor Metalcast transparent Red) down and the masking tape removed. The color combo is what I had in mind and the cleanup shouldn’t be too bad. Now on to the graphics design! Thanx for lookin’, B.

Thanx Gary. I wish I had better painting skills, myself. These things are always so high risk. I never know how they'll come out!

Thanks guys. Here’s a quick update. I’m about half way through the painting and masking process. While there’s been some pre-planning on this project, modeling for me is pretty much an interactive, improvisational thing so final decal design will be determined by how the colors come out and the overall look of the car. Below is a composite photo showing the steps so far. After cutting out the rear window and doing any body prep and cleanup I shot the car in Duplicolor White Primer and two coats of Duplicolor Wimbledon White (A). Next step was to mask off the hood area and side panels that would remain Wimbledon White in the final paint scheme (B). This was followed by shooting the entire body in Testors #1846 Pure Gold One-Step lacquer. It got two coats. Once the paint had dried hard it was time to begin masking off the areas that would remain gold. Picture (C) shows the first bit of masking tape applied. There was a whole lot more to go! Finally all the gold areas were masked off, consisting of the greenhouse, hood, lower body valence, grill area and lower half of the rear end below the air flap (D & E). Even the inside is completely masked since it’s finished in Wimbledon White and will show when the body is raised to display the chassis(F). Next up is to shoot another coat of Pure Gold in order to seal off the masking edges and prevent bleed through. It will also touch up any nicks or chips that resulted during the masking process. After that will come a coat of Duplicolor Metalcast transparent red to create a Candy Red effect. It will cover the upper body sides. Once the Moment Of Truth comes and I remover the masking tape layers, the result will be a tri-tone paint scheme of candy red, gold and cream white. After the decals are designed, printed and applied the whole shebang will be sealed under 3 coasts of Duplicolor Clear and rubbed out. While the paint cures I’ll work on the motor and chassis. I have most of the parts painted so hopefully that part will be pretty straightforward. Thanx for lookin’, B.

There's a little blue rotating "e-mail" just above the menu of parts on the website. If you click on it, it opens an e-mail in your e-mail client (Outlook for example). Chuck's e-mail is ASmodels@aol.com . A lot of the new stuff is pretty much exclusive to the eBay postings for his olmandowntheroad persona and can be seen there. (see: http://www.ebay.com/usr/olmandowntheroad?_trksid=p2053788.m1543.l2754). The rest is a matter of conversation and discussion with him. Like Norm Veber at Replicas & Miniatures Co. of Maryland Chuck has done many neat parts over the years and still keeps the masters for an awful lot of them. It's always worth asking him if he might have what you have in mind.

I didn't know made a rubber black. I'll have to give it a try. I've had good luck shooting Testors DullCote over Tamiya SemiGloss Black brushed on from the jar.

I'm a big fan of Chuck's and a frequent buyer of his wares. I've used quite of few of his bodies and parts, everything from dragster bodies to '27T's, interior parts, fuel injectors, and much more. All top flight, for sure, and promptly delivered to boot. A couple of years ago I discussed with Chuck the need for a matching louvered hood for the Revell Deuce kits and we got into it far enough that I sent him some Revell louvered hood sides so he had matching louvers to work from. He eventually sent me a prototype which looked great. Unfortunately the mold had shifted when he made it and the fit was off. I wonder what ever became of it? I should drop him a line... Meanwhile Chuck has had great success selling as olmandowntheroad on eBay. Unfortunately he hasn't updated his web site with the new eBay offerings. Another thing that perhaps web-savvy fans of his could assist him with. I agree, he's among the very best resin casters out there and his business practices are impeccable. Go Chuck! Here are some examples: A digger using one of Chuck's wide selection of chute-pack style bodies: A highboy based on his super-fine 27T roadster, the nicest one on the market: Chuck's knockout '32 Ford Roadster Pickup: His '34 Ford dry-lakes Roadster: A classic mid-60's blown fueler using one of Chuck's "shorty" bodies and his Scott Super Slot injector: 427 Hemi Hilborn injectors and Hilborn injector pump courtesy of Altered States:

Handsome model of, as you say, an important car. And fearlessly presented in striking closeup making it all the more impressive. Thanks for sharing!

Yep, Mahatma said exactly that. I know, I was there with my spinning wheel!

While the colors and details are suitably New-School. the stance and proportions reveal the builder - traditional all the way. So, after you've grown tired of showing it at the local rod runs and answering countless questions about your "updating" plans, it will backdate nicely... Terrific work throughout in a style that's rarely done to this level these days.

Over on Vintage Drag Models there's a strictly box-stock challenge going on. The only exceptions are paint, decals and wheels and tires ('cause the wheels tires in a lot of kits suck...). They've even banned detailing! Strictly OOB per the challenge, this is my entry, the MPC Blue Max Mustang funny car. It will be 100% out of the box except for paint and decals (and I'll probably wire the ignition 'cause I just can't stop myself...). As you all know decals are my thing and this one will be no exception. I scanned the kit decals to use them as a basis for my design. I don't know the name of the car yet but it'll go on the white panel on the side of the car. Trade decals will go either behind the front wheel or on the rocker panel under the door. Paint colors will be Wimbledon White (a cream off-white solid) on the side panels and the hood scoop, and candy red upper doors and fenders with a gold top, hood and rear panel. I'll be making my own fogged panel decals as per the mockup below. The white areas in the panels will actually be clear and show up as gold with candy red fogging. The car name will be in red. I opened up the filled rear window area and the side areas and rear window will be transparent red acrylic. I'll strip most of the chrome parts and go for a more utilitarian looking chassis and motor. The interior will be finished in bare aluminum and the body underside in Wimbledon White. Thanx for lookin', B. Here are preliminary decal mockups and art.

“Life gets in the way” so I’ve been fairly quiet for a while but that hasn’t kept me from plugging away on various projects. I’m dipping my toe into styles of models I haven’t done much and this one is a good example. This is the AMT/Ertl ’62 Pontiac Catalina Custom kit, built largely out-of-the-box primarily to gain some bench time doing these mid-century big American cars – I normally do hot rods, old school customs and open wheel drag cars. It’s also an excuse to continue experimenting with various paint techniques, in this case working some more with transparent paints over metallics. The project is nearly complete with the lion’s share of the work being the paint job and the assembly of what turns out to be a very nicely engineered and detailed chassis, motor and interior. Modifications are fairly sparse. The chassis is lowered about 2.5” all around, by offsetting the spindles in the front and using lowering blocks in the rear. The wheels and tires are Pegasus Sovereigns. Other than that the rest is from the kit. The exterior is finished in Duplicolor Metalcast Orange transparent paint over Duplicolor Metalcast Silver Metallic Ground (a coarse flaked base coat for a matalflake effect). The interior is finished in Metalcast Orange and Duplicolor Wimbledon White. The restrained scalloping is meant to emphasize the body sculpting at the front and to echo it at the rear. It was done by simply masking off the shapes once the silver base was applied. The final paint was sealed under three coats of Duplicolor Clear and will be polished out before final assemble. The foiling was my first attempt at doing a car with this much chrome trim. It took a while, for sure, but went relatively well. Here are pics of where I’m at so far. As I said, what’s left is mainly final assembly. Here’s hoping fit and stance cooperate! Thanx for lookin’, B.

The best '27 T roadster bodies on the market IMHO are the resin pieces made by Chuck Mier at Altered States Models. Confusingly he sells some of them via his website ( http://www.alteredstatesmodels.com/ ) and others on EBay under the name olmandowntheroad . Here are some examples: Drag/salt flats roadster (on the website): Louvered ' 27T Roadster (on eBay): Track/Salt Flats Roadster (on eBay): I used one of his bodies to build this '27T highboy:

Handsome!

Fascinating and instructive. I have started initial plans on an ultra-light space-framed deuce and your approach and design concepts are very helpful. Mine is to be front engine and the challenge is to make it look somewhat more traditional than this while still being contemporary. So it's different but the beautiful work your putting into this radical machine is inspirational.

A klassic full kustom done in the old style the way they used to be in the days of the original AMT 3-in-1s, Very nicely done indeed!

Thanx again guys!

Very tastefully done and skillfully executed, full of well conceived details, and very well photographed. A treat to the eyes...

Decals are an important aspect of my modeling style. I make my own decals a lot and have been designing and making my own decals for more than 8 years. I use a Canon MP560 inkjet printer. I've used Canon printers for many years because they have a separate print head and individual cartridges for black, photo black, and magenta, cyan and yellow. I have used Experts-Choice Decal Film from Bare Metal Foil, Testors decal paper and Papillo. The clear papers for all three brands have all worked well for me. Currently my favorite is Papillo because it appears to be slightly thinner than the others. My least favorite clear is Testors because it is sold in half-sheets (8.5" x 5.5") which is wasteful because the sheets rapidly become too small to feed through my printer. All three brands print sharply and cleanly for me using the glossy photo paper and high quality out put settings on my printer. My source files are usually 600 dpi. The problem described above regarding ink failing to hold on the paper sounds like a problem I had with Experts-Choice Decal Film after several years when the paper become old and had accumulated some residue on it. Switching to a new stock of paper solved the problem. You can also get that problem if you attempt to print over paper that has received a coat of decal sealer or clear coat (i.e. sealers such as acrylic clear, Future, etc.). Of course if you don't use a sealer once you've printed on the bare paper the ink will run when you soak your paper. These may seem like obvious mistakes but, despite all my experience I have made them all! White decal paper is a whole other matter for me. All white decal papers I have tried (all three brands listed above) are much thicker than the clear variety. So thick, in fact, that they don't handle at all like clear and also leave a visible white edge where they are cut. I found the Experts-Choice Decal Film white paper totally unacceptable. It was inflexible, didn't lay down well, and had poor adhesion. It also didn't take ink as well as the other two brands. The best was Papillo which laid down OK, had good adhesion, printed very well, and was thinner than the others. It was still too thick, however, not to show a white edge.

Unfortunately Ron died a year ago last winter and to date no one that I know off has picked up his line. There was someone who claimed to have, but they couldn't follow through reliably and fell away rapidly. I'm not sure why his web site is still operational. I used his stuff quite a bit, and he was a nice, approachable person, with good quality offerings and fair dealing in every way. He will be missed.

Amen brother! Since the major "upgrade" last year (?...or was it longer than that), two functionalities are gone. The first, using the "Insert other media" button followed by the "insert from URL" option, has never worked for me, as has been mentioned by many others. I now either use the image code string from my Photobucket account, or when linking from a third party, I use the old IMG tag HTML syntax. Secondly, the Preview function has disappeared, so I must edit my posts offline in order to get a reliable result. I find the best approach for posting here that's reliable is to edit off line, save my post in pure text using the most basic HTML coding (like the IMG tag and similar tags for underlining, italics, bold, etc.). and then pasting the result into the reply box. That's how I do my w.i.p. and Under Glass posts. Before the "upgrade" I didn't have to do any of that. I think posting photos here can be very discouraging if you're a basic Internet user, with unreliable image linking and no way to check your work without first posting your message. Please at least reinstate the Preview function. Fixing the "insert other media" button so it didn't hang indefinitely would be nice, too.

Thanks everyone for more kind words. The ,Hippy-Eye made it to the NNL in one piece - open wheel cars often haven't in my experience and require a last minute fix-it on Friday evening, but this year everything got through OK. It was good meeting up with you Bradley, and I'm looking forward to seeing your two highly detailed Deuces next year!

Thanks Bob! That's a nice sampler of what was there. It's hard to photograph when there are so many fine models to see and appreciate. There was a pretty strong turnout this year and it was great to have you and the ACME members at the show. I really enjoyed spending time with both you and Pico Elgin discussing the beautiful models you brought.

Unfortunately my memory card got wiped out by the security scanners so I have no pictures to post! Bummer!!!!!

Just got home from Cali this evening. I'll post a link to my pics tomorrow.