MrObsessive

No, I never really get into weathering such as rust and whatnot. I have to give it to those that can do that and make it look very realistic-----it's just something I've never really gotten into. I'd rather build them as they either sat brand new, or very recently restored. Kind of a nostalgia thing with me as I used to see these ALL THE TIME as a kid, but they've disappeared years ago. Only place to see 'em now is at a show, or very infrequently going down the road on a nice day.

I don't know if you've bought the kit yet, but early releases of the kit had an incorrectly shaped roof (way too low) and Revell sent out replacement bodies to those that wanted them. However, there may still be kits out there that have never been started (or sealed) out there on the 'Bay or at a show, and IIRC, Revell didn't state on the box that the newer releases had the corrected body. I built a '69 Daytona years ago (based on the Charger) and yes, the rear wheels seem to be not quite centered in the wheelwells as well as they could be. I did a working suspension on mine, and the problem lies on how they located the leaf springs. You'll have to do some slight tweaking here and there to get it to sit right. As can be the usual problem with Revell kits, they can also tend to sit too high when built unless you do something with the ride height before it's all said and done. Once again, you'll have to play around with what works for you in correcting this. Taking your time and being patient will turn out a very nice model as Revell did get the overall shape of the body right (after they corrected the roof).

Well call me weird, but I happen to like the finned '57-'61 Hawks best of all. Probably because as a kid (I mentioned this in another thread) I got to ride in one regularly, and it looked just like the one Greg pictured. Unfortunately, I don't see Round 2 ever doing this car-----I have yet to see them tool up a new anything! The reissues are nice with the great box art, and the restoration of missing parts, but that only will work for so long. Moebius may be the one out of all of 'em that may bring this one out. There's a lot that could come from this one........the hardtop '57-'58 Golden Hawk, the pillared '57-'61 Hawks, even the '62-'64 GT Hawks could be done without a lot of major changes. Speaking of the later GT Hawks, they were not bad cars, but to my eyes the roofline always seemed to overwhelm the rest of the car due to those really broad C-pillars. I get what Stude was trying to do with what they had, but the roof just seemed to "take over" the rest of what was really a nicely updated car. Now if Moebius does tool up a new Hawk, that frees me up from having to restore this! Built in the late '90's and then wrecked by a 22 lb. cat a few years later, this has been on my to-do pile for years. I'll get the ambition to get 'er all rebuilt, and then a kit will come out!

Art, I used the convertible as just an example of a '57 Olds in general. Sure the hardtop would sell much better than the 'vert.......there's just that many more examples of the hardtop that can be made into other variants. Personally, I like the looks of the hardtops just a little better than the convertibles-------I'd take both of 'em though!

As was mentioned earlier, I needed to do something somehow with that low hanging floor. Well, I do believe I have it licked and it's something to keep in mind if I ever do anymore '59 Chevy variants. So here's what happened........... This turned into somewhat of a setback as the chassis still wasn't sitting right in the body after much test fitting. I'm loath to have to keep putting the chassis in and out like this------it's a very tight fit and have to remember each time how it goes in to minimize overflexing the body too much. I want no more drama with this thing till it's all done. Nearly four years is long enough! The problem lies in that Revell molded the chassis sides too tall, and no matter what you do, the chassis sides want to hang below the rocker panels. There's no '59 Chevy I've ever seen that shows that much of the floor hanging below like that. One pic I have of a direct side of the car shows a little hint of the rear part of the chassis floor showing, and this would make sense since there's that dip-down for the rear footwells. Soooooo............I got out the Dremel Moto-Tool, and veerrry carefully shaved down the sides of the chassis. Of course, I had to airbrush the red oxide primer all over again, and carefully so since everything around it was already painted. The clear covering you see is Parafilm.............very handy for covering surfaces around curved areas where tape doesn't always want to play nice and bend. OK.........that's out of the way for now.......I set this aside for awhile to let the primer fully dry without any smudges or smears. While I was at it, I used the airbrush to touch up scratches and such that were on the gas tank and mufflers. One reason you saw the Parafilm on the chassis in earlier shots-----this gets handled so much and it's really great to minimize mishaps. One of the things that almost left my mind is that the interior needs a headliner. Revell sorta molded one in the roof of the car with very faint "seam lines" but I want to add a bit more depth to that area, and made one on my own. The kit gives you side interior lights, but I don't care for those, and I've seen '59's with the single dome light which I wanted to make as you see here. I cut a piece of aluminum tubing to size that I thought would look in scale for the headliner and light. The clear part was cut from a length of clear tubing (I have no idea the diameter, just looked "right" to me). After polishing the end of the tubing with my Dremel before it was cut off, I fit this inside the aluminum collar. Using some .010 plastic sheet with the seams filed in, I cut it to size to fit inside the Chevy's roof. Here it is all painted up with the dome light epoxied into place. The light was painted with an RC color I have called "Fascolor", and the paint is Faspearl White. To me this looks better than just plain bright white which jumps out at you too much. Now the final fit.......looks good! Later on before the chassis is put back in, I'll BMF the sides of the roof rails (inside), and touch up some spots here and there. Ok........moving back to the chassis issue for hopefully the last time, this is looking MUCH better than before with the chassis floor hanging too low. Before pic with the floor hanging too low......... After with it all fixed............. The little flea bites in the paint from handling this so much will be taken care of before I call this all done. Well, that's all for now! Next step is to get the rearview mirror in, get the dash brace put in, get the dash to sit in the cowl correctly, and then get the rear interior panels and rear seat in. Finally, I can put the chassis in for the final time, and be on the downside of getting this one finished. Thanks for tuning in!

I just uploaded pics of the very model that you're doing Colby. You can see where I just used BMF to "chrome" that area instead of paint. I did this after the seat was glued together and painted. I built this many years ago BTW (1997?). Hope this helps! BMF does take some practice, but it's much more realistic looking than paint.

I wouldn't break apart the seat-----I would Bare Metal Foil that area. Looks much better than paint and you won't run the risk of breaking (damaging) the seat if you try to pry it apart.

I wouldn't have gotten that one at all, but it's sooooo "1950's" looking! 1963? Yup, barely out of the '50's and that sort of styling still held sway in other countries as was mentioned.

I have to think of all the BOP tri-five cars that can be done, this has the best chance of all if ever. As was mentioned, there's a race history (Petty's car), the popular two door hardtop, sedans, and if we're good boys and girls, maybe a wagon (probably only a good resin though). Also, I could finally superdetail that Johan four door hardtop I've had forever, and it's in dire need of a resto.

This one I remember well and a favorite of mine-------Summertime 1971........ And here's TJ and The Shondells doing it live............

Like Mike mentioned, I second trying to rub the hood out first before going through stripping it. If you're familiar with the polishing cloths out there (Detail Master comes to mind), you could start with the 6000 grit cloth and work up. Then polish out with a mild liquid polish. A favorite of mine is Meguiar's Car Cleaner Wax. The only caveat I see is that since your paint is a metallic, the finish of the hood might come out a bit swirly due to "disturbing" the flakes embedded in the finish. Also, please don't ever use CA glue on a painted finish! It's much better to use a five minute epoxy on bodywork so in case you mess up, you can take the epoxy off and start over. The paint job otherwise on the body looks VERY nice, and that's a good color for a '67 Camaro. Hope all this helps!

Stan, thanks a bunch for the link! I almost forgot about that website with the X-Frame history as I did have it saved deep in the recesses of my hard disc! Very interesting story about the whole development of it, and it's interesting that certain GM divisions used this while others didn't. Strange! BTW, there's an interesting shot of a '58 Chevy on the rack, and I couldn't help but notice the very sides of the floor pan. It's flat with no "underhang" below the rockers that's prevalent on the '59 kit (and more than likely the '60 also). I also see what looks to be drain holes in those very sides. No doubt as that was a notorious area for rust as water collected there with ease. I believe I have the low hanging floor problem licked as I did (carefully!!) take a Dremel to the sides of the floor pan and shaved it all down. Putting the chassis back in the body, you can barely see the floor hanging below the rockers. I'm going to have to do some heavy duty masking, and airbrush those sides again with the red oxide primer. Interesting that the Revell box art car is painted black with a shadow underneath, but if you look closely, you can see how badly the floor pan is hanging below the body. Hopefully before the week is out, I'll post more pics of how it all looks, and I will say that to my eyes so far, it DOES look better!

Well thank you so much! And welcome aboard! I can tell you that the next WIP won't be anywhere near this intense, but the one after that...............weeeellll, just wait and see!

Hmmm-------I had an idea to grind the rockers down with my Dremel Moto tool, but I'm loath to do that as everything surrounding that is already painted and looking neat. The problem lies with the sides of the floor pan being modeled too tall where it could stand to be a few scale inches shallower than it is. I may just repaint that area red oxide primer (it's been marred from me handling it so much), and leave well enough alone. I tried to make the chassis sit up further in the body, but then I'd have the floor itself sitting too high above the door jamb. Remember that I did quite a bit of cutting away of the original interior tub as that really made things sit too high already for my tastes, and real cars don't use "tubs" anyway for interiors. All the pics of the '59's interior that I have show the floor about flush with the door jamb, save for the step-down for the rear seat footwells. I guess GM was able to do it this way because this particular car had no side rails of the frame to speak of. Just that burly X-Frame running down the middle. I'm wondering if Buick and Olds were designed the same way as they were still using a perimeter frame AFAIK back then? Stay tuned, I may bite the bullet and do this---------have to put my thinking cap on and figure out how to possibly do this and not set this back any further.

I'm getting sound Harry...........

Looks like Moebius will be getting more money out of my wallet! While I'm not a super big fan of this car, I do like what I'm seeing so far! It appears as though the glass will mount once again from the outside. Not a deal breaker for me by any means, and from the way the 1:1 looks I can see why they're doing it this way. There needs to be some real estate to support the roof for the glass namely the windshield---------there's no way that Moebius would mold a cantilevered roof. That would be a disaster for a lot of builders by the time it reached their workbenches!

Ahhh, I see you noticed the extra trim I did for the rear pillars! Yes, I had to add that as a lot of these I've seen built always seem to be missing something. That something is the trim for the rear quarter windows that make it seem like the roofline is disjointed, but that's the way GM did that for their hardtops back then. When all of the windows are rolled up this trim isn't as obvious but it's there. Roll up windows were originally on the menu for this one------it's the reason you see the rear brace for the trunk hinges shaped the way they are. Life got in the way not long after I started to build this and somewhere along the away I let that detail go and just wanted to get it done. I'd still like to try a model where all four windows in a closed car roll up and down in 1/24-25th scale. 1959-'64 GM two door hardtops are a bit unique in how the rear windows roll down...........they have to scoot back a bit then the leading edge of the glass rolls down in the channel. In fact, I believe any car that has its quarter windows that go past the trailing edge of the wheelwells has their windows roll down this way for a hardtop. I had this all drawn up on paper originally, but as I mentioned I'm at the point where just getting it done is close, and I want move on to another project soon.

You can check here. This is his listings of completed auctions. His items usually only run for five days or so, not the usual seven day run. I've bought a couple cars from him ('71 Riviera, '71 Olds 88), and they were quite good albeit there is no plating of the parts and no glass.

Work continues on this one albeit sometimes at a slow pace. I snapped a couple pics with the wheels on one side as sort of a "mock-up" to check the stance. So far it's sitting well, and not too high like a lot of Revellogram models are wont to do. I finally got the glass in as well! One of the biggest hangups which had this project hamstrung for literally months is outta the way! I tried to get the "tint band" that I've seen on '59's, but it didn't look right to me, so I let it go. It might have something to do with the shape of the windshield as it's a super compound curve-------the tint band seems to defeat the purpose of what the windshield was supposed to do........give maximum visibility with as little obstruction as possible. OK, here are a few pics................. Considering the glass was homemade by me via vacuforming, I tried to get the glass to fit in the opening with as little a gap as possible..........another foible that drives me crazy! I thought I'd try my hand at painting the very outside rim of the wheelcovers to match the body color. Not bad so far..............just keeping a steady hand is the hardest thing with this task. Still have yet to put BMF around the windshield frame. I'm going to heavily tape off the glass-----I don't want an unfortunate slip of the blade and all that work be for naught! I want the door particularly on the passenger side to close more just a teeny-weeny bit. I painted the door jambs with just a bit too heavy a coat, and it's made the tolerance just a bit more than I'd like. I'm fighting with the interior now as I'm trying to get the rear side panels, rear seat and rear window shelf to play nice and not make any interference with putting the chassis back in. I can see where the chassis frame is still peeking just a little bit under the rocker panels. Oh well------that's another task I'll have to to better next time as Revell kits are too prone to stacking, which IMO leads to them sitting too high at times. Also, I'm making plans to get the chrome sent out to be replated. Little Motor Kar Company is down the road from me in Reading, PA and I want to contact him to see how much he'll charge to plate some stuff for me. I've sent things to Dale years ago, and I found his plating to be most excellent. Turnaround time was short, and his prices were certainly reasonable. Hopefully, I can get this done in time for NNL East which is in April. Updates will be very few, in fact, I probably won't be posting again until it's all done and "Under Glass". Thanks for tuning in.........it's been a loooooong road, but I finally can call this one done soon!

Seeing that it's a '65, it's in 1/8 scale. What I want to know is where did you get the wheels and the redline tires?? I want those! ?

Manuel, you know that I'm kind of a Stude nut as well, and it's funny you made this post because as of yesterday, I got in the mail via eBay the latest Round 2 issue of the Avanti! Your build is super-duper fantastic!! I LOVE that color, and yes, it is one of Stude's best colors! Believe it or not, I once lived above what used to be a Studebaker dealership from 1995-2004. In fact, when I moved in '04, there was still sitting a Stude Hawk GT ('62-'63?) behind the garage door just collecting dust. My landlord never did anything with the car, and for all I know may still be sitting there collecting more dust. I got to ride in one of these on a regular basis when I was a little kid circa 1965-66. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I do remember those fins and that wraparound rear window, especially sitting in the back seat. Years later I would find out from my Dad that he went to his wedding to marry my Mom in one of these (in 1959), and that it was owned by his friend and Best Man. Mom and Dad were divorced by this point, but Dad's friend who owned the Hawk must have still been friends with my Mom as I can certainly remember riding in the car from time to time. Looking at the pic, the car has the eggcrate grille inserts on the sides, which would make it a '58 (one of the very few changes between '57 and '58 on Golden Hawks), but it has the '57 wheelcovers. Not doubting the authenticity of the car at all, just some interesting things on it considering what it is. MOEBIUS!! Here's one that I hope is soon to be on your computer files to produce down the road!

I would buy either of those in a heartbeat, but I'm partial to the '61. It would be nice if they also seriously considered a '57 Olds. Lots of race history with that one, and a number of versions could be run!

Speaking of accents, I was down south once and someone knew right away I was from PA! They even had it zeroed in to the part of the state I'm from (South-Central)! They said that I have an "accent" that they picked up on-----I said "Really?? YOU have the accent!" Interesting enough, that wasn't the first time I had heard that. Years ago when I was a cab driver, I picked up a girl from Great Britain, and she also mentioned about being able to pick out a Pennsylvania accent. I guess when you live hear long enough----everyone else has the accent 'cept you!

I was last there in 2007-----It is THE premiere model event in the country! It should go without saying that the competition is FIERCE, and you'll have some of the best builders in the world that go there. Mark Gustavson along with the others are tough but fair judges, and you'll have a great time whenever you go! There's another GSL coming up next year in May-----I plan on going, in fact, I'm making plans currently to what I'll be bringing and what project I'd like to have going and/or finished by then. Barring any SNAFUS, hope to see you there!

It being sealed notwithstanding, this is a very beautiful model! I can remember seeing (and riding) in these as a little kid, but I wasn't quite sure what they were. My only nit with this one is that the windshield pillars should be fully chromed and not painted body color as shown. It would be terrific if BOS would offer these types of models in 1/24-25. Otherwise, absolutely flawless!