W-409

Here's a minor update on the Impala. Those lower body panels (Whatever they're in English.... Valance Panels?) were glued on place to both front and rear. It wasn't a major surprise that the fitment wasn't very good so something had to be done to make them fit better before painting. Those panels were a bit too wide to fit perfectly to the body, so first I roughly removed most of the excess material with a hobby knife. Then I sanded them a bit smoother and so that they match the body shapes a bit better. This operation was done on both ends. Here is the rear body panel before doing anything... Smoothing it out and correcting the fitment... Then I applied some putty to smooth out the glue joints and that rear window lower trim I did earlier. In this picture you can also see my new decal sheet that just arrived. I bought it for the cauge decals as the ones from my kit's original decal sheet got destroyed when I removed paint from that dash a few days ago.

That's another beauty from your collection! It's great to see these old survivors in this good shape, it looks like it was built yesterday! I just wish my builds will survive as well as this one. Nice work.

I got 77%. It's surprisingly well as I'm not that familiar with those '30s cars. Fords and Chevys were easy to get right but with other makes I had some problems... I'm doing much better on GM Cars From '60s and Engine ID Quizes.

Great job on that T-Bolt! I like the paint and decals and those little details really finish it off. Nice work on a great kit, I can't wait to finish mine one of these days!

Great to see an update on this project! Fantastic work with the engine, your weathering looks just right, but the detailing is simply outstanding. If there is a model that looks very much like it was 1:1 scale, it has to be this one.

This is definitely a must have kit, I can see a '49 Ford Gasser in my future! Those slicks with a couple of grooves in them are worth buying even without the kit, but that box art model looks so good that I want to build something similar myself.

This is an interesting thread! I live here in Finland and I definitely speak American even though sometimes I'm mixing things up with a British word. But, since I've mostly learnt this vocabulary in the internet or books and during my whole life we've had US cars in our family, most of the words I've learnt are US. Actually many of those British words are something I've never heard before.

Thanks Mitch! This has been a fun project, and I'm really happy to see it's coming finally closer to finish. Today I clear coated the body and luckily it looks good so far. Hopefully it's still good when it's dry, even though I'm not sure if there is enough clear for polishing or do I have to spray another coat on top of it. We'll see about that when it's dry... I also painted the class markings on side windows. I had no decals for them so I painted them by free hand and a tiny brush. I'm pretty happy with them even though they're not perfect. But to be honest, they do look better in person than in this closeup picture.

One thing I never liked on this Lindberg body is that the lower rear window chrome trim is missing. Well, rest of the chrome trims are not perfect either, but this would have been impossible to foil smoothly as there was no chrome trim molded at all. So the only choice was to add that chrome trim in there. Luckily I had some styrene rod in proper size that I just glued in there. Now I'll let the glue dry a bit and then smooth it out with some putty. Now I should have no problems foiling this one.

Thanks Rodney! I appreciate the kind words (Even though I'm a bit late with the thanks)! Well finally I was able to shoot another clear coat on the '55! At least so far it looks really good, but now all I can is hope it looks good when it's completely dry. Now I'll let it dry properly before polishing, but while the body dries, I can work on the interior, chassis and engine.

Don't want to highjack this thread, but has anyone had any experience with those Dragster front wire wheels from the same shop? https://www.shapeways.com/product/HKU3JEFEM/drag-front-wire-19-inch-1-25?optionId=61643929 If they're good, they would definitely be worth that price. But painting them would definitely be a real pain as the tires and wheels are molded together. Anyway I'd order a few sets of them immediately if they're good quality and the spokes are not too thick.

This looks like an interesting project! Here's an easy way to post pics: First create an account on some image hosting site, like Photobucket. I'm using it and it seems to work fine, and it's free. Upload your pics in there and once they are uploaded, click on the pictures for a larger view. Then on the right button of your mouse choose "Copy Image Location", and just simply paste that link on that "Image" thing when you're posting an update on this forum. Hope this helps.

Bummer, looks like I forgot I had posted these pics in here. Vinay: Yep, we were in NHRA Finals in 2015. It was a great trip, for me it was the first time when I got to see an NHRA event, something that I had always been dreaming of. I was there with our Drag Race Team (which means my dad) and he was really excited too, the last time he had been in NHRA event was in 1990. Thanks guys, here are some more pics... After the day at Fontana Drags, we headed to Burbank to a Cruise Night at Bob's Big Boy. Lots of cool cars were there and I shot a bunch of pics, but as it was a bit dark all of them are not exactly sharp. Here's a link to the picture gallery: Bob's Big Boy Broiler Cruise Night.

Next thing was to spray a couple of more light coats of that blue on the body. When the paint was wet I still wasn't completely sure if it's going to look good enough or if it still needs a couple of more coats of paint. Luckily when the paint dried, it looked pretty good so I could move on... So next up, decals! I didn't want to build any specific race car, rather something that could have been running back in the day. So I found a few decals from my parts boxes that looked decent on the T-Bolt. Those "Fagan's Speed Shop" decals on doors were very tricky to install as they broke up into several pieces when I tried to install them. I had to fix them a little with paint, but luckily I found a Revell Enamel that was almost a perfect match. Unfortunately there's only one picture of this body with decals on as my pics from co-driver's side were all out of focus...

When surfing in the internet I found a picture of Dyno Don sitting on the driver's seat of this Impala. It's the only picture where the interior can be seen a little, and looks like I guessed the seat colors correctly! That's some good news, as I originally just guessed that "they might have been this way"... This also shows the dash and steering wheel colors, so now I don't have to guess that either when I get the dash from paint stripping. The real car had Chrome Reverses on front and regular silver Steel Wheels on rear. So I painted the front wheels with "Chrome Silver" and rears with regular silver spray paint. The front wheels could be just a bit brighter, but that's the best I could do for now. Next up is some detail painting and minor black washing to make the wheels look good. Most of the chassis components were painted so I decided to install front and rear suspensions on place. The fitment was really good on both and gluing them on correctly was easy. I added a short piece of brake line to the rear end too. The rest will be done later, but this had to be done before installing the axle on place. It's made out of thin copper wire, the fitting that connects that rubber part of brake line between the chassis floor and rear axle and that regular brake line together was scratchbuilt from styrene rod.

Really nice work on this project, the body looks excellent after all of that hard work and your interior will be a beauty when finished, too. Hopefully you'll be able to find a proper set of wheels on it so we can see the finished product. Making that rear window from clear plastic packaging is a great idea. I've tried to heat up sheet acetate a couple of times but never succeeded in it. I think I'll have to try this one next.

Dang those are so rare nowadays! I have that AMT Boss Nova and that body will require some work to be modified stock... Plus that it's a '65, I'd like to convert it into '62... Well let's see what happens, yours is a great inspiration!

They all look very good! I like the headers you built for that '66! But is that '63 Wagon a resin body or original kit piece? It looks very good too.

Yep, Sylvia Hauser bought it from the States and ran with it in England before she sold it to Sweden to Joakim Mårtensson. It's an older picture, but I'd guess the car is still running strong even though I haven't seen in in a couple of years.

As an owner of a '62 Chevy II, it's always nice to see a 1st Gen Nova being built. Looks like you've done some excellent work correcting the errors in this kit. I'm sure it'll be looking great once it's done!

Wow that one is a must have! I see a Volvo with a Small Block Chevy in the future... Does it look like it's going to have somekind of fender flares or what? Hopefully not, removing them would be no fun. Edit: Something like this:

I have a soft spot for these GM H-Bodies so it's great to see a couple of them built. Both of them look really good, but those headers on your Vega catch my eyes...Did you scratchbuild them or are they from a kit?

You can never have too many Stock or Super Stock cars on your shelf! Excellent job on this one, flawless work with those decals, I always seem to have some trouble with larger decals but yours turned out perfect. Little details like tachometer cable and valves on the wheels are a nice touch too.

That looks fantastic, you don't see too many Mavericks being built! Nice work on the paint and decals, and where did you get those Weld DragStar wheels?

This is a good thread on a bit similar subject: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/69554-box-top-blunders-omissions-false-advertisements/#comment-859988 This is my favorite, it's Revell '64 Impala Lowrider: