Terry Sumner

Wouldn't worry 'bout it Harry. That's no different than say..lawyer jokes, polish jokes, italian jokes, Obama jokes, cracker jokes and of course the one I should take personal offense at (but I don't) ...cop jokes. Of course, with Nugent, it was most probaly not a joke! LOL Terry

Actually Dave...there is a way to put metal back on...but it would be WAAAAAAAAAYYYY over the top in expense for anything to do with modeling. It's called plasma spraying and it's done all the time refurbishing jet engine parts and many other metal parts subject to wear. But it's only used when the cost of plasma spraying and re-machining is less expensive than manufacturing a whole new part. Terry Sumner (owner of a 1968 Unimat lathe)

One of my favorite blonde jokes... How can you tell when a blonde's been working on the computer? From all the whiteout on the screen! Terry

To bring this back to the original post...I have a suggestion for all those who might feel the need to write to NASCAR to complain. I doubt if that would do any good at all. But maybe take the same tack that other dissatisfied consumers do when facing something similar....Write to the sponsors! Make a stink with the companies who supply the money! Look what happened to Don Imus when all those consumers complained to the sponsors...Imus was gone quickly! Just a thought... Terry

Car looks great. Maybe add a little "salt" on the frame and rear body where it would have sprayed up from the tires? Also, just curious about that radiator grill shell...from your photos, especially the last 2, it appears that it is actually touching the ground. Is it? Looks like ya might need a bit of ground clearance there...?? Otherwise...nicely done! Terry

Forgot to add in the first time I felt the power of a muscle car and what got me started down the road of loving horsepower. I believe I was 15...we had a local guy who was kind of the equivalent of John Milner. Warren Sipuleski was his name and he had this all black 61 Impala fastback with a reverse teardrop scoop on the hood. He had transplanted a 396 bbc into that car from a wrecked 66 Chevelle. Then he souped it up some with the basics. The car was pretty stout for a daily driver back then. My first ride in a high performance car was in this beast. He took me up to Route 201 and slammed the accelerator from a dead stop. I will never forget the feeling of being pressed back into the seat and the sound of that big block winding up in R's while the rear tires screamed for mercy! It was night time and the road behind us turned into nothing but a red glow from the tail lights reflecting off from all the smoke from those anemic bias ply tires that practically gave their lives in a matter of minutes as Warren ran the Muncie 4 speed through it's gears! Man he burned those tires in all 4 gears! The sounds of the engine winding up through the gears, the scream of the burning tires, the smell of the exhaust and burning rubber and most of all, the feel of that acceleration hooked me on high performance forever! Man those were the days! Terry Sumner

I guess I can chime in here as I've been lurking an awful lot.. Born in '52, so I'm a few years younger than you Dave! <G> First car was a 1951 Ford Club Coupe 2 door that came with a smoking 6 cyl flathead. I was 15 at the time. I tried to put a 283 Chevy in it, but I didn't have the knowledge to see it through. So that car went bye-bye in favor of a 56 Chevy 2 dr Belair when I turned 16. Had some rust on it so I bondo'd the heck out of it and painted it with Metalflake in cans!! Remember that stuff? Didn't come out half bad actually. Then when I was 17 and a senior in high school I got my first good car. A local Chevy dealer had a 66 Chevelle SS 396 advetised for $1200. I was working and had a few bucks saved up so my Dad went there during the day and made the deal for me and when I came home from school, the SS was sitting there in the driveway for me. I drove that sweet car all through my senior year. All my friends had muscle cars too. Rick had a 67 GTO with the 389 single 4 barrel carb, Cliff had a 65 GTO with the 389 and tri-carb setup (which we put some Hooker headers on...THAT was fun!), Ray had a 67 Comet, Dave had a 68 Road Runner, Bots had a 67 Chevelle SS and Bobby had a 56 Chevy running a built 350, 4 speed. There was also a couple of other guys not in high school but who we ran with that had similar cars. I mean, I was in high school during the height of the muscle car era and it was great! Almost all of our cars had bucket seats and a console. The console was your girlfriend's seat. They ALL rode right on the console. Gas was 29 cents a gallon for the good stuff. My Chevelle had 4:56 gears and it only got 4 mpg with that tunnel ram and twin Holley 600's. But who cared? At 30 cents a gallon you could ride around all day on 5 bucks! Tires were Goodyear N50's (remember them?) We all ran gabriel Hi-Jackers in the rear and heavier springs in the front to get our cars "jacked up". And we all had race cams so we could get that cool lopey idle. We'd all run up and down Main street of our small town real slow in 3rd gear so the car would be running real lumpy. Exhausts were Hooker headers into a straight length of 2 1/2" tubing (biggest we had back then) into Corvair Spyder mufflers just in front of the diff. Then 2 little downturned pieces of pipe. The cars sounded cool! We had this little bridge at the south end of town with concrete walls on both sides. We'd all drive out of town and we'd nail it then so the exhaust noise would echo throughout the town! We had an old Police Chief in my town who had a bad stutter. One day I kinda burned out a bit excessively where he saw me. Later in the day he caught up to me and stuttered, "God ddddddddammit SSSSSSSS-umner..I sssss-aw you PPPPPPPunch it. Next time you ppppppunch it you're ppppppinched! I said yessir and was on my way! LOL (many years later when I was a Trooper I ended up having to arrest that old guy on a court issued warrant for stealing town gas from the town pumps after he retired. The guy had kept a key to the pump!) In eastern Connecticut, we didn't have the cruising streets like you California guys had. Our cruises literally took us from one town to another and we hung out at local hamburger joints. Kelly's was one. I recall the burgers were 15 cents!!! We'd all go there after the football games or whatever school function and on the weekends. Lot's of cool cars but all muscle car type. We really didn't have any cool hot rods. The next summer after high school I landed a job as one of the three announcers at Connecticut Dragway. I worked there 2 sundays on, one off through 3 seasons. On the off weeks I would race my Chevelle, which by then had a transplanted built 427 in it. Best run ever was 11.22 @122 mph in modified production. I got to meet a lot of the famous drivers from that time period, especially the Pro Stock guys like Dick Landy, Ronnie Sox and more. Met Shirley Muldowney and remember being absolutely amazed at her language. Being a mere 19 years old, in that time period...girls just didn't swear like that!! LOL This went on until 1974 when it all came to an abrupt halt. That's when I got accepted in the Connecticut State Police. They frowned on outside jobs and hot cars. Except of course when tha hot car was a cruiser. But that's another story! Terry Sumner

Same thing happens in the Pinewood Derby car competitions in the Cub Scouts. Unbelievable!!! One can easily tell when a car was made by a parent. It got so bad we finally made a race category just for the adults. That alleviated most of the problems. Terry (former Cubmaster and Scoutmaster)

May I add my sincere best wishes and condolences. I have come very close to losing my wife of 27 years now 5 times. My very supportive wife is truly a gem. It is usually she who pushes me to buy kits and go to shows. Unfortunately, she is also very ill with Crohn's disease and a number of related complications which have resulted in her being in the hospital over 1600 days in the last 13 years! Yes...that's no typo...1,600 days plus! And during that time there have been 5 incidents when she came close to leaving me. I would be lost without her. Terry Sumner

I will vouch for Chuck...he's a great guy. I know a lot of you don't know me either but I used to be the owner of TheModelCarList Yahoo group. I took it over from Jeff Whitaker and eventually turned it over to the present owner, Dwayne Bressem. We have a team of guys there who help to moderate the list and when we needed to replace one of the guys, it was my idea to bring Chuck onboard to help out. And he has done a great job over the years in that regard. Terry Sumner

Any more updates on this build? Or is it in another thread that I missed? Terry Sumner

Okay...I can accept that then. Sorry but the way it was written didn't sound like satire. And since it was on private property and he didn't know that smell was burning rubber....then he probably was an imbecile. My apologies. It's just that after spending the best 22 years of my adult life out there "serving and protecting", those kind of comments get old if you know what I mean... Terry Sumner, Sgt. Connecticut State Police, Ret.

So you are doing something illegal and the cop, who is doing the job that you pay him to do, stops you. And then you call him an imbecile. Nice... Terry

Take a look here at Guy Beaudette's Groundshaker. Not the exact same car of course but an absolute work of art similar to your build. Might even pick up a hint or two or some inspiration to keep going on your project. http://www.straightlinemodeler.org/gshakerjr.html Good luck! Terry Sumner

Here's a short article I did once on hinges. It may be of some help to you. http://www.themodelcarlist.com/hinges_files/hinges.htm Terry Sumner

Lyle, Went to your Fotki site and had a nice long gander at your models. Props to you my man! Some very nice stuff there! Impressive collection and of subject matter after my own heart! Terry Sumner

Well, if this photo comes on here okay, is this the type of finish you want? I used acrylic lacquer on this Willys I bought from Leon Tefft, but I got the same result using good old Modelmaster Black Enamel on a 40 Ford. The whole secret is in polishing out the finish. All paint has microscopic hills and valleys and must be leveled out to reflect light in a mirror image manner. You first color sand the paint with something like 3600 grit, then go on to 4000, then 6000, then 8000, then 10000 and finally 12000. By now you have it almost there. Then you can use a buffing/polishing compound on a soft flannel rag for that final polish. Top if off with some Canuba wax and you'll have a gleaming finish. All it take is some elbow grease and a polishing kit made by LMG Enterprises. It contains all these grits and the polishing compounds. Or you can obtain the sanding grits from other sources...I think maybe Smallparts.com This same polishing kit is what I use to polish airplane canopies to a glass like finish. Same thing for model car windows.

I must've built that kit a dozen times when I was a kid. It's my all time favorite kit! And glad to see ya built them instead of letting themg stagnate in the boxes as collectibles! I have a kit in my stash, but it's a later version that did not come with those headers. I've been trying to find someone who casts them with no luck as of yet. Terry