Foxer

That looks good I have a soft spot for 65 Impalas as a good friend bought one when new .. don't ask when this was! ... and I made a model of his from an AMT kit annual. I especially like the back end treatment. Now, I'm hoping this will be taken as a helpful hint, but just trying to help you show off your hard work easier. This may seem overly technical, but it will be really simple to take my recommendations into practice and I think you'll be surprised at the photos you get.Your camera seems to be taking control during your photo shoots and it's not doing a great job. Most all cameras need some coaxing in these close up scale pictures. I see you have a Sony DSC-P93 camera ... I have ways of getting this info out of you! The problem I see is the camera always is focusing at the far end of the model, but the real thing is, not all of the car is in focus. This is partly due to the photo being taken by the camera at a wide open lens aperture of f2.8. This simply means the camera is opening wide to let in as much light as possible. The effect of this is the depth of field is small at this opening, meaning the distance in focus is very small .. less than the length of the car. The reason the camera is opening wide is due to the amount of light on the subject. If you can get more light this will improve, Even a small desk lamp close to the model will help or outdoors will make a big difference. Additionally, your camera allows you to set manual exposure modes by speed or aperture. Yo want to set aperture priority mode and set the aperture to the largest number, on most cameras this a number close to 16. This will let in less light so you will need even more light on the subject, but more of the car will be in focus. This almost always requires a tripod to prevent the camera shaking as the exposure time will become long. You can just prop the camera on a book or beanbag or some object to steady it. The second item, and you may already know this is your camera has a macro mode to allow it to focus closer. It seems you must have used this but the depth of field problem above is just not focusing enough of the car. When you do focus, try to get it to focus near the middle of the car of a little off middle towards the camera to maximize the area in focus. Don't know your camera knowledge, so if I'm telling you what you already know just ignore me..

I love those 18 in 1 kits!

First, this looks really great , Bernard! I love all the thought and small things you are doing. Now, isn't that one of those Mark Gustavson methods I've seen in countless magazine articles? I've never done more than just sand and file away any trim or "bump" off the body and so far it's never come back to haunt me. I'm a strong believer in KISS (Keep I Simple Stupid) and it makes me feel good to see someone of your caliber, Raul, is too.

Looks good, David, and perfect timing! I have a fictional dirt modified in the works representing a Sunoco station my Dad worked at. Been wondering what to use for colors and my question is now answered. )) Were those aftermarket decals you show? I'm planning to make my own, but a decal sheet I can pirate some off of would be welcome.

My fingers hurt just looking..

This just looks great! Love that paint on this car .. perfect color. Those wheels just seem right also.

MAN! Those are defiantly some photo realistic images but, even more so, some great photo realistic builds! Fantastic work!

HB and have a great day!

HB and have a great day!

Came on this as I was researching and posting for interest. I'm getting close to a car. Got a trip to the big city Friday and see what's there for rails. Hopefully some old dragster with a frame I can use on the local Burnside Auto Body's dragster. Dateline: May 6, 1962 There was a major crash this past month at Pratt & Whitney's Airstrip (weekend dragstrip) and some loony with a front blower went backwards into a crowd of Piper Cub executive airplanes on the adjoining runway. The wreck ended up at Burnside Auto Body in East Hartford and the owner can't afford the towing charges OR the Piper Cub damage. The body shop is in negotiations now for the 283 front blower engine and are thinking RACING!

Happy B Day! ... Hope it's all a good one

all works great from my end. Occasionally a slight delay,. maybe when many looking or my typical DSL delays, but no where near the times you mention.

cool .. body looks good!

In spite of all your complaints. John, this is looking GOOD!!!!

I love wishing older BD's to people.. Have a GOOD one, Dave!!

Yeah, they were done about the same time. who knows. I should have said, "one of the first Merc top chops" ...

I'll say one thing, they could never accuse that of being front wheel drive.

I remember this being a common custom modification in the '50's and '60's but haven't seen it in the hundreds of 49 Merc models I've seen. The first 1:1 record of this modification I know of was on the Bettancourt Mercury by the Ayala Brothers in the early '50's. This car was also the first 49-51 Mercury to receive a top chop! This feature was performed by reversing the top grill shell from a donor car and welding in in upside down matching the upper shell to create a rounded opening. The model pictured was started in the early 90's and still resides on my workbench. I did this as my first ever casting job, not resin, but epoxy! I created a mold by pushing modeling clay into the grill. The impression I needed was fairly shallow so I believe large side dams to contain the epoxy were not needed. The exact details of this are behind the cobwebs of my brain, but I used 5 minute epoxy in the clay mold to form the grill shell. The shell was cleaned up, and hollowed out behind, with the Dremel, files and sandpaper. It was fit into the Merc to leave room for the kit supplied roll-pan. The fit was surprisingly good, so a lot of filing of the hard epoxy against the plastic body was not required. So far, I don't know what the grill itself will be, but it's waiting for a brainstorm of a different sort .. I guess the reason for all of this is I was wondering whatever happened to this common custom feature of the original 49 Mercs of the '50's.

Defiantly a talented automobile sculptor! I wonder if driving on the wrong side of the road has anything to do with the weird horizontal formatting on his page??

That paint has the reflections of a well polished job already!!!

heheh.. I'm just posting to cause trouble... Using a Mac is like building in 1/37th scale.... where's the aftermarket? how many kit options do you see at the hobby shop? where's all the help finding a 14" steel wheel? where's all the options to do thinks the way YOU want to? That being said and cause for a PC-Mac flame war.... It does sound like you may have a bad sector on the hard disk. You should at least run chkdsk to check it. Go to Start.Run and type in "chkdsk to run it. They don't put this proggy in System Tools anymore. There are many utility programs that are faster, better and user friendly at this, but chkdsk is free. Also note, itunes is Mac software.. the first area for concern.

Looks like I have to look into some real Velvet. I was afraid it had too much nap for a model and would be just too thick. So that was a Treehugger I saw lurking in the fabric store last time! I don't have any manly problems going to these places.. I did this at 16 searching out corduroy for roll & pleat jobs in 1962 ... THEN it should have stopped me. ehhe I appreciate all the comments.

Came out great ... very clean build! ... and I just noticed they molded the sunroof in!! ...hardly anyone does that

I agree this is a great Crown Vic. This was the first year and there was a revolt against it because of the fronts similarity to the plain old Taurus. So the next year they added a "proper" grill in the center and that's what about every Crown Vic you see in your rear view looks like. This fact also made the conversion pretty easy. As far as I know there's been no resin casting. If there was, there would be many at policecarmodels.com, eheh

That sounds very interesting. Gonna have to try it.