MrObsessive

I gotta put my flame suit on so here goes........ 1) Round 2 would fix the horrendously inaccurate '58 Plymouth Belvedere. 2) All of Johan's released tooling out of the '60's would turn up in pristine shape somewhere. 3) More releases of modern day "everyday" cars would turn up on hobby shelves----you take your pick of what those are. I could probably list a few more, but those three came to mind. Yeah, I can't argue with that Tom! Not enough hours in the day, and as time marches on.........not as many years to finish 'em all!

It's a little late now, but when it comes to trim like this I'd rather strip the chrome off the trim, put it on the body beforehand with liquid cement, than paint the whole works and BMF the trim later on. I did this to my '59 Impala build as plated chrome always seemed to "bright" to me for body trim as opposed to bumpers. What the others suggested though are good ideas as you don't want use CA or regular glue for that. Very small amounts of 5 min. epoxy would do fine working in sections. HTH!

Absolutely Beautiful!!!

Doug, that looks FANTASTIC! I have one of these in many pieces, but heaven knows when I'd ever get around to getting it together. Then there's the space factor! Cute kitty BTW------he looks like a nosy one just like mine! The case you built is gorgeous..............that's too nice to let sit out and get attacked by dust.

I LOVE it!! Really hoping Moebius or someone kits up some new tool Hawks someday!

T.M. Resins lists one of those pretty regularly on eBay. In fact there's one here now. I'm not sure if it's a repop of Art's model or such but each time he lists new items, this is among them.

Wow! I've never heard that one before Chris........very good on her part! Here's a gem from the early '60's.......She's featured here in a '61 Olds promo. I'm not sure if it was a commercial that ran back then, or if it was part of a TV show that she may have been on. Seems kinda long for a commercial, but it was the early '60's!

I've seen late '50's Cadillacs ('57-'58 Eldorado Sevilles come to mind) with vinyl roofs and they looked quite nice with 'em. Today's cars with their seamless lines and such, vinyl roofs would just look out of place and a bit overdone. Having said that, one of my favorite cars out of the '70's happens to be the Buick/Olds '76-'77 Colonnade hardtop cars (Regal, Century, Cutlass) with their half vinyl "landau tops". I thought those were VERY sharp looking!

I cringe though when I see a newer car (2000's and up) with a vinyl roof! Obviously the car didn't come that way as I haven't seen that option for years. It's a "day two" add on that more than likely is driven by an older person (not making fun, just an observance), and they may think that "dresses up" the car when it just looks like a major afterthought to me.

Harry, it's hard to put into words on my own what you've been going through. I have to say though that you're VERY FORTUNATE that you have family to rely on! In my case when I was going through and what I'm still dealing with a little as far as my vision, I mostly had to rely on strangers (not total strangers but neighbors) to get the things I needed right after my surgery when I could barely see and certainly couldn't drive. My stepmom was there to help a little, but I'm not close to my family for many reasons, and they live here in town. As others have said, take one day at a time...........true things won't be the same but I'm of the belief that all things happen for a reason, and it's not always bad. It's good though that you're able to still communicate with us at to what's going on. Things could have been worse, but thank God that you're still with us!

Carl, that's an interesting idea about the sunglasses..........one day at work a few weeks ago, I had an episode where I could feel eye pain coming on. I happen to have a set of those "temporary" shades that the eye doctor gives you when you go to get your pupils dilated, and I sure as heck put those on! Someone had mentioned if my eyes were bothering me, and I said yes as the lighting is taking its toll today. We have those fluorescent bulbs everywhere hanging up and that day they were getting on my nerves. I have a fluorescent lamp at my work table here at home (along with an incandescent one), but at least I can turn those down if need be! OK! I have a bit of an update on what's been going on with the model............as I mentioned before, I'm going to leave some of the working features I had planned out of the mix, and focus more on getting the bodywork as close to the 1:1 as possible so this doesn't drag on for years instead of months. As you can see here, I got the trunk lid cut out and as you'll see in later pics, the '66 taillight panel will be cut out later on, replaced by a cross brace. I need to graft the '68 Shelby end caps on to the rear fenders, and then graft the spoiler on to the deck lid. I was putting it off for a while trying to get the windows to work, but I went ahead and built up the driver's door and got that hinged. I've got the shut lines around the perimeter of the door pretty much where I want them allowing for paint. Later on, I'll tackle making the vent window structure out of brass like I did for the passenger side. Here's the built up door jamb for the door. I've since moved the trailing portion of the jamb back a bit as I originally glued it in a bit short compared to the other side. As you saw previously with the passenger door, I got the hinges working and in place for the driver's side. So far there's no binding/scraping of the door when it's opening/closing. OK, moving back to the trunk lid, I want to now graft in the spoiler. I taped in the rear deck on to the body, and with a pencil roughly drew in a line where I want to score the Exacto blade. I want the spoiler to line up pretty much with the ends caps so that the radii on both ends will match up. Using a lot of liquid glue and some scrap plastic, I got the spoiler put on and now test fitting it on the body to see how things line up. So far so good............. I went ahead and cut out the '66 rear panel and put in this cross brace which will help with mounting of the Shelby taillight panel (resin), and add to the trunk detail when the lid is raised. Some sanding and filing is in order to line things up that much better, and then it's on to making the underside trunk structure, and soldering hinges for it. Now I'll focus on cleaning up the back end/rear deck up more, getting it hinged along with the inner trunk structure, and then it's on to the front end. The grille opening is not quite right for a '68, and the front bumper hangs down too low due to the incorrect grille shell. I'll see about fixing that, and then it's just some small details to get together before I move on to building the engine. Thanks for tuning in fellas!

You can check it out here folks.

David, you might want to check here for a '57 four door hardtop. I don't know if he's still making them------you'd have to give him a call to see. Steve's a nice guy and gives great service. He has a '56 listed, but it's a four door sedan and not a hardtop. Hope this helps!

Absolutely beautiful Jurgen! Yeah, these are as scarce as hen's teeth to get! I built one years ago (Sterling Moss's '61 car in '98) and I've since got another one I'd like to build as a regular street car someday. Those wheels make the car-------I don't have the skill to make my own wires, so I ended up using PE ones to make my life easier!

Bob, I go back to the eye doctor again next month on the 9th. Last time I went to see him (a few weeks ago) I mentioned about the eye pain I had from time to time. He said it was due to some sort of inflammation, but he wasn't sure of the cause. I can tell you that one of the things that can trigger it (particularly light sensitivity) is excess sugar in a short period of time. Case in point: A few Saturdays ago on one of my cheat days, I decided to "indulge" with the following------ a couple glazed donuts (glazed sour cream and a glazed chocolate one), a pint of Haggen Dazs (sp) chocolate ice cream, and a small bag of BBQ chips. I ate all of this in a period of about four hours. Later in the day when I was trying to work on something, I could feel the pain start in not one but both eyes but more severely in the one that was operated on. I was able to look in the mirror and see that my pupil wasn't dilated, yet my eyes were quite bloodshot. The light sensitivity while not super severe, was bad enough that I needed to be in a dark room for the remainder of the day. The only thing I could zero in on to the cause of this was the large amount of sugar I had, and it must have sent my blood sugar through the roof which translated into the bad light sensitivity/eye pain. Since then, I've dialed way back on those "indulgences" and the severe pain hasn't come back, but whenever I need to look at something for an extended period of time up close, I get difficulties. I was told by someone at work that they had the same thing done and that it took them longer than a year for their sight to get back to normal------even after that they have troubles at times. At least the good thing is that I haven't had the encroaching blindness get worse in the right eye...........that I'd definitely notice! Just the same, I did manage to get the driver's door hinged and got the Shelby rear end caps grafted on. I got the trunk cut out, and now it's a matter of grafting on the Shelby spoiler on the deck lid, make the inner trunk stamping, and get hinges for that made. As I mentioned before, I'm going to leave other working features I planned off of this one.......Otherwise, I'd still be working on this for the next few years! Since I'm off work till Monday, I'll try to compose a halfway reasonable update later on, and have pics up. Progress will be slow, but at least there's progress!

I'm tuned in to this one! I've have the old '70's issue for many years now (molded in red), and for whatever reason I've never touched it. May have to do with how much space it takes up, and the fact that it's 1/8 scale, it screams for tons of detail! Like you mentioned, it needs just that------------lots of detail to make it come alive, and I like the fact that those decals are so nice. Too bad those aren't sold separately!

Tim, I have to give credit for that tip to Ted "Chopper" Lear. Years ago (I believe it might have been the Toledo NNL in the early '00's) he mentioned that as one of the techniques he used when he did his bodywork. Anyone that knows Chopper and the kind of bodywork he does, knows that he's one of the best! I showed this technique on a thread I did on basic model building years ago ('49 Mercury) that works well also for those pesky mold/parting lines, and how to keep them from reappearing after you've sanded them away. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's the vinyl roof itself on the El Camino, or the way it's shaped. I never liked that "kickup" at the trailing edge of the roofline, and unfortunately GM adopted this styling annoyance for a lot of their cars' vinyl roofs in the late '70's into the '80's. Thankfully, vinyl tops have faded into obscurity and would look woefully out of place on cars today with their styling.

You ain't kiddin'! I learned that first hand with the one I did! Frankly, in this case "more is not always better". The kit could have done well with half the detail, and probably would not have been so fiddly to build.

Charlie, I'd try 220 grit sandpaper (it might take awhile), then 400 grit, and then work my way up to 600. After everything's sanded, I'd go over the whole works with some liquid glue (or MEK) to bring the detail back to the surface. After everything's all nice and dry, sand everything down again as you're now erasing the memory of the plastic, and there won't be any surprises when it comes time to paint. It's time intensive, but it's the only way I know of to get rid of the vinyl roof, and get the nice seamless look of smooth "metal" in your bodywork. BTW, this technique works also for getting rid of pesky trim that always wants to reappear after you've sanded it away, and paint the surface.

This is getting frustrating to have to wait 30 seconds for the page just to load! There's been times today where I've just given up and moved on to other sites it's been so slow!

Great review Tim! I have the original release of the '68 which I've never touched, but I'll probably get this one too as I LOVE that box art! I wasn't fazed by the sink marks in the original as I would've built mine without the vinyl roof. I dunno---------IMO there's something heretical about a truck with a vinyl top! Elky's to me always looked better without it. Nevertheless, I really like the extra goodies that come with the re-release. Those pad printed tired are an extra plus for me.

I haven't abandoned this one folks, just some annoying difficulties in getting the windows to cooperate, and it's got me raising the white flag on that detail. Since I've had my eye surgery, one side effect is that I can't focus on one particular thing for an extended period of time like I could in the past. That's even with the magnifier I use-----I guess I'll have to live with the fact that long periods of building will be a thing of the past. The eyes tire quickly followed by a slight pain in the one that was operated on. So that I don't get bogged down with trying to get that done, I'm focusing more on getting the rest of the bodywork done such as getting the other door hinged and working. Hopefully tomorrow, I can update the post with more pics (if the hinge gives me no trouble), and I can get that much further along with this one. Stay tuned!

Now that is NICE! I too like the contrast of the black roof and spoiler..........I can see that working with other colors too!

I'm definitely tuned in! You're right----the Italeri version of this car seldom if ever shows up on the 'Bay as I wanted another one a while back, and I ended up getting one off of Yahoo Japan's auction. What kills me though is that the Esci one does turn up IMO rather frequently, and some try to pass it off as an Italeri. Some get sucked in by that but those in the know can see the differences between the two. The Esci one you're doing isn't super terrible, but it does have some "off" points about the body which aren't too bad to deal with. Keep up the great work........as you said, it can be a bit fiddly to deal with, but with time and patience can be built into a very nice replica.

Just how I like 'em! Nice, clean and bone stock! Excellent BMF too as that trim can be a pain.