W-409

Very nice and clean build from a great looking car! This is one of those kits that I've been trying to find, but they always seem to go way over my budget range... Anyway, yours is very nicely done. The paint job looks very smooth and despite having small difficulties with BMF, the chrome trim looks terrific. Overall very nice and clean work. Good to see these rare kits being built!

Last night it was snowing and this morning when I woke up, there was around 8 inches more of that white stuff on the ground. That's not a big deal, but I thought we already had more than enough of it. Now after a lot of shoveling our yard is clean, but it keeps snowing all the time so more shoveling to come in the evening! Luckily the traffic is flowing pretty good, and my daily driver (1st gen Chevy S10) has no problem going in the snow.

There is a similar thread about this kit on another forum, and one member who had bought the kit had some issues with the white walls not being in the center of the tire. Has anyone else had that problem on their copy or is it just bad luck? Personally for me it's not a big issue as I'll be changing the tires anyway when I get to building one of these. But I know it would be a problem for several people if it was wrong on all of these kits.

I painted the distributor with silver and black. Not sure what color it should originally be, but I found a picture of similar in Google... Then I added spark plug wires on place. They are made out of Scale Productions' aftermarket stuff which works great. It was a bit tricky to get the wires past the belt pulleys, but now everything fits together. Then I did some tweaking with the stance a little. My previous mock up was already pretty close, but I wanted to lower the front end just a little. So I sanded some material off from the leaf spring hangers and now the stance is pretty close. Once everything is glued together, it will be still a bit lower as I used some Blu-Tack for mock up. Once that is cleaned off, the front end will be still slightly lower so I'm pretty happy with it. The rear slicks will still need to be changed to regular whitewalls.

I have one of these Convertibles (though it's going to be built with a Hardtop body) and several Hardtops. Don't know if there is something wrong with the hood, other than two of my hoods are warped and not fitting correctly between the front fenders. Don't know if it's just bad luck or if it's a common problem with these kits. Anyway, these are great kits with lots of potential for different kinds of builds.

This is a great looking car as a Wagon. Seen a couple of them in 1:1 scale but this has to be the first model of this car that I've ever seen. Excellent work as always. This color is a perfect choice for a '58 Plymouth.

That is a beautiful Oldsmobile, another one of those rare subjects that I'd like to see built more often. Again, excellent work with the conversion. Nice paint job and sharp BMF work on the chrome trim finish it off. Great job.

Thanks Willie! The injectors are somekind of electric components... I'm not exactly sure what they are used for, but they are called "Ferrules". Just snap off the colored piece of plastic and it reveals a nice flared end inside there. Here in Finland I bought a set of several hundred of these for $8.00 or something like that.

Added some black washing to the engine and it definitely looks better now. Though I'm not completely sure if I'm exactly happy about the outcome or not, but at least it's better than what it was before. I also added fuel lines from the fuel block that I made from aluminum to the injectors. Fuel line fittings are made from hex plastic rod and painted with Humbrol's clear orange on top of Revell's silver. The fuel lines are spark plug wire material from Scale Productions.

That's exactly why I didn't want to add any more tubings. The cage might not be correct for a modern rally car, but that's not important at this point either as like you said, the speeds are a bit different. Here is a start of the engine for my '51 Bel Air. It's the basic Chevy Stovebolt that comes in this kit, with Bill Fisher's custom cylinder head that became available in late 1951. This is one of the early cast iron versions, Fisher moved to aluminum version of the same head in 1952, but obviously that would be one year too "new" for this car. Of course taking part to a Rally like this with pretty rare cylinder head is a bit of a risk, but while the engine isn't built with the every last horsepower in mind, I think it will survive. All of the old paint came off very nicely from the engine parts. But there was pretty much glue used on all parts, and removing that was a lot of work. After lots of cleanup, the parts fit decent on place. I also stripped the chrome from that cylinder head and sprayed it with "Chrome Silver" from a spray can. Next I need to paint the starter and add some black washing to the engine to bring out some details.

This was an easy one, because some of these Ford Vedettes were exported as new here in Finland and it's still possible to see them on the road (sometimes). Bunch of them have been also abandoned in forests around here, so it's a familiar body style.

Very cool project, we don't see too many of these Falcons being built! Interesting to see this old kit built with a modern donor kit. And if someone can do it well, it's you. So I'll be watching. The "one year only rule" concerning the "Axle Relocation" in these FX classes in 1965 is something that is not seen very often either. So this will be interesting.

Another great looking conversion from your bench. This is a great looking car that I'd like to see as a modern kit... I like your color choice and the overall look is just spot on otherwise, too. Nice clean BMF work finishes it off.

Another masterpiece from your bench! Good to see these unique subjects built as nicely as this one. Excellent job with the body conversion. The wooden areas on the sides turned out really nice, too. Great work.

Excellent job with that conversion! Great to see something different in scale, and this definitely qualifies in that category! I like the color choice and the overall look, but that flawless BMF work caught my eyes. That's an important thing to get right on a car that has this much chrome, but you nailed it.

Wow! That's a real beauty! Whatever body corrections you had to do, they seem to be turned out very nice. Overall, a very nice and clean Zephyr, hard to find anything that I'd do otherwise. This is one of those bodies that I'd like to have in scale. I'll have to buy a resin kit to turn it into a Traditional Custom.

Yep, I should have been more specific, they are hard to find here in Finland. And buying them through eBay results around $35 minimum extra cost on top of the kit price (shipping, customs charges etc). But, some day, I will buy one.

Today while cruising around in Helsinki, Finland, I saw this Volvo Amazon in a great condition parked on side of the road. Had to park my Pickup truck to give the Volvo a closer look. Even though it's not American, I'd be happy to have one of them as a daily driver... And later I saw this very clean Jeep Grand Wagoneer. These are not that rare here in Finland, but they are often in pretty sad condition. It was refreshing to see one that was in nearly flawless condition... Very nice.

Very nice work so far! Haven't seen many of these built which is surprising when thinking how popular the 1:1 versions are. I'd like to build one myself too, but unfortunately the kits are pretty hard to find. Anyway I'll be following, keep it up!

Thanks Bob and Thomas! The kind words mean a lot!

Wow! The subject is out of my interest range by itself, as I always say that "Real Pickup Trucks are made in USA only". But, VERY nicely done model! The weathering is just about perfect, this looks exactly like some of the older European Pickups that I've seen here in Finland (of course except for the steering wheel being on other side). Fantastic work.

Thanks Guys! Bill, you're right that the Flathead is not the most common engine choice. I figured that in addition to being completely possible engine combo at that time, it's probably the most competitive way to run in the G/G class, too. Jim, I'm not a Mopar guy myself so I'm happy to change the powerplant to something else. But, the stock heads were mandatory only in G/G and H/G classes. But then again, not sure if an engine like this would be competitive in the faster classes, despite having an aftermarket head. Today I did a bit of work with the engine. First I glued the heads on place and painted the head bolts with silver. I think the heads will need some black washing before they're good, though. Next it was time to fabricate an intake manifold for the Hilborn Fuel Injection setup. That was made from two pieces of sheet styrene. I wanted to have a finned intake so I chose a sheet styrene that has those grooves on it already. But the problem was that it was too thin. So I glued it on top of a thicker piece of styrene and cut them both to correct shape, now having a finned intake that is thick enough. Then I just drilled holes for the injector tubes and mocked up everything. Now I can paint the intake and start working on the details.

This is an old project of mine that was first started in 2010. It was going to be a Gasser with supercharged Chrysler 426 Wedge. For some reason the project got stalled for a while. In 2013 I continued it, but the Wedge didn't sound like a good idea anymore. So, I changed it to an Injected Ford Flathead with stock heads, to classify for NHRA's G/G class. I started building the engine from some glue bomb I found in my parts box, but I couldn't find all of the correct parts for it, so the project got stalled again. The third time I started this project was last year when I took the engine from Revell's '40 Ford. And this time it looks like I might be able to actually finish it! This will be built according to 1963 NHRA Rulebook for Gas Coupes & Sedans, and I'm planning to build it as a "Low Buck Racer" without a fancy paint job or anything like that. So it will have a grey primer finish and a Flathead under the hood. I think the Flathead will fit pretty well to the budget racer theme as well. I have glued the front clip to the body and I've done a bit of bodywork on that area. Rear fenders have taller wheel openings as well to make a bit of room for the slicks. In these early Mock Up-pics, the rear suspension is straight from the kit, but rear tires (that will be changed to a regular whitewall slicks later) are from AMT Racemaster Parts Pack. Front springs are taken from my parts box and front axle is from Revell's '56 Ford Pickup if I remember correctly. Front tires are from Jo-Han's SC Rambler, but I'm not quaranteed that they will stay. All four wheels are resin cast by a friend of mine. I will have to lower the front end slightly, but I think the stance is pretty close. And here is a picture of the Flathead engine. I will be scratchbuilding a set of headers for it and intake manifold for the Hilborn Fuel Injection will need to be fabricated as well. Front inner wheels didn't fit perfectly to the tires, because of which the front tires were too far from each other. Instead of narrowing the front axle, I wanted to modify the inner wheels instead so that they'd fit better on place. Because by narrowing the front axle the glue joint would become weak and it could break because of the weight of this model, I didn't want to do that. So I cut the inner wheels with my razor saw to make them a bit more narrow: Here both of them are narrowed and they fit pretty nicely on place. Next I prepped the engine block, heads and timing chain cover for primer. The block required some putty, but after that I just had to get rid of a couple of small mold lines here and there. Primer... Here the engine parts are painted and clear coated. I used Tamiya TS Spray paints for this as they seem to work pretty well, and I had just the right color on my shelf. I think the finish turned out pretty good. Not too shiny, but not too dull either. Stay tuned for more...

Together with my dad we had a '79 Buick Skyhawk street car, which shares the same chassis as Vega. But when we bought the Malibu, we had to sell the Buick away to have some money in order to rebuild the Malibu. Vega would be a cool car, though!

Thanks guys! Gotta head to the ladies' area at a local shop tomorrow, trying to find one that contains no Acetone.