Alyn

BTW, Bill, that alternator looks fantastic! Are you thinking tunnel ram for the intake?

Box stock Shoe Box; nothing wrong with that. Some of the nicest builds around here are box stock, or showroom stock. Just do a search on "Cruz" for some great examples. Good luck with your project and welcome back. The fingers may be fatter, but there's so many tools, aftermarket goodies and paints these days that weren't available back in the day. You'll have a ball.

Thanks, guys. Simple is good !

Thanks for the moral support, Mike. And, thanks to tropical storm Isaac, we received some much needed rain here in the Midwest; 5 inches so far according to my rain gauge. For a rainy day project, I decided to add a little more detail to the engine compartment. The Pontiac kit comes with a master brake cylinder, but no booster for power brakes. Here's a little tutorial on how you can make one; http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=63255 Now, back to pondering the BMF

I'm building the custom version of AMT's excellent 62 Pontiac Catalina kit. While most cars these days have power brakes with the necessary booster, this kit does not. There's only a small, single piston master cylinder which mounts to the firewall. I wanted to dress it up a bit, so I figured adding a booster would help. Here's how I did it: The main component of the booster is a fat, round disk. Flat styrene could be sandwiched to a suitable thickness and then cut into a round shape however, by starting with tubing, the part will be perfectly round from the start. Tubing the next size down was used to add some working thickness. .080" Flat styrene was glued to the squared off end of the tubing. I didn't worry about the shape of the flat material. That will be trimmed once the glue dries. The thicker flat stock was used once again to provide enough material for rounding and shaping. Here's the tube after the .080 was cut down and shaped to match the profile of the tubing. The edges were rounded over to rough in the booster shape. The end of the tube was then cut off in a miter box to keep it true. I grabbed a scrap of .030" styrene card stock and then using a file and drill, created a flange where the brake master cylinder will mount to the booster. To finish it off, the master cylinder was glued into the center hole of the flange. bolts were glued on for some added detail. I also cut a small slice of aluminum tubing to emulate a brake line fitting. Paint is craft store gloss black and Model Masters magnesium. The jury's still out on whether or not the cap will be spiffed up with some Alclad or BMF. You can see the Pontiac WIP here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=45830&st=0

beautiful ...

and finally, a Revell 32 Tudor Sedan, chopped, sectioned, channeled, etc

I haven't built all that many models, but several have been 32's This first one was a quickie build as a Heartland Nationals promo give a way car. It's an early Revell 3-Window and one of only two where I haven't wired the engine. This one began as AMT's Boyd Coddington American Hot Rod 5-Window Coupe

Bill... you are breaking new ground here. This motor is beyond awesome

thank you, gentlemen Bill, I sanded down the trunk and repainted it. Now that the steering wheel is also in color, I am done with the painting unless I goof it up while working on the chrome trim. To me, that's the make or break part of this build. later

Your workmanship on the frame looks great, especially for a first effort. One thing I'd consider reviewing is the width of the front rails. They're a bit wide and will provide plenty of room for your motor, but will push the front suspension pickup points outward. This will create problems trying to have enough room for suspension links and for the tires to steer without having them way outside the fenders.

I masked off the body and shot the roof in silver again, followed by 4 or so coats of clear. I have a roll of 3" wide masking paper; similar to the wide rolls of masking paper used in body & paint shops. Generally, I tape around edges, and then cover the broader areas with the masking paper. Most of the paper eventually gets covered with tape. You'd think that paper designed for masking would protect whats under it. That's what I would think. Once the tape and paper was removed, it was obvious that the solvents from the paint had made it's way through the paper and made a mess of the trunk. Chalk up a few days to repaint the trunk. Two redo's. I hope the saying that bad things happen in three's is not true... Slusher's post about what to do when you screw up a project was really hitting home. Time to get away from paint jobs for a while. I decided to finish up a couple of details for the engine compartment. The radiator cap started as a slice off one of my extrusions, cut off and then sanded smooth with 600 grit what's an extrusion? http://www.modelcars...topic=51231&hl= A .022" hole was drilled in the center of the cap and then it was shot with Model Masters silver plate. I painted a tiny plastic rivet with Testors flat read enamel and then glued it into the center hole of the cap to simulate a pressure release button. I used the kit provided radiator hose. The engine end has a pipe molded in the end with a couple of 90 degree bends. I trimmed it back to match up with my scratch built manifold. Then I cut a thin slice (about .030") of styrene tubing and slipped it on the end of the hose assembly as a flange. This was followed up with paint and foil to finish it off. One more detail checked off the list was the steering wheel. Nothing custom here, just some masking, paint and assembly of a pretty cool looking 60's style wheel. final update pic of the night; the engine compartment with the final details added

Awesome display of model building, Chris. Your attention to detail is on par with the best of them.

I've followed many of Jim's projects; loved them all, but this one is probably my favorite. His builds are always interesting, clever, well thought out, and built with a very high level of skill. I believe this one also won the Peoples Choice award at GSL. That's a pretty good consensus.

How about rivets from Tichy Train or Grandt LIne ?

MIke, my friend, that bed is spectacular. Other than adding carriage bolts to the bed strips, I don't how you could improve on it. The color of the wood is perfect Everything just works so well together.

Cool looking seat. The leather has a small enough grain to look right in scale. Even the color looks good; like something you've seen a hundred times on old truck seats. Keep it coming.

Todd, when I saw your title, I thought for sure you had picked up a resin Buick body at the KKOA show in Salina. Sounds like maybe the inspiration came from there? Looks like you're off to a good start, chopped top and all.

Love the details so far, especially the shrink tubing on the tailgate chain (waiting for pic) On the assumption that you are going for accuracy, the rear brake lines need to have a flexible hose between the chassis and axle. the usual method is to run a single line rearward and mount it firmly to the chassis close to the axle. Then run a flex hose to a junction block moiunted on the axle. Rigid lines go from the junction block along the axle tubes to each wheel cylinder. example: (you may remember this one Mike)

and so the flower blooms. Nice work, Ira. This car is looking better with every step

Very nicely done, Mike. Good call on drilling out the ends of the bed rails.You've put a ton (or 1/2 ton) of work into a pretty basic part of the truck. I think this says a lot about how the rest of the truck is gonna look. cool stuff

You're fearless, John. This one is proof that there's no level of detail and skill you won't tackle. Awesome work. Loving every update.

looking forward to seeing this thing on wheels with the body work done. Definitely a stand out concept. Us modelers are always looking for ways to stretch are hobby dollars. I think you've hit it!

Thanks, Joe. Under the lights of my work area, both colors were looking awful nice. Another fellow KC Slammer and big time advocate for shooting nail polish, Steve Barnes was really putting the pressure on me to airbrush some highlights on some of the edges, and I did think about doing some subtle panel work, but in the end, I stuck with the original theme of this build; a basic, mild custom.

Thanks, Bill. I thought I had this one handled; just a slight miscalculation I'll take a rain check on picking your brain though. Got a feeling there's a lot in there I know guys say this all the time, but the picture really doesn't do it justice. The Color is slightly lighter and the different angles on the Pontiac really bring out the highlights. Thanks, Mike. This won't be my last time using nail polish. I've seen some of your paint jobs and know you walk the walk. I'll get the silver on ok. It's the foil that scares me