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Yeah, my oldest boy when asked why he painted his mom's table, replied that he was wanting to build cars like me. Here's their first efforts from a few years back, they would have been about 5 and 3 at the time. I'm pretty sure these are the only builds that have survived long enough to actually get pictures taken. Sorry about the weird Day-Glo effect, they were taken with the old digicam right before it shot craps.

I've been lurking around for the past couple of weeks but I finally made myself go down to the hobby room to survey the damage. Last July, I got a phone call at work from my wife telling me to get home quick. She had been upstairs in the bedrooms putting away laundry and sorting out kids' clothes that no longer fit to take to Goodwill. The baby was upstairs with her and the boys had been down on the main floor watching TV and playing. Then she smelled paint. At some point, the boys (now 7 and 5) snuck down to the basement and into my hobby room. They had decided that they were going to build one of daddy's cars. My oldest boy grabbed a can of Tamiya Italian Red off the bench and proceeded to "paint" my Z06 Vette project. To make matters worse, he did this on her kitchen table and needless to say it was everywhere. I was able to get that mess cleaned up by wiping everything down with iso alcohol. After that was taken care of, I went down to my hobby room. In their search for parts, they had dumped the majority of my kits into piles on the floor. Having already reached a point of frustration on several of the builds I was working on at the time, I shut the door and walked away. That was more than a year ago now. A couple of weekends back, I checked the board and saw all the good reviews on the Revell '69 Nova. Back in high school, I'd wanted a 68-72 Nova bad. I just missed out on one my senior year. I had $4k the guy wouldn't come down from $5k and I couldn't talk my dad into floating me the difference. This was the spark I needed to go down and clean up the hobby room. I didn't even bother to sort anything out, just started grabbing trees and putting them in big plastic totes. It felt like I was going in after the tornado struck and had to figure out what the storm took. Luckily, other than the Z06, none of my other projects luckily had been touched. Life and family have interrupted my hobbies before and I'm sure will again. I've come to realize that I'm just not going to get to every project and need to scale back on what I have and what I take on. For now, I'm excited again about building. I'm going simple with the Nova to get any easy "win" under my belt before I jump back into some of my more involved projects like my long-term '69 Vette. EFI'd Hilborn BBC with T-56 six speed 20+" Torque Thrust IIs from Revell '59 Vette, widened in the back to fit the flares Italian Red interior I'm just getting around to moving all my pics over to Photobucket, it seems that Imagestation is no longer around. Anyways, the Nova is taking a bath right now to get the mold release off so I'm hoping to make some progress by this weekend.

I'll throw my vote in.

I work in quality for a tool and die shop. We primarily CNC parts for aerospace (Boeing, Northrup, McD) and some medical devices. I usually spend most of my time inspecting production on our CMMs but lately have been tied up writing inspection programs for the new parts we have coming in.

Now that HT General Lee is awesome!!

Thanks Rob for the heads up. I'm kinda disappointed that they didn't at least tool up some new wheels for the kit but the direction they went is understandable.

Any info on what they added to make it the California Wheels issue? From the box art pics I've seen I can't tell if they used the same wheels from the '66 Wagon or the TTII's from the rest of the series. TIA

As said, externally all passenger car big-block Chevys are virtually identical. Dropping a big-block into a 78 Vette shouldn't be all that difficult as they were available with em up to, I believe, '74 from the factory. In 1:1, it should be just a matter of switching mounts, heavier springs up front and some changes to the cooling system. As far as locating the accessories and alternator I would copy the set-up from the late 60s/early 70s Vettes. Here's a pic of a factory 427 in a '69 Vette and remember Ebay Motors is a treasure trove for reference pics.

I'll have to stop by there after class tomorrow, thanks.

there are Marc's pieces, I bought a set a couple of years ago.

I got sent to training for the new software for our CMMs and will be in town til Friday. Any good hobby shops or sites to visit?

I concur on the Canon S3 IS. We got one shortly after our third was born in December and we absolutely love it. A huge lens with a 12x optical zoom plus the super macro and image stablization make it very good for models and shows. This pic was taken with the super macro and image stabilization on at about 1 inch off the lens and in less than optimal light. Anyhow, the wife wanted a digi Rebel and I needed a point and shoot with a decent macro so the S3 was a good compromise for us.

I use a set of riffler files to sand away on the backside of the grill. It can take awhile (depending on how thick the flashed over material is) but it greatly reduces the likelihood that a slip will ruin your grill.

I've been waiting for awhile to see this one again but Revell hasn't updated their sites in ages.

I've got a couple dozen or so from when I was doing research for my pro-touring '69 Vette. I can send some to ya when I get the pics moved over from my old PC to this one.

Although it's probably too late as you've already got paint laid down, the "whale tail" spoiler is available in the AMT 70.5 Baldwin-Motion Camaro variation of the same kit.

Alright, I've tried several times to get in but it tells me that I need a newer Java applet. I go to the Java site and it tells me I have the newest version installed. Oh well, probably nobody there my time of night anyhow.

I picked them up several years ago from an LHS that's now long gone. The guy that had the place ran late-models and during his off-season the hobby shop. He had a ton of cool resin stuff especially for roundy-rounds. I got the last pair he had cast up and never was able to find out what he used for a master. I've never seen them in plastic so he may have pulled them from one of his diecasts. I really wish I knew because I'd like to have a couple of more sets myself.

Finally, I got some quality time on the bench to get some assembly going on the motor. I decided to go with an all-aluminum BBC ala the ZL1 and the T56 tranny from the '02 Revell Camaro. To get some tonal variations, I shot the various pieces with Tamiya flat white, flat black, light and dark gunmetals followed by Alclad aluminum. I've got the EFI fuel rails on and started on the MAS serpentine pulleys. I've still got to work out the brackets for the alternator, power steering pump, A/C compressor and idler pulleys. The manifold is a Best Resin piece that most closely resembles a Kinsler split-port IR manifold. Hopefully, I'll get the HEI distributor from Arrowhead, the throttle linkages and some detail painting done tomorrow. Thanks for taking a look.

Let's see, I started my pro-touring '69 Vette back in 02 when Revell reissued the '69 Baldwin-Motion Vette kit. As this is a build of my dream car I had a very defined plan that I wouldn't compromise on. It got shelved for several years while I hunted down, tried building and ordered several individual runner (Hilborn, Crower, Kinsler type) manifolds to do an EFI conversion. I finally found a Kinsler split-port manifold by Best Resin that I was happy with. Before the Revell Stars and Stripes Vette was issued I spent a long time tracking down an original issue Owens-Corning Vette for the L88 hood, side pipes and fender flares. I planned on using the T56 six speed out of the Revell 02 Camaro on this car and several others so I learned how to resin cast so I could quit cutting up spare kits. I trolled 1:1 Vette forums for more time than I care to admit talking to and reading about suspension conversions (C5/C6 and C4), mods and the different theories on what works best for C3 Corvettes. I finally decided on a Greenwood Daytona 5-link which uses the C3 rear end with C4-type links and custom built A-arms up front. My only complaint at all with the Revell C3 Vette kits is the lack of detail above the door panels on the underside of the body. The tooling was originally done as a convertible so I understand the omission but the gap between the interior tub and the body is a bit much for my liking. There should be a trim panel on the interior quarters and the underside of the T-tops is nonexistant. Combined with the "slightly" inaccurate rear window this has been a bear to fix to my tastes. There are a ton of other little details that have taken way too long to sort out (finding a A/C compressor that I liked, widening wheels/tires for the flares, serpentine belts/pulleys, etc) combined with working 6 days a week, being married and having three kiddos that have kept this car on the bench for almost 5 years.

And that's why I love this board, thanks Bob. I'll have to try and track down some Spaz Stix.

I found a site that's geared towards the hobby crowd that sells the stuff in small batches and wondered if anyone has used it. It's still a bit on the pricey side but man the results are killer. http://alsacorp.com/products/mirrachrome/mirra_prodinfo.htm TIA

My culture shock went the other way Dow City, IA---12 years, maybe 350 people (when we lived there) Oakland, IA---2 years, around 1600 people (when we lived there) KC Metro---14 years, more than 1 million When we moved to Blue Springs there were more kids in my new high school than people in the entire town we had just come from.

I have an uncle that used to live in Shenandoah, they put on a great rodeo if I remember correctly.

Thanks all, I'm in KC now but I used to live in Dow City, IA (hour or so NE of Omaha) and then Oakland, IA (20 min or so east).