W-409

That turned out very nice! I like that paint job very much, black is very hard color to get right, but you nailed it. The paint is not too shiny but it's not too flat either. Overall a very nice build, great detailing finishes it off. Nice job.

Well I've made some more progress on this thing and it's getting closer of being done. First I installed windows to the body. They don't fit perfectly to the body shapes, but there's not much I can do about it... It's not too bad though so I can live with it. I also painted engine bay gloss black except for the firewall that stays body color. Then I added some light black washing to the engine to make it look a bit more realistic. I also painted bolts from timing chain cover and oil pan and added belt and pulleys for water pump. Pulleys are from my parts box and the belt is paper that I painted flat black. Then it was time to put the body on chassis. I didn't glue the engine on place quite yet, as otherwise I can't slide the body on place. Then in these pics body is already glued to the chassis and so is the engine. It required some minor work to get the body and chassis glued together but overall they fit fine. Next up will be a lot of work in the engine bay and then I can install all body trim and final details. But it will take a few days to get the engine details done...

Great job as always! Nice to see something unusual and this definitely fits in that category. I like the color and your paint job turned out very nice as well. Plus that I like how you tint those windows! That Cadillac Pickup resin kit sounds interesting! Too bad they're in FB only, so looks like I'll have to skip that one...

Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely try that!

Great job on that Nova. I like your color choice and paint job itself looks very smooth too. With a stance like that it looks mean, and your extra details make it stand out. Overall a very good looking build! Just one little tip for future builds... Please post the updates in one thread instead of creating a new thread for every update. It makes following the build a lot easier, and I'd definitely like to follow high quality builds like this. Great work!

Thanks Dominik! Your Mercedes looks really cool! I like how that trunk lid and hood look, I'd like to leave them like that since I pretty much don't know how to do that weathering stuff so I'm probably not going to get an effect like this in the future ever again. Anyway, I'm not too crazy about the rear fenders/ quarter panels and doors and how they look. I'm thinking if I put the body back on the paint stripper for a while so that only those rear fenders are in touch with that liquid it might look better in the end, because the body was most of the time upside down when I had it in the stripper. So, if I can create a better looking "patina" on those areas I will probably leave it like that. Even though I usually prefer shiny builds and sometimes it feels like I've seen a bit too many weathered models. But my chrome parts are not perfect either so they would fit well to the look... We'll see what happens.

Wow! Cutting the excess decal material away sounds like a lot of work! Now this decal thing got me interested. I think printing them might not be the problem, but I don't consider myself as very good computer user, drawing the decals is a problem. So on that Adobe Photodeluxe program, can you somehow open a photo in that program and then it can be put on the sheet and printed out, or do I have to completely draw the logos on computer? For example, if I wanted to print our race team logo as a decal, could I take a good picture of that logo, open that picture in the program and print it out... Or do I have to somehow "draw" that team logo on my computer to be able to print it out? I have several builds that need custom decals so I'd definitely need to be able to make them myself. Paying for someone else to do it usually gets too expensive...

Thanks guys for the opinions! I was just thinking kind of the same thing, let's see if I can keep the paint like it is... The top will be no problem, but don't know about the side trim, BMF might be a bit too shiny compared to the rest of that body. But don't know if silver paint will look good either? It's not going to be slammed down though, and definitely no modern wheels (Old School Is Cool!). I'll be fitting a vintage tire & wheel combo on this.

Now when the body of my Turbine Car had been sitting for over a month in the paint stripping, It's pretty obvious that the copper paint is not coming off from the body. Now the paint looks like the car had been sitting for a long time abandoned somewhere. The body looks kind of cool like that, but as I don't have much experience in weathering models I guess I'll just sand the paint off and shoot a glossy coat of paint on this... Let's see.

Well I was able to do some progress on this last night. First I glued steering column to the dash and steering wheel was glued on too. It's painted and clear coated with Tamiya sprays and after that the spokes were painted with Revell 91 silver. I also added a tachometer and a cable from my parts box. The tach was painted silver, I painted some black to the cauge face and wiped paint off from those raised letters/numbers. Then I glued everything together and the interior is now finished. Pedals are from the kit and they as well as the dashboard assembly fit fine. Shifter is made from a sewing needle (if that is what it is in English...) and that rubber part is taken from my parts box.

Yeah I see no difference between these two scales either. I build both, 1/24 and 1/25, display them together and mix the parts too, the difference is so small that no one can really see it. Bigger problem in my opinion is that some kits have a lot undersized or oversized parts no matter which scale the kit is. For example AMT's "Twister Vega" kit has a tiny engine compared to the rest of the kit parts.

Really nice work on this Pontiac, it turned out excellent! You did a great job with that body conversion and overall everything looks just right. I like to see 1:1 replicas in scale so a big thumbs up from here. Thanks for sharing the WIP thread with us and thanks for that interesting history too. Very nice job.

That's very cool! I like to see this kit built, actually I'd like to build one myself too. You did a great job on this, excellent paint and decal work! Really nice and unique build.

That's a great looking Henry J! I like that unique engine choice and you did a great job detailing it too. Great job weathering the body and the overall look is very nice. A great build for sure. But if you want to make it a Gasser, you'll need to add at least a rear bumper and full interior upholstery. Or then you could run in Altered like this.

I'd use flat clear for those spokes. Definitely don't use Enamels as they'll turn yellow during the years, but acrylic clear shouldn't have this problem. Here I sprayed the chrome front wheels with flat clear, pretty close to the look you're after...

Thanks Mitch and Dave! Heh, I agree with you Mitch, hopefully the guy building this '55 didn't use too much Solder Seal on it ! That decal just happened to be the right size and it looked old enough to be installed in there... I got BMF done on the body. That wasn't too easy and I'm not completely happy with it, but it could be worse so I think I'll have to live with it. Once the underside of the body is painted black and glasses are installed, I think it'll look pretty good anyway.

Wow! I guess pretty much everything has been said already but I just had to post a compliment, the intake assembly is looking flawless! With each update I'm just wondering even more if this thing is really 1:1 scale instead of 1:16. Keep up the great work!

I agree 100% on this. It would make it a lot easier to build a scale replica of my 1:1 car, '62 Chevy II 2D Sedan . I don't think I'd buy lots of four door model kits. I'm thinking only '62-'65 Chevy II and '80s Caprice would be must haves as four door models but that's about it. I'd like to build both of those just like they were sold here in Finland when they were new.

Very good looking Riviera! You don't see many of these built as Drag Racers so this is a refreshing exception. Very nice work on it, especially when considering that you had only a month to build it. Great job as always.

Randy: Thank You! Your projects have always been a big source of inspiration! Tim: Thanks, no worries about the decals, I'm glad I got lucky and found those from my parts box even though I was almost certain that I had used them on earlier builds. Thanks for taking the time to check your stash for me, I appreciate it!

Thanks! Yes, BMF will be the next step, in fact I already started that but I'll have to continue tomorrow on it. Now it's time to head to a Car Show to check out some Rods & Customs! But as I promised, here are some better pics of that polished body. Overall I think it turned out pretty good, now let's just hope that BMF goes on with no problems. I'm very happy to see that this build is finally coming together!

I just finished polishing the body and I think it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it anyway. I also found two Isky Cams decals from my parts box so even though they're yellow instead of the red ones I installed earlier. I'll take a few more pics of the polished body tomorrow when it's not dark and post them here. But here's a proof that the decal issue is now happily fixed.

Thanks guys for the kind words, I really appreciate them! Travis: I kind of thought that myself too! Too bad pretty much everything I build is shiny and clean, but that's partly because I'm not very good at weathering stuff. Well, that's just more practise I guess! Ryan: That sounds like a great idea...Why didn't I think of that! I'll definitely try that tomorrow when I'll try to finish the polishing. Tim: Thanks, it would be great if you had a spare set of those decals! But if not, I think I have a back up plan that might work on there. Polishing sure ain't fun but I have to agree that the results are worth it.

Thanks Tom! There are never enough X-Frame Chevrolets so I'd say get to it! Unfortunately he is not selling that much those resin parts, once I asked if he'd consider selling a few to the States but he didn't want to do that... You see the business is very small and it's done as a hobby between real work, other life and own modeling projects. He is a nice guy and his resin parts and kits are top notch quality. I'm sorry to say that I can't help you with these wheels.

Finding a set of Frontrunners is no easy... Don't know if you found a pair already or not, but probably the best source would be Lindberg's '64 Dodge Super Stock kits. They have a decent set of Frontrunners and by sanding the sidewall details off you could install the tire letters as decals to get the manufacturer you want. Other than that there are not many other choices as far as the kits that are easily available today go. Or at least I haven't found out much other sources...