alan barton

That looks spectacular, Tim. I don't own a grey model but that understated tone you have used just seems to work. The potential of this kit for other subjects is amazing. I have an original AMT Nova wagon but I only ever got the body, glass and front and bumpers and grille. I had planned to go Pro Turing with a Monogram Buick GNX floorpan running gear and interior but suddenly I'm thinking "Gasser!" And then there is the 61 Falcon sedan body that just needs the B pillars replaced - yeah, too easy! And then there is a local resin body of an FJ Holden - I can see it so clearly in my head! I'll bet I'm not the only one to have a bare body in the stash that would practically leap on the this chassis. Talk about shake and bake modelling! Thanks for giving us the chance to see this well in advance- it could even be twelve months before we see it in Australia if recent releases are anything to go by. Cheers Alan

This is a great idea, Phillip. I built mine as a low riding street rod truck with a flat bed, riding on a 40 Ford chassis and turned the pickup bed into a matching trailer. One thing I wish I had done prior to paint was tighten up the blower opening - the kit opening is huge, way too big for a 'normal" blown engine. A gasser is a natural treatment for this subject yet I can't say I have ever seen one done this way. I will be watching. Cheers Alan

With around 330 kits in my stash and who knows how many bodies and parts that would build new models easily, I could be called a collector. But I absolutely positively intend to build every one of them, with retirement fast approaching. I have averaged 12 a year for the last twenty years or so and finished twenty last year and probably 15 this year. But for forty years or more I lived by the adage, "see it, buy it!" Not because I am rich, but because I am not that rich! If I don't buy it when I see it I will probably not be able to afford it when I want it. I am still kicking myself for ordering 6 Revell Model A coupes and then deciding to only grab two - that'll learn me! Still, there are some kits that could be said to be collecting rather than building. Last year, thanks to Tom Geiger's assistance, i scored a mint unbuilt IMC 39 Mercury. It is beautiful to look at but probably not so beautiful built up. The first AMT 34 3w and the old Revell '34 Fords on the Buttera T chassis - on the ugly side so I will build them when nothing is left to build. The goal is to have, built and on display, one of every 1/24th, 1/25th and 1/32nd scale hot rod kit known to man before the black station wagon turns up. it is doable! Cheers Alan

Nice work, Mark. I have really enjoyed watching the progress of your cuts and shuts! They have gone a long way to achieving the look of the International. It is always nice when you can dedicate your time to either the body, or the chassis, but not have to do both! Cheers Alan

David, if I may be so bold, does looking at them still give you pleasure? In which case, don't sell them, keep them for the childhood memories. If you sell them, the money will disappear in a few weeks on groceries and gas and so forth and you then won't have the money and won't have the models either. As long as they still give you pleasure and you don't desperately need the money, hang on to them What happens after you are gone is out of your control anyway you look at it. Would a new owner tell the story about you polishing them with car polish? I doubt it. The condition you have kept them in is an absolute credit to you. I still have a lot of my childhood Matchbox and Hot wheels at 63 yrs old but only a few are as cherry as yours. Cheers Alan

From what I know about Hot Wheels David, this is one of the first series, the so-called Sweet Sixteen. I have never seen stickers on the top of any of these models but I do recall that my Spoilers series Light My Firebird came with some stickers that the young owner could apply. I am relying on a fifty something year old memory but I suspect they were put on back in the day, just not by Mattel. It's in great shape and well worth hanging onto just as it is. Cheers Alan

Jean Claude, I cannot believe that only four people have commented on your amazing diorama. I only just found this thread tonight and was completely blown away by the size, the scale fidelity, the endless attention to detail, not to mention all the amazing custom trucks and vans spread throughout the scene. This is truly a world class display that should be getting coverage all over the world, in magazines and on the internet. Very few dioramas, especially of this scale, are of such consistently high quality no matter where you look. My wife and I have built a number of large footprint dioramas over the last thirty years or so . We completely understand the staggering amount of work it took to achieve these results. living outside of North America, we also understand how much time and money must have been spent just obtaining the items and materials necessary for your constructions. You deserve to be extremely proud of what you have achieved. I realise that it would be very difficult to transport but it would make an amazing display at a full sized car show . Simply WOW! Cheers Alan

Just have to add my compliments on this superb build. I have one of these but it is a long way down the list so I will enjoy yours for the time being. Like everyone said, your colour choices are exceptional. Cheers Alan

Love your work on the Buick, John! I have a restorable 59 and 60 in the stash but they are a long way down the queue at the moment. I will be coming back to this thread when I get started on them. Cheers Alan

Keep going, Bob, we all know what it is like when a kit just fights you to the finish! The windshield frame thing is really disappointing. It doesn't say much for their quality control, because someone manually picked up and loaded all those sprues onto the plating racks before sending them for the "chrome" finish. Wouldn't you think someone would say "Ro ROH! These don't look right?" And the Germans are meant to be masters of precision! Hope things go better for you soon. At this point I would definitely be cutting those posts free, glue them solidly to the painted body and then using styrene strip or aluminium wire to replace the damaged bits. This will be a nice model.....soon! Cheers Alan

I forgot to post some photos. I built this close to forty years ago and it is not flash! It has the mods I mentioned earlier plus AMT 32 Ford wire wheels, widened at the rear, AMT 32 bumpers and a Monogram Son of Ford headlight bar and lights. Was only my second go ever at using Testor's spray cans and the finish is roughly 80 grit! Still, I have a new re-issue the same as yours now so will start a new build rather than strip this one down. Cheers Alan

Hi Bob, Interesting that the side windows panels are separate, like mentioned earlier, both my Truckin on Down versions had the panels moulded in. If you were a stickler for accuracy, I suspect the roof is about a scale inch too high but its not terrible. The body is also a fraction narrow at the back but again, you can live with it. MPC left the fuel tank off the rear altogether so if you have some AMT, Monogram or Revell Deuce parts lying around, they can be substituted. The frame bears little resemblance to a real 32 Ford but correctly assembled it fits the car well and will look acceptable. One think I struggled to accept was the extremely thick lower windshield frame. You could file the top edge of the lower frame down to a thinner profile, or cheat like I did and gently slice the lower section off from the vertical sides, slide it down a bit and reglue. It is definitely worth it to remove the toylike appearance. Finally, if you have an AMT 32 grille insert, I think it fits the MPC shell and is more accurate. It is the only 32 Sedan Delivery kit available in styrene and a few tweaks are worth the effort. Good luck with yours! Cheers Alan

This is looking beautiful, Dan. That steering wheel is a work of art. I have a stalled Edmunds replica on the bench and have built several in the past so I have really enjoyed the work you have put into this one. I once emailed Don Edmunds (RIP) and he very graciously replied with some info about his original car. I also like the work you did on the belly pan. The lazy part of me wanted to leave it plastic, the fussy part of me wanted aluminium. Looks like ali is the go! Cheers Alan

Here in W.A. which stands for Wait Awhile, we are still waiting. No fault of MCM, just COVID affected deliveries in general. Patience, Grasshopper, patience! Cheers Alan

I would like to add some observations from a slightly different angle. I was a high school industrial arts teacher for just over 31 years. I mainly taught technical drawing ( drafting) but being the model building guy on a staff of about ten guys in the department, I designed the modelmaking course and took most of the classes. One semester was devoted to plastic model building and I would have taught these courses for roughly fifteen years. The kids could build whatever they wanted and a local hobby shop gave us generous discounts. I would be lying if I said I didn't influence them towards automotive subjects just a little bit but we had tanks, planes etc. Probably about 60-70 per cent automotive topics. This was in the late eighties to around 2000 or so. The kids usually chose older hot rods and classics or Lambos and Ferraris or monster trucks.. I don't think we missed a semester when someone didn't build at least 1 Monogram 29 A pickup or a 57 Chevy. I don't recall a lot of demand for modern subjects but then again, in Australia, they have little choice when it comes to locally produced cars. I'm sure we would have built a hundred XY Falcon GTs or Holden Commodores if they were available! Now we got some pretty good models out of these courses and we usually had 15-20 kids in a class. A few girls but certainly not one per semester. But here's the thing, of all those kids doing all those classes, I can only recall TWO who kept building after the course was finished, that is to say, they came up to me and told me what they were working on at home. We even entered a local IPMS style show one year, but that ended badly when a judge failed to read our detailed entry forms and dismissed a model because it was diecast, completely overlooking that it was a kit, was painted by the kid, and was displayed on an awesome diorama, also designed and built by the girl who entered it. Grrrrrr! Another time we arranged a really impressive display in the library and the school librarian was overjoyed to see kids in the library at lunchtime that she had never seen before. We left it there for about a month because the response was so good. So yeah, we might just be flogging a dead horse. The kids enjoyed what they did, produced results that were way beyond what they expected, had almost totally free choice of subjects (subject to availability), had hands on support from an experienced and passionate model builder (yep, me!) and yet model building still didn't light their fire. It was something do rather than sports or cooking, I suppose. I also ran the Perth NNL for 20 years and entry to juniors was always free and they always got free kits for attending. We had a handful of regulars, sometimes family members of fellow modellers, but some years we barely scratched up 2 or 3. On the other hand, I have a young friend who has just turned 15, builds amazing hot rods that have features you would never expect from a lot of adults, let alone kids and is as dedicated as most of us here are. Yes, he is a third generation member of a 1:1 hot rodding family with their own hot rod shop, but their have been oodles of hot rodder's kids in the past with little interest in cars, whether they be full size or scale. He also does 3D printing , again on topics you would never expect a teenager to even know existed, and his quality is improving in leaps and bounds. I guess we have to accept that: a) model building is not for MOST young kids any more but b) there will be always a few that sneak up and scare the pants of us with their knowledge, interest and passion. As the keepers of the flame, it is our job to make sure that we nurture any of these amazing young people that pop up and make sure we don't scare them away. Oh, before I go, if any of you are involved in conducting model building classes, at school, PCYC, YMCA, Boy Scouts, whatever, if I could pass on a technique that worked for me. For the first few sessions, concentrate on getting the bodies prepared for paint, and then have the kid paint the model, usually with spray cans, with close personal supervision. Then, put them away in a cupboard somewhere, lock the doors to the cupboard and don't let them get their bodies back until every single part in their box has been glued and painted as far as they can go without the body. Yeah, tough love for sure but it guarantees that they don't handle the model while the paint is fresh, don't spill glue on it, don't have their friends drop it while picking it up to look at etc etc etc. Then when you do give back their body, weeks down the track, , they will be able to complete a model that they can be truly proud of and show their friends and relatives with confidence. It worked for me!. Cheers Alan

Hi Paul, I can help you with this conversion but alas, I never did arrive at a good way to do the grille and for my application i didn't need hood side panels although I don't see them as being too horrible to fabricate. But that grille, wow, finely spaced bars, curving in two directions at once and angled as well, sheeesh! You can see my conversion here. First up to clear up some common misconceptions. A 38 has little in common with a 37 Ford, but has much in common with a 39 or 40 Ford. You could certainly use the headlight buckets and lenses from a 37, even though the lenses on a 38 have a fuller curve than the flatter 37 version, I don't think it would matter too much in 1/25th scale. Secondly, the Black Force is very customised and would take a lot of cutting and shutting to get closer to stock. Dr Kerry suggested I look at the Black Force grille and I must confess to not doing that yet as my BF kit is deeply buried in storage at the moment. I am going to guess it will still take some work. I recall that Early Racing Classics did a 38 or 39 Standard racecar resin body once. No idea if they are still in business or not - I think you had to look for Karl Stark on Facebook. Hope this helps. Cheers Alan

OK< this will be my blueprint to get my hinges done! Your timing is perfect! Cheers Alan

Very swoopy! I love the work you did peaking the deck, that is very classy. I have two of these Monogram kits, a blue one and a black one, and I think the black one needs to be a swoopy coupe! Thanks for the inspiration! Cheers Alan

Chris, all the ideas above are excellent and will help you greatly in your quest. Just remember, don't use round containers! They can't be filled properly inside and waste space outside. My garage used to be overflowing with glass jars full of fasteners of every description. When I went to the flat tackle box style of hardware container, I freed up an entire shelving unit without throwing anything out (except those glass jars!) So now I want to throw my bit of philosophy into the discussion. I have written about this somewhere else on here in the past. When it comes to categorising your parts, remember the golden rule! Always split, never double up! It goes like this. Say you fill a box with tyres. You don't start a new tyre box, you split the one you have into two new containers, marked street tyres and race tyres. When the race tyre box fills up, you split into drag race and circuit race tyres, When the drag tyres box fills up, you split into M&H and Goodyear. And so it goes on. When I started doing this over thirty years ago, it revolutionised my model building. If I saw a car in a magazine that I wanted to duplicate, I could dig out every individual piece I needed in an hour. You no longer glue a substandard part onto your model because you couldn't find that perfect carb that you knew you had somewhere, you just go to the four barrel box or the Stromberg box and there it is. An unplanned by-product of this system is you can now clean up your desk in minutes rather than hours. Instead of pondering where the best place would be to put the parts for use later on, you simply put them in the correct box because that is the only place you need to look for them when the time comes. I am a very untidy worker but I can get my whole work surface back into shape quickly now, so I don't mind doing it. Congratulations on acquiring enough parts to need organising, it will be aboon to your model building efforts! Cheers Alan

Kit, looking very good, sir! I have a question. I am at about the same stage as you are, excepting that I already have some primer on as I have a had a bit of bodywork to do. You mentioned painting the door hinges body colour, which I agree with totally, but I see you haven't glued them to the body at this stage, in order to keep the doors separate. How do you intend to attach the hinges ( and doors) without getting glue where it shouldn't be, on paint and on hinge pins? I have been pondering this for weeks now. The hinges need a good solid weld of glue, and I was intending to use Revell Professional with the needle, but I can see melted paint and /or glued up pins in the process. Any tips on this one? The best I have thought of so far is to glue in place, say, the top hinges prior to paint so that I only have issues with the bottom hinges, which are easier to get at. One of the most perplexing parts of modelling, in my mind at least, is that you can do all this clever fabrication and then totally undo your efforts in the final minutes of assembly!!!! Cheers Alan

Looking the goods, Bill! That little Windsor has come up sweet! Our two frames will look remarkably similar even though we started with two different units. Our rear extensions could be brothers of a different mother! I hope mine looks as good when it is done. Cheers Alan

Totally! It's not that he has never built a hot rod before, but this is by far the most advanced one he's built and he absolutely nailed it. I guess if you are a good modeller you can build anything but the thing that gets me is, that resin body is not an authentic style - it is pure fantasy. Normally that sort of thing makes my nose wrinkle. But what Bruce did just makes you completely overlook that. Interesting that the full size car was maroon - Bruce told me he had plans to do it in a very dark brown metallic but found that not one, but two cans of Duplicolor in his stash were out of air. He hunted the city but could not find a replacement, even going to a paint store and asking them to do a custom mix - which the guy couldn't achieve without the paint code even though he had the Duplicolor part no. In the end he just went for the black and I don't think that was a bad thing at all! Part of me wants to replicate Bruce's model but using a JF 27 T roadster body rather than the 29 A, the other part of me wants to grab a spare Ala Kart bucket of which I have a few, and fabricate a similar turtledeck out of styrene. One thing Bruce mentioned about the build is that the firewall ended up very tight on the block and headers. Upon closer examination, I reckon the turtle deck could benefit from being 2-3 mm shorter, removed from where it joins the bucket. I don't want to move the back of the car forwards but I would like to move the firewall back, without having too much of an impact on the stance and proportions. Cheers Alan

Couldn't agree more, Dennis! I keep going back to look at the photos - it is a little screamer! Thank you, also, AJ and Bob. I will make sure he sees your comments. Cheers Alan

Hi guys, I just wanted to share with you this uber cool little roadster that my good friend Bruce placed on the table at last night's Perth and Districts Model Club monthly meeting. Now Bruce is normally a Pontiac guy and a NASCAR guy although he also strays into military aircraft from time to time. He cruises in an immaculate red 68 Pontiac GTO, a very unusual car here in Australia. So this model was quite a surprise. He said he saw a full sized version on the internet and took that as his inspiration. He started with a Revell 29 roadster kit, using the Deuce frame which has been Z'd at the front. To this he added a Revell Parts Pack Pontiac engine, naturally! He modified the kit headers to more accurately match the port spacing on the Ponty. The body is a Jimmy Flintstone item that appears to be based on the Ala Kart bucket body with a fabricated 27 T roadster style turtledeck hanging on the back. I gotta tell you, first impression was that I was looking at a 27, not a 28-29 - it is a very convincing conversion, partly disguised by Bruce's shiny black paint. Bruce said he filed the back of the cab down to suit the Model A seat. The grille is an AMT 32 unit that he shortened so neatly that you struggle to see the seam across the grille bars. This little hot rod just smacked me between the eyes - I want to build one now! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Cheers Alan

That's a real shame but I do have one suggestion. My 1:1 roadster has no frame along the top of the glass, a look I really like. I copied another roadster from the sixties that made a real impact on me when I was a teenager. If you cut the badly bent top frame away and then gently massaged the lower frame that doesn't look so bad, I reckon you could get there. I would also someone how stick the frame down to a piece of glass and then use Modge Plodge to stick the "glass" into the frame to make it one solid unit before you attach it to the body. A second version would be to cut the top and bottom frames away entirely, glue the posts to the cowl and let dry over a few days and then use thin strip or maybe polished aluminium wire to replace the horizontal elements. It's going to be one of those joyless jobs but if you get to save a kit then the smile will come back. I wonder if this is happening only to the recent re-issue? I bought six of the initial release and didn't experience this problem. Hope that helps Alan