Alan Barton

Kelly, I wish I could tell you! I have a little bag of them that I use to store every example I find - the voices in my head say a Monogram kit but that is really of very little help to you. If I find a clue I will let you know. Wow Craig, that is very special. Here is my version of Blue Beetle as distinct from the survivor in my photos - you see, when I was a teenager I bought the Bandai version from K - Mart so i thought it was meant to be dark blue. I built this dark blue one a few years back using Tamiya paint and a shortened pickup bed bit otherwise true to the original. I also chromed the running boards as the original pickup boards were stamped steel without rubber and I thought chrome would be fitting for a rod of this era. Cheers Alan

It's great when someone bumps these threads and you see a model that somehow you missed originally. That colour is sooooo creamy - I love it. It is tough to get an even shade of white over a car with many separate components, - you have done a masterful job on this one! Cheers Alan

I have to build a yellow and white fifties car one day - man this looks sharp. Your foil work is exceptional!!! Cheers Alan

They are both real nice but I LURVE the ice cream coupe - it's delicious! Cheers Alan

I am a big fan of T coupes and this is a beauty. I have this crazy goal of collecting and building at least one of every pre-war hot rod kit ever made and this is one of the few that has eluded me. I even bought a spare Switchers bucket in the hope of finding a gluebombed coupe body one day to satisfy my dream. This is one of the very few I have ever seen built and I like it a lot! Cheers Alan

Love it! Nice to see a channelled car without a "broken" chassis for a change! I have a spare 1/8th scale Deuce waiting for exactly this approach. The scoop is sharp also - I don't recognise that part! Cheers Alan

Yep, like 'em a lot! I did something similar recently with the bucket in red, using more of the kit components. They would make great cruising partners! Cheers Alan

So Revell does a chopped 48 and most people think,"Aahh, Sam Barris custom." Tim Boyd comes along and goes - "Cool gasser fodder!" This thing sits soooo right and it wouldn't matter if it was period correct or not! Such a great model Tim, you certainly have the knack! Cheers Alan

I missed this as well but, wow, Kelly, you really nailed the Fat Jack look. The instant I saw it I went - Hey, the Fat Jack car! Stance is perfecto! Cheers Alan

I couldn't have said it better myself! There is a warped part of me that gets more kicks from restoring tragedies than starting with fresh new models of which I have an abundance! Cheers Alan

I've been a fan of Monogram hot rod models since I was thirteen and have built multiple copies of all of them. A new member of our local model club, (an under 40 year old at that), had bought the Blue Bandito repop and asked if I might have the parts to make it into the Boss-A-Bone. To be totally honest, I was stunned that this guy even knew of the existence of this kit, let alone had an interest in it, so I was happy to oblige. It turned out, however, that I had at least two fairly clean sets of the necessary parts which got me thinking...... I dragged out a whole bunch of mildly gluebombed parts and set about creating my own Boss A Bone. I have only made a few changes from the original concept - I liked the bucket seats from an MPC Pontiac GTO as they looked racier than the custom buckets in the kit. I also felt that the weak point of all the Tom Daniels's kits were the tyres and to a lesser extent the wheels so I upgraded those with AMT parts. Also, there was no way I was going to leave that farm gate bolted to the front bumper irons. Instead, I fitted a Moon tank to fill the gap. The windscreen has been chopped and just like my 1:1 roadster, does not have a top bar. I think these small changes add a bit of realism to the model without changing its character. I'm also not a fan of the side pipes but they are such a strong design feature of the car that I decided to live with them. They are growing on me. I used thin strips of model ship building wood to detail the pickup bed, top and bottom, and used a Revell tailgate as it had the reverse image pf the Ford script embossed into it which suited my desire to have the tailgate lowered to reduce wind resistance. The last photo is of my fleet and includes a genuine survivor of the original Blue Beetle. I have two more projects based on the Monogram pickup to be completed, soon I hope! Cheers Alan

Thanks, Bill. From a tip I got here a few years ago, I carefully sliced the cowl panel free of the firewall and then shimmed it out with thin styrene until all the swage lines were in alignment. Fiddly but well worth it. The other thing I do is tack glue the top to the body with tiny drops of tube glue and when that is dry, run liquid glue along the back of the seam in an attempt to avoid boogering up the outer surfaces. Nerve-wracking but it worked for me. Cheers Alan

On a trip to the USA back before COVID< I found a gluebombed Hubley '32 Chevy five window coupe in a Pomona antique mall for $20. Couldn't leave it behind but wasn't quite sure what I would do with it. The biggest problem is that these old Hubleys are around 1/20th scale and I had very few spare parts or donor kits to suit. But then I got lucky. While out shopping one evening I checked the toy rack in Target and found a Hot Wheels monster truck based on the old Twin Mill show car. The wheels looked like they would work and as the toy was marked down to $5, I grabbed both copies off the peg. A quick mock-up showed me that a gasser was the only way to go as those tyres were never going to let it hug the ground anyway! Sadly, these otherwise fantastic wheels and tyres are too big in diameter to fit the Hubley Model A Fords, just in case you were wondering. The next win was that I still had an oversized engine from the Monogram S'cool Bus so even though a big block Chevy or a 409 would have been ideal, a Hemi would work fine! The trick with building any of the Hubley cars is to hunt through your parts boxes for the biggest 1/24th or 1/25th scale parts you can find. That's how I chose the Moon tank, hood scoop and parachute. The best part is you end up using parts that are probably too big for a normal model! Win, win! The headers are scratchbuilt from Evergreen and the headlights are the big set from the Revell Model A kits with an aluminium craft wire headlight bar.. Other than removing the fender spare tyre wells and filling some seams on the multi piece body, it did not take a lot of work to reach this result and I am very happy with it. Hope you enjoy something different in the pits! Cheers Alan

What they said! I have a small fleet of funny cars and yours would look really nice sitting alongside them! I've never built an AMC before but will be starting a replica of a local, very successful Gremlin dirt track racer later this year. Cheers Alan

I love boats and I love this one! The combination of parts you used is perfect for the finished product. Cheers Alan

Thanks everyone, your comments mean a great deal to me! Whilst it is somewhat of a "formula" car, I love it for the era it represents. My model rod and custom collection is quite extensive and I try to include models from every era from the thirties to the current day - this one definitely filled a gap! Cheers Alan

There is a lot you can learn by coming to this forum and your B400 is a classic example of this fact. I have built ( and struggled) with a number of Jimmy Flintstone bodies before and have the B400 in my to-do list. Your build thread on how you removed the roof and dealt with the thick casting will be a massive help when I start mine. Congratulations on a fine project and thank you for taking the time to detail your build. Cheers Alan

Still the very best 32 kit ever made and you really took advantage of their simplicity to achieve these attractive results. I have eight of these built and another three under construction and if I found another one tomorrow, I would buy it too! The promer look is a natural on your model. Cheers Alan

The amount of scratchbuilding in this model is very impressive! You left no stone unturned in capturing all the styling elements of the Boyd era. I love the mesh inserts in the door panels! This is one of your best for sure! Cheers Alan

Great minds think alike! I created a red version using exactly the same theme earlier this year. The main yet insignificant difference being that I used the '30 Woody as the donor car. I do love the blue and will have to consider this for a future model. You have really captured the Monogram spirit in your creation. Cheers Alan

Ray, only one thing counts. Did you have fun? To me, looks like you did! Cheers Alan

Thanks Bob, Paul and Mario. And Chris, I would love to take credit but I am pretty sure that I got the idea for the grille from a model I saw here years ago! And now that I look at it, I remember that while I INTENDED to use the ripple bumpers, I ended up using the stock forty bumpers instead! I was going for a very simple look on this custom. You just have to massage the bumper irons with the heat of your fingers to get them to fit the 40 bumpers nicely. Thanks everyone, glad you like it. Cheers Alan

I have been building very complex models over the last few years with lots of bodywork so I really felt like taking it easy and doing a simple box stock build. Almost. This is about as close as I get to box stock! It was built from the recent re-issue and used mostly parts from the box, the exceptions being flipper hubcaps and ripple bumpers from the AMT 40 Ford Sedan Delivery kit, the custom headlights and grille, plus my obligatory right hand drive conversion. The headlights started out as the chromed conical tips from two ballpoint pens and the grille is the custom Buick unit from the AMT 57 Chevy, trimmed to fit the elongated opening of the kits custom grille shell. It is basically stock running gear but I dropped the rear as far as it would go without major surgery and used some bits of sheet styrene to convert the single carb manifold into duals. Paint is Tamiya Metallic Red over Tamiya flat black topped with about three coats of Tamiya clear gloss, all straight from the spray can. I was a Testors fan forever but as it is no longer available in Australia I am slowly developing my skills on the Tamiya paint - it does require a different approach to what I am used to. Hope you like it. Cheers Alan

That was fun! Didn't know what to expect but I really enjoyed it. And congratulations on a very fine build. Cheers Alan

I've always had a soft spot for wagons, having spent the formative years of my life in the back of one but wow, this is so NICE! I might have to copy this colour scheme for one of my own! Cheers Alan