alan barton

I like how closely you portrayed the feel of the original movie car. The motor looks like it could swallow you whole. Tough as all getup! Cheers Alan

Thanks guys. The thing about that anaemic looking engine, it sits on the hull with barely a hint of a mounting point and virtually no detail. Plus it is hidden under an enormous engine cover which needs to be accessed through the roof of the boat. In my house, I can't see this ever happening so I am just going to glue the engine cover on and put the engine in the parts box for .... who knows? Mind you, I do have spares of all the engines ChrisB mentioned. Hmmmm.... I figure I have a limited number of hours for modelling and a massive stash to work my way through. Trying to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear makes no sense. I have other boats underway that have fully exposed engines - I will bank the time for those efforts. Cheers Alan

Remember I mentioned there was a bit of flash? When the flash gets its own ejector pin, you're talking serious flash! Easy to remove as long as you are careful around the tips of the roof in this case.

While doing all this work I also noticed that the horizontal seam was going to be a complete mongrel to clean up. When the deck joins to the sides it makes a concave area and naturally a bit of glue gathers there as well. I really couldn't be bothered with the mess and smell of auto body filler so I picked a length of Evergreen half round and cemented that over the join. Problem solved! The thing is, as well as the concave joint, there are some really wonky lines running along the edge that would be a nightmare to foil. The Evergreen now gives me a smooth straight trim that will be a pleasure to foil.

Up front doesn't look too pretty at this stage. The hole to take the chromed nose piece looks very lopsided and the vertical seam is none too tight. I ran a sanding stick acrss the opening and it only took a few swipes to true things up. Now the chrome fits up square - sorry about the fuzzy photo!

The solution was to wedge a piece of scrap styrene into the gap and then flood it with superglue and a bit of zipkicker. When it was nice and hard I took to it with sanding sticks and although I lost a hour or so I got it back into shape. I managed to do something similar on the lower edge of the opposite side as well. There's probably a lesson there somewhere..... So, if you too are building one of these, I would suggest NOT removing any flash until you get the hull assembled. What you will have to do is find all the randomly placed feed tags that appear on the mounting flanges. They will seriously upset your success at getting this together if you miss any and they are easy to miss. A sharp Xacto and a sanding stick will fix them. Once it is all together, you can rip into the seams with a sanding stick and it shapes up quite quickly. With the five pieces joined together the assembly is surprisingly rigid. It's nice to not have seams down either the middle of the hull or the middle of the deck that you have to deal with on some other boat kits.

Here's where that plan came unstuck. Every part on tis model has significant amounts of flash. Turns out that while I was using knives, files and sanding sticks to clean it up I got a bit carried away and lost a couple of mm of mounting lip that really wasn't flash at all. Didn't know until got the bits together.

After about 90 minutes I had the five pieces of the hull together. No photos because my hands were pretty busy once I got started. I used Revell Professional cement with the little needle applicator. I ran a bead down both sides of the joint between the hull and the left side. I let it sit and melt for a minute or so before I fitted them together, squishing the glue back and forward until it stuck good. The transom came next, again with glue on both sides of the joint. Next came the right hand side, and as I expected, the joint between the two sides at the front proved to be a little challenging. I let this lot set for ten minutes or so and then ran a bead of supereglue down the inside of each joint, just to make sure it was glued all the way through. I was hoping to get the hull and deck into one piece without any filler.

I just got my re-issued Century Coronado through Stanbridge's Hobbies here in Perth so after doing a bit of a review on Saturday night I decided to get stuck into it - even though I have way too many unfinished projects on the go. I am going to aim for the look I see in the very cool box art. That's not normal for me but I kinda like this thing just how it is.

Hey, I got three photos posted before Photoslowbucket did it's usual hissy fit and threw the teddy out of the cot! I'll just have to paint a picture with words from here on. The pro's of this kit? Simple, it's a boat. There are so few boats out there in 1/25th scale that any new boat is a bonus. I thought I knew my boat kits, thanks in part to Tim's boat chronicles, but I didn't know about this one until I heard of the reissue! Plus, it is a completely bonkers design which displays everything we love about the excesses of automotive design in the fifties. Also, despite its age and its parents, it's not a bad kit and my experiences so far show it goes together pretty well, with one caveat. I mentioned the flash. Flash doesn't usually worry me. Some kits have lots, some have almost none. It's a part of building a plastic model. The problem with this kit is that there is so much of it that if you are not very careful, you can trim off part of the actual part. Which I did. Twice. SO don't be like me and be very careful when you do some test fitting. I should have paid more attention to the actual mating surfaces and not worried about most of the flash until the basic hull was assembled. Hey, it's not a deal breaker but ti did cost me an hour or two fixing by boo boo. The way the chrome sprue is arranged means there is a horrible amount of attachment points on the chrome tiara roof band. You guys could send it off to Chrome tech easy enough but way out here I will just break out the Molotow pens. I think I will leave it at that and start a build thread for this model. I'll talk to you all again when Photopluckit starts to play nice again. Cheer Alan

The next white sprue contains all three rows of seats, the engine cover and the roof. Not to mention a rather toylike flag pole. As you can see, there is a lot of flash on this old tool. You need to prepare yourself to clean up evry side of every part, plus the feed tags are humungous and often interfere with a glue mating surface so you need to be extra vigilant to spot them all. Patience grasshopper, patience.......

Pretty cool artwork huh? The biggest sprue contains the two sides, the deck and the transom. The five piece motor looks like a V6 Hemi - was there such a thing? - and those two big crossmember thingies are part of the display base.

Thanks Tim, I thought you might like it. The woody, by the way, was inspired by your bronze woody that I saw at NNL Toledo back in 2010. So seeing as how this is the boat thread and I haven't seen a review here for the Lindberg Century Coronado, I figured it was time I did one. Here's the box.

My last boat for now is the Westcraft Go Boat from the AMT 64 El Camino. I found this kit at a New Jersey Toy Fair that Tom Geiger took me to in 2013. The guy wanted $150 US which is closer to $200 Aus. The guy wouldn't budge a cent so after carefully checking that the body wasn’t warped and that the glass, tyres, decals were all good, I had to suck it up and part with my money. That is easily the most I have ever paid for a model kit but it was a holy grail and with the encouragement of my wife I laid down my money. When I got home I wanted to build the boat to go behind my 29 Woody first. I started selecting the parts from the box when "Ohhhhhhh NO!" Someone had carefully cut all the boat parts off the chrome sprue. Being right in the middle of the sprue I hadn't noticed their absence when I inspected it at the toy fair. You can’t begin to imagine my disappointment. Anyhow, at least I had the instructions to show me what the missing parts looked like! I cut an AMT Parts Pack Corvair flat six in half to give me a vertical three cylinder. The headers are three short bits of solder capped with three ferrules from worn out paint brushes. The other missing bits were salvaged from my parts box. Turns out a strange hood scoop that I had for years was actually an engine cover for a Go Boat! I now have another hull and that cover to build a second Go Boat but once again I will have to scratchbuild everything else. I'll never know if the vendor was a crook or if the guy that sold the kit to him was a crook but at least I now have a complete 64 El Camino and eventually, a complete Go Boat! Yesterday I picked up my Lindberg 59 Coronado boat kit for just over $50 Aus. It looks pretty cool – has anyone built one of these yet? It goes against the grain but I think I am going to build mine box stock! Cheers Alan

I can give you a real life example of your back story SFD, way out here in Australia. Like the USA, our manufacturers were involved in muscle car wars in the early seventies. Around 1972/73 they were looking like bumping it a level or two when a prominent newspaper ran a beat-up scare story (Young Drivers in 150mph Cars!!!!) and the manufacturers dropped their plans like hot potatoes. The XU-2 V8 Torana (GM), the Phase 4 Falcon ( Ford) and a new Valiant Charger are all well documented but Ford was also working on a V8 Cortina based on the 4 cylinder English car of the time. It did get a one page preview article in a local motoring magazine but was basically overlooked in the furore. Ford gave the handful of prototypes to executives to drive as company cars for 12 months and then quietly auctioned them off. My mate’s quite elderly mother was looking for a new car at the time and headed off to the auctions and came home with a mint green with white top Cortina with a 351 sitting up front! Everything about the car was neatly finished as if it was ready for the showroom floor. I saw it once in 1977 but didn’t have a camera at the time and I have no idea where it ended up. This is no fantasy, it really happened and is a very close match to your back story. Love how the Satellite is going, by the way, and I will continue to enjoy your story. Cheers Alan

I like where this one is going and I would kill for a set of those wheels! What a natural choice! Looking at the side view, is there any chance of getting the nose down just a smidge? I think it would really show off the bellypan is there wasn't so much air beneath it. Cheers Alan

I was wondering if this might work - I wonder no longer! Nice job mate. It also looks like a natural for a 36 Ford Tudor conversion. Cheers Alan

Here's the only rear shot I got. At our regional Nationals in Busselton last year I managed to get 13 28-29 roadsters lined up side by side. You can just see in the first photo that it has black headlights like yours as well. The 32 grille, flathead and brown interior are the only big differences. between the 1:1 and the 1:25. That's my sixties style red roadster alongside the brown one - it's now in its 33rd year of constantly on the road as a daily driver.

I am really enjoying your traditional interpretation of hot rods Dennis, and this one is a knockout! The engine bay detailing is phenomenal and I love the way you grafted the 40 X member int the 32 frame. I thought you might like to see this local car from Perth Western Australia. It has been on the road about two years now and has striking similarities to your model.In real life the colour is a bit closer to the shade on your model. Hope you like this touch of deja vu! Cheers Alan

Hi everyone, July 9 will mark the 19th running of Australia's largest display of hand built model cars, trucks and bikes. Last year saw over 1000 models ranging from 1/64th scale to 1/8th scale. It's a great day for anyone with any interest in models and it is the social event of the year for all model builders. Details are as follows Fantastic model cars, trucks and bikes! Awesome displays! Slot car racing and R/C demonstrations! Real hot rods outside! Demonstrations and Trade stalls! 9 a.m. til 4 p.m. Sunday 9th July 2017 West Coast Street Rod Clubrooms 12 Cusack Road Malaga Western Australia Adults $7.00. Kids under 16 free Contact Alan on 9448 0110 for more details or email at ausbodies1929@hotmail.com Follow us on Facebook! Cheers Alan

Pat, congratulations on getting this far on your epic project. Sure, there might be things that annoy you or that you would do differently next time but considering that a '34 Chevy is probably THE most underrepresented classic American car in all facets of modelling, from HO scale train accessories to 1/64 diecast to 1/43 collectibles to 1/25th scale plastic to 1/18the scale collectibles, well, you get the picture, you have created a genuinely unique model and it is a solid representation of the real thing in the garage. That HAS to put a smile on your face every time you look at it! Cheers Alan

Heaps of Aussies here Michael, welcome aboard. Cheers Alan

No worries, mate. One other thing I just thought of - while I have been working on all thee forties, I stumbled on two separate running boards in AMT tan plastic. I don't hahve the kit but am wondering if these came on the Diamond in the Rough version? That could solve your running board problem! Cheers Alan

Hi again, Bernard, I had another look at the new frame and new fender unit. The stock Revell frame definitely DOES NOT touch the AMT crossmember. it doesn't need trimming at all. The interference is entirely between the floor versus the fender unit. At around the rear seat mount area it clashes with that cross member. I don't have any spare Revell frames to start a new conversion (Revell kits now run about over $50Aus, or at least $38 US so buying donor kits is a bit prohibitive at the moment) but if I was to do this again, especially with regard to your running board removal, I would try it this way. First, I would trial and measure to cut the rear of the floor off at the point where it interferes with the central crossmember. I would then deal with the front half of the remaining floor. From my checking, I don't think it would take very much trimming to get the Revell floor to fit neatly within the inner edges of the AMT fender unit. Once I was happy with the fit I would glue it in tight and do any remaining bodywork to clean it - I am guessing very little. Now your fender unit would be nice and stable. I really can't visualise how I would tackle the rear part of the floor but I am guessing cutting it up into two or three section and doing lots of trial and error fitting. When all of this was locked in I think you would then be in position to safely remove your running boards. Hope that helps Alan