W-409

If we didn't have this superb WIP thread in here and didn't know what the kit is like if built box stock, there would be no way to tell how much stuff has been scratchbuilt or modified on this beautiful build, because everything looks so great. With that said, it's always really nice to see an update on this project, you're doing a fantastic job with it. Even though I'm completely on another skill level (way behind ), threads like this keep me motivated to try out new techniques and add some new details on my builds.

Great to see one of these built! Can't remember if I've ever seen one finished, but you did an excellent job with yours. Nice clean work!

You are absolutely correct! It's a good feeling every time when you can scratchbuild something succesfully. Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it! Next up was scratchbuilding a clutch linkage. I started with the Z-bar, which was built from round plastic rod with mounting plate made out of beer can aluminum. Same material was also used for the parts where the clutch rods are mounted. It was a bit fiddly to assemble, but it came out OK. Especially as it will be mostly hidden under steering shaft and brake master cylinder anyway. Clutch fork is just a piece of sheet styrene painted and glued to place. Here is the Z-bar mocked up. Clutch rods were made out of metal wire. For the clutch rod between clutch pedal and Z-bar, I drilled a hole through firewall, clutch rod on bottom is just glued between the Z-bar and clutch fork. The clutch rods will be left in silver, but obviously the upper clutch rod can't be mounted yet as the firewall is not done. I think next I'll need to start working on handbrake cables.

Great to see a race car with a cool history being built in scale. I had known about Dan Gurney's '61 Impala, but never knew about this one. Excellent work with the body conversion and the whole rest of the build. Everything seems to be just right. Where are the hose clamps on radiator hoses from?

Wow! What a VERY nice and clean build of a beautiful car! The paint job looks flawless and so does the rest of the build too, ultra clean work overall with all paint finishes and assembly. Everything seems to be just right. Congrats on a very well done model.

Next I added brake lines to front of the chassis. Hardlines are made out of metal wire, brake hoses going to wheel cylinders are spark plug wire material, all brake line fittings were made out of hex-shaped plastic rod. Then I glued the engine to the chassis. The fitment of the AMT engine on a Lindberg frame is actually surprisingly good. The only issue now is that I can't fit the original steering shaft on place anymore, because the generator is on the way. The generator is on a bit different location that what it is on a Lindberg engine. Now, the generator is on a correct place though, so I much rather will modify the steering shaft to make it fit properly.

As far as I know, these kits are about 1/32 scale, but someone said they are representing a Streamliner that would have a big airplane engine behind the driver. And those things were huge. With that said, my plan was originally to enlarge it to 1/25th scale, but now when looking at it, I don't think it's necessary at all when building a Streamliner with an automobile engine. Because it is approximately the same size as a regular Hot Rod, I think it's good to go.

I was able to score a Bonneville Streamliner by Hawk Models from eBay a while ago and yesterday it showed up! A Streamliner is something that I've always wanted to build, so this will be interesting. The kit is super simple, so a lot of scratchbuilding and kitbashing will be required, as my plan is to build a "Full Detail" version with a proper engine and drivetrain. Once my current '61 Impala project is finished I'll start working on this one...

Glad to hear the Jeep J-10 is being reissued! I've been trying to find the latest reissue of that kit with no luck, but now that it's coming out again I will have to be ready to buy one before they disappear again. I need it as a donor for my '64 Jeep Wagoneer.

Spent the weekend in UK, visited London and on Saturday we went to Aldershot for the annual Rockers Reunion. While we were in London we had to visit Hannants in Colindale, London. Bought a Lindberg '37 Cord. Not the most highly detailed kit, but let's see what I can do with it... Also today a couple of decal sheets arrived in the Mail for planned future projects. These were found in eBay. On top, Ohio George Montgomery's Malco Gasser Mustang decals by Slixx. In the middle, decals for Max Sterling's '61 Pontiac SD Super Stock by Decals By Lucas. And on bottom is Ronnie Sox's '63 Impala Z-11 decals by Slixx.

Engine work continues. Since the last pictures I was able to install a generator, belt, pulleys and a fan. This required a little modifying. So, the whole engine is originally from AMT '62 Bel Air. That kit has also power steering pump belt and pulley molded into the belt drive. Well, those are unnecessary on a race car so I cut them off. Also, the original belt would locate the generator too far so that it would hit the inner fender. So I had to shorten the belt to make the generator fit on correct position. After smoothing out the glue seams on the belt, everything was painted and assembled as usual. For the generator, I added a photo etch mount with photo etch bolt and nut details. Generator tag (the small red & silver plate on top of the generator) was made out of aluminum and painted according to the 1:1 version. I also added three wire connectors for three wires that connect to the generator, just like they are on a real deal. Wiring will be added once engine sits in the engine bay. I also started to build a simple throttle linkage. As the carburetors are very well detailed, there's not much that I need to add there at this point. Rest of the linkage can be done when the engine is installed on place. I think now the engine is pretty much ready to be installed to the frame. Before that though, I will need to add brake lines to the frame. I also found a photo etch detail set for this kit. I had tried to find one earlier, but it seemed to be out of stock everywhere, even Model Car Garage didn't have one. Now I got lucky and was able to find one so I bought it. I wish I had found it earlier, I could have used it in the interior as well, but at least I get all of the exterior logos now.

Thanks David! I appreciate the kind words.

Fulvia is a beautiful car, so with it being 1/24 scale I think I'll have to build one. Hopefully it will have an engine though.

Thanks Tom! Me being here in Finland, the cost when ordering parts from USA is always pretty high so it's good to be able to scratchbuild at least some of the parts needed. I built a dipstick for engine oil. It's made from a piece of metal wire that I flattened out from the other end to represent the handle. Then the dipstick tubing was painted gloss black. Some more engine work was also done. The dipstick was installed and can be seen in the next photos. I also drilled holes on distributor and cylinder heads for spark plug wires and they are now installed, naturally in correct firing order. Wires are Pro Tech spark plug wire. I couldn't find a coil in my parts boxes, so I made one from styrene rod. Also, fuel lines from fuel pump to carburetors are done, they are metal wire with fittings made out of hex-shaped styrene rod. Clear fuel filter was made out of mold sprue that I heated up and stretched to make it the correct diameter. I drilled a hole in it and installed an actual filter element inside (piece of thin plastic rod painted white), but it can't be seen very well in the end. It's definitely not perfect, but maybe it's good enough to be hidden under the hood.

That's a good deal for the Lincoln! I'd be happy to build one of those as well. That reminds me, a few years ago I remember scrolling through a Finnish site where people sell all kinds of stuff. It's not often when you see someone selling models in there, but this time I noticed a '68 Impala Promo model in perfect condition. The price was $40. I called the seller immediately, and while he lived quite close to me, I jumped to the car and went to pick it up right away. He also had a '67 Pontiac GTO Convertible Promo for also $40 so I bought that too. At home I was looking at both of the promos and they are flawless, like brand new. I thought it was a good deal as I've always wanted to build a '68 Impala. I just checked on eBay quickly, saw only one '68 Impala Promo Model with the price tag of $780.

Thanks Sean! I'm happy how the interior turned out. Even though it's kind of a shame that this thing will eventually have side windows with class designations, so the interior is not seen that well from the finished model. Did a little more work with the engine. Built collectors for the headers from a correct size plastic rod. A little putty was needed to smooth out the seams between collectors and primary tubes. I noticed that Nicholson's car had oval-shaped breathers on front ends of both valve covers. I haven't seen similar ones in any kit, so I had to scratchbuild them. Breathers are mold sprue, filed to an oval shape, cut to length and on top of that I added pieces of sheet styrene as covers. After gluing the stryene on, I just filed that to a correct shape as well. And now that the sheet styrene has those grooves on bottom side, I was able to get finned covers for my breathers. They were painted chrome silver and glued to place. Engine kind of has a molded in fuel pump. The frame of the pump that attaches the engine block is there, but lower part of the fuel pump where the diaphragm is, was completely missing. That was easily built out of styrene rod as well, glued to place and painted silver.

Thanks Joe for the kind words! I agree completely, a good kit of a '78-82 Malibu would be a must have, and probably a great seller too, if you look at how popular they've become in the 1:1 world. I know at least I would need a couple of them to start with.

Wow! Had not seen this thread until now. Just read through the whole thread and I have to say that you're doing an incredible job on improving this kit! Personally, I like improving older kits up to today's standards so with that said, I'm going to watch this thread with a great interest. And, while I can appreciate the work many guys do with creating the "masters" for 3D printing certain parts on computer (because there's no way I could do that), I really enjoy someone actually scratchbuilding the parts they need. So, my hat is off for all the work you've done so far, and I'll definitely keep watching. Saw one SSK last summer when I was on a roadtrip in Germany and visited the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Beautiful car!

Interior work was up next. I clearcoated the dashboard with Mipa 2-part clear coat shot via airbrush. It's the same stuff that I've used for 1:1 cars when dealing with metallic colors. I had to sand mold lines off from the steering wheel before painting. I also drilled the holes deeper on the spokes. Made a big difference, like seen on the first picture. Then the steering wheel was painted with Revell Enamels, except for the silver, which is Tamiya Acryl (X-11, Chrome Silver). Some details were also added to the dashboard. Originally, there were no switches for headlights or wipers on left hand side of the steering column, so I drilled small holes to the dash and made the switches out of a correct sized styrene rod painted silver. Two different silver paints were used for the dash, cauge decals are from the kit, but speedometer decal had to be narrowed pretty much to make it fit properly. After that I added some black wash to bring out details, such as the heater adjusting levers and to the panel lines of the glovebox. Steering column was brush painted with Revell #30 red just like I did with the steering wheel. Tachometer is also from the kit, but I had to clean up some mold flash from that. So, it was re-chromed with Molotow and kit-supplied cauge decal was installed. I also added a tachometer cable even though it's almost impossible to see when this is installed on place. Interior floor was done with black flocking earlier. After that I shot a couple of light coats of flat clear on top of the flocking to keep the small bits of flocking on the floor where they should be. Seats, center console and shifter were installed and seat belts were done. Here is the finished dashboard with steering wheel and steering column installed. And then door panels and dashboard were installed on place so now I can call the interior finished.

Thanks Bob, I appreciate it! It's great to be able to spend more time on the modeling bench again! I have many cool projects on the stash that it's great to make progress on them. I had a great time with the small scale kits. Even though they're simple, they sure were quite challenging because of their small size. Even though 1/24 or 1/25 scale is the one I like the most, I think I will build some smaller scale stuff in the future as well.

Being in Finland makes it a little harder to shop on eBay. Or, at least more expensive. I have quite a big stash of vintage kits, even some really rare ones. And eventually, all of them will be built. Some of them are bought on eBay, but often the problem is that even though I found the kit with a reasonable price, it'll cost me minimum of $50 extra, because of shipping and taxes. With that said, I don't shop on eBay that much, but it's a good place for checking out what the asking prices are. Mostly I've bought my vintage kits locally. Often at a Model Car Show / Swap Meet you can find some good offers. Also, swap meets for 1:1 scale car parts are a good place to search for model kits. Many times you'll find no kits, but sometimes you do and they can sometimes be surprisingly cheap as the seller might not know the real value or then he just wants to get rid of them. But, to me, probably the biggest thing is networking, I've bought lots of kits from friends or via friends and some of them have been pretty good deals to be honest. So it's a good idea to tell your friends that you're interested in these things, and you never know what they might come up with. Of course, many of my vintage kits are glue bombs / rebuilders. It usually takes a bit more work to restore an old kit, but when you're done, you'll have a cool, rare kit on your display case with half the price of a mint condition kit. Plus, I enjoy rebuilding old built-ups. It's always a neat challenge.

Thanks Guys! I appreciate the kind words!

Thanks! And, you're correct. The no need of a basecoat makes it a little "cheaper" but it's also much more straightforward to chrome something with this stuff as it doesn't need a basecoat at all.

Looks like you had a great year! All of them are really nice, but if I had to pick a favorite it would have to be the Lincoln Futura. Beautiful car, rarely seen built but despite the kit being old and simplified, you did a fantastic job with it. Also, weathering on the Black Widow is just perfect. Great work and a Happy New Year!

Thanks for the information! Does he have a catalog about what other products he might have? I've never been in Facebook and don't have any desire to, but I think I'll need to tell a friend of mine to check it out for me.