mrmike

The door handles were made from thin strips of styrene that I had on hand and doubled up to add some thickness. I did use my Dremel on a slow speed to create the recesses for the handles. Trying to create 4 recesses the same size and depth is not easy!

Thanks for the info, Del! Not knowing exactly what the floor pan was left me to my own devices and the kit instructions. I chose to paint it with the red primer and it was redder than I had expected. And, the original color of the model was Testors British Green Metallic. More progress on Spenser's Mustang. The front suspension is on. The disc brakes are in the purple pond and the rear drums are mounted on the rear axle. The wheels and tires are ready to be mounted. The interior floor has been painted flat black and is ready to be flocked. More to come.....

Thanks Del and James! James, if I do make Quirk's Gran Fury, it'll be well off into the future. I went and painted the body and discovered two things, one...the color is too bright and the door handles stand out like a sore thumb! I did an experiment on the inside of the trunk lid by spraying Model Master Honduras Maroon and I really liked the color in combination with the Mica Red. Two...the door handles where made from some round stock and I replaced them with some flat strips of styrene which blends into the body better. I called up my Dremel again and removed the package shelf and replaced it with one made from sheet styrene. I decided to leave the trunk lid operational and made a foundation for the trunk floor. The trunk floor is made from sheet styrene and should look great when it's painted and flocked. More to come.....

Andy, I have overlooked this kit since it came out, but after seeing someone else make this into a near stock model, I had to try and put my own spin on it. Wayne, thanks for the suggestion, but I have figured out a different solution. I have mounted the doors since this would give me more to hold on to when I go to make the door handle recesses. I have added pieces of styrene to the inside of the doors to give me more to grind into when I go to make the recesses. I am undecided as to leave the trunk lid operational and make a trunk floor or to just glue it shut. More to come.....

No problem Clay! I have started chassis assembly. The exhaust, rear suspension, transmission mount, and chassis have been cleaned, repaired, reassembled, and repainted. More to come.....

Skip, you are probably right! Charlie could possibly be disbarred for having wheels unbecoming to an attorney! Charlie, I have decided to use my Dremel for the recesses. The rear doors are quite thick and some careful grinding with a small ball bit made the recesses fairly easy to do. The front doors are another story themselves where the plastic is much thinner. I'll add a small piece of styrene on the backside of the door and then use the Dremel again. Hopefully, there will be enough material so I won't end up going through the door altogether. I painted the wheel spokes with Humbrol Gunmetal Metallic paint. Humm, Quirk's Gran Fury? I'm not sure if I could find a kit that would even come close to what I need for that car. It would be an intersting subject though. More to come.....

I have decided to continue the theme of my McNally storyline with another build. This one centers around Charlotte "Charlie" Rothmann, McNally's friend and part-time employer. My influence for this build came from a model I saw at the recent Classic Plastic show and an article in a recent issue of Model Cars Magazine. The Story Charlotte "Charlie" Rothmann is a person to be reckoned with. She is a Harvard Law School graduate who is very sharp, dedicated, and a powerful lawyer who stand by her client, win or lose. She works long hours, has very little time for a social life, and relies greatly on her friend, Private Investigator McNally, to get the facts to defend her clients in court. Charlie is usually seen driving her BMW 740 until she was sideswiped by a drunk driver. Fearing a rather large lawsuit, the insurance company offered to pay for the damaged to Charlie's BMW immediately. After dropping off the BMW at the BMW/Cadillac dealership bodyshop for an estimate, Charlie wandered in the showroom and spotted a metallic red Cadillac STS-V that seemed to be calling her by name. Being a very attractive woman, 3 salesmen immediately offered to assist her and she told them she would only deal with the sales manager, whom she knew. An hour later, Charlie was driving away from the dealership in her new Cadillac. The Build I am using Revell's Uptown Cadillac STS-V kit for this build and will de-bling this car by removing the overly large wheels and tires along with the mega stereo componants. The wheels will be replaced with a set of Pegasus Vanquish wheels and the paint will be Tamiya TS-39 Mica Red. I started by removing the Lambo door hinges and I will need to add exterior door handles including the pockets behind the handles. I added the exterior door mirrors only to realize later that detailing the window trim will be quite difficult. The solution? Carefully removing the mirrors without doing any damage to the door frame. I added strips of styrene to the forward and bottom edges of the doors to close the gaps between the doors and the doors jambs. Now, that's better! More to come.....

Thanks David and Clay! Kelp it up???

I couldn't find the F & F Mustang anywhere so I'm forging ahead with the flat hood and I have a set of smooth valve covers coming from Eric Stone. I finished paintin' and polishin' the body today. I decided to strip the paint from the chassis and start over from scratch. More to come.....

That's the exact same mixer that I have. Except for the paint splatters!

Excellent paint! Great job! I just got this one today at my LHS. Hope to be starting this one soon.

Beautiful GT 350!

I use the Badger paint mixer that I got at my LHS for $10.00. Well worth the money to me!

My LHS (Hobby Emporium) had their 30% Off Sale today and I got the Tamiya Aston Martin DBS and the Revell Dodge Dart Hemi along with assorted paints and sprays for under $90.00.

Brandon, yours will look somewhat like mine! Except, mine's a Hemi!

I got the body of Spenser's '67 Mustang painted with two coats of Tamiya TS-11 Maroon and it looks really close to what I want. I'm even comtemplating whether or not to even polish it. The distributor has been wired, but I won't install it until I get a new set of smooth valve covers. I have held off on the hood until I can find the GT hood from the Fast & Furious Mustang kit. If I can't find one, I'll use the one that I have now. More to come.....

Nice Enzo! Is this the Revell or the Tamiya kit? I have the Revell kit in my stash.

Dave, I just looked around eBay, Model Empire and Express, and a few others in between and I found nothing. I found plenty of the Eclipses, but no Mustangs and not even the Monte Carlo! My LHS is having their 30% off Sale on Saturday and I'll look there. Rick, since my Spenser's '66 Mustang was the 3rd season version, it sat "high" which was just as well as I used the Keystone wheel and tire set from MRC which placed the tires right at the edge of the fender. For some reason, I happen to like the high riding Mustang that was depicted during that time and it also had a "gasser" look to it. I wanted to do the first season version years ago, but I wasn't able to find the right wheels for the project and it sat for almost 6 months until I happened upon the MRC wheel and tire set at my LHS. Here's a large pic of Spenser's '66 Mustang.

Thanks Charlie! I am now starting to notice things about this Mustang that I didn't notice before. The hood is from a '68 Mustang and the hood from the Revell kit is too long and I'm not about to try to modifiy the Revell hood to fit. For now, I'll just keep going with this one.

More progress! I gave my Dremel something to do by cutting off the axle mounting bosses. A very happy Dremel complied! Then I painted the spokes with Aluminium Metalizer. The motor got a new coat of Ford Engine Blue lacquer. More to come.....

Thanks mikeD1! The coffee cup is actually a shortened magneto from my parts box. It had the shape of a coffee cup with cover and it was painted accordingly. Thank you Nico!

Yesterday, I went to drill out the distributor cap for plug wires and since I wasn't exactly centered, I destroyed the cap. I cut off the cap and dug through my parts box and found a small distributor and using a lot more care, drilled through the cap and then mounted it to the distributor base. I then drilled the holes into the engine block for the plug wires. Before I add the wires, I'll paint the block with a new coat of Ford Engine Blue. More to come.....

Thank you Bob!

Gregg, Robert B. Parker is my favorite author and the Spenser novels are my favorite with the one person viewpoint writing. I need to find more of the Spenser novels which I devour when I go camping. The 4 movies, which were made for Lifetime Television in the mid 90's, follow the novels more closely than the Spenser For Hire TV series did back in the mid 80's and can be a bit slow and lacking the punch of the TV show. While the movies (Spenser Movie Collection) are out on DVD, the TV series is not and probably because someone, somewhere, wants too much money for their part in the production. I will keep ya'll posted on this build as I am just getting started! A feature on Spenser's Mustang GT? Hmmm, this could be interesting...

I don't how your paint booth is set up, but it sounds like you need to get the paint booth over to the window instead of using it on the other side of the room.