MrObsessive

Here ya go Rob......;)

Modelhaus does make a '58 2 door hardtop Lincoln. If you click here it's the ordering info. No pic do they have of the kit though. Edit: OK I did some digging and here's a pic of what they have. Not the best pic as it's behind a case, and the sign is covering part of it. Hope this helps!

I was wondering the same thing. IMO, the sportsroof looks soooo much better than the formal one. It would save me some work from having to swap roofs (again).

While I do like the new Miata, I REALLY like this one a lot better! To me the Miata is a touch too "feminine" looking, while this one is a bit more masculine appearing with sharper/straighter lines. That's a really sharp color too.........all the pics I've seen so far have been black ones. This one should also be MUCH more reliable than the old 124 Spider. I once owned a '78 back in the early '90's and yup------it broke a timing belt with no warning practically destroying the engine.

I want to thank everyone for all the nice words and condolences. Indeed, my cats are like family as I've never had kids so when one of them passes away, it cuts deep. Later on, I may get another kitten-------only to have one much closer in age to my younger cat who's just seven months old. My Manx (Yori) is six years old, and she's not gotten along quite well with the younger one as she was once the Alpha cat. Strip now wants to take over, and as you can guess, there's a lot of hissing and spitting going on. A kitten much closer to his age may alleviate all of that as he'll have more of a playmate. Still, there's the cost I have to think about for vet bills, food, etc. They may in fact be the last ones I'll have. If they live to be 15+ years old (the kittens), by that time I'll be in my 70's and I'm not sure I want to deal with any more pets after that. I say that now, and of course, they always tug at your heart strings, but I'm looking more at the aspect of who's going to take care of them when I'm no longer here as they may in fact outlive me.

This has not been an easy last couple days for me, My oldest cat Captain died a couple days ago. He had been sick for some time-----the Vet had told me a year ago that he was suffering from kidney failure. Those of you who've had cats and dogs know the difficulties they can have when they're suffering with this. The last number of days, he stopped eating and he stopped drinking water..........I knew then that it was not long for him. When I came home from work Friday afternoon, he had passed away. My other two cats, I wanted them to see that he was gone, so I let them around him for a little while. A pet groomer some time ago recommended this as she said that would minimize my other two cats from howling wondering what happened to him if I were to have just taken him to get put down. Nevertheless, it hurts. He was not quite 14 (He was born on March 14, 2002), and I had him since he was seven weeks old. He was also the only cat that I had with me for the longest time in any one place. I've been in my house for nine years now, and he was here when I moved in. This time of the year is a rough one just the same. It was this time six years ago that I had another cat put down (KitKat), and it's interesting that they both are gone right at the same time of year. KitKat was put down the day after Thanksgiving in '09 (November 27th). Here are a couple pictures of Captain in better days....................... It's tough for me to even type all of this at the moment.............thanks folks for taking a look. He was such a good cat.

I'll be watching! I have the same conversion kit, but haven't had the ambition to tackle it yet.

And here it is! These are the best I could do considering where the model was located and that I couldn't pick it up.

Scott, you're correct in how time flies! We think of terms in of the '50's and '60's because those were the first cars we (I) saw when I knew what a car was. Fast forward a bunch of years, and times along with technology changes. My first car was a '69 Dodge Dart, and it was about as basic mechanically as you could get back in those days. I'm at the point now that I don't even bother working on these new cars. If something's wrong with my Challenger (it was recalled recently for an alternator issue), to the dealer it goes!

I don't know how good a modeler you are, but it would be really easy to convert AMT's tried and true '66 hardtop and turn that into a convertible. It already has the convertible interior. It's just a matter of carefully cutting off the top, and then making a boot for the top well. If you want to get adventurous, you can take the cut-off roof, and fashion an up-top from that. Just a suggestion............

Nothing there really lights my fire 'cept for the Camaro since it will have the hidden headlights. Makes it a bit easier to do this car............... 1967 Camaro "Cherokee". One of the nicer Camaro one-offs done back then!

Welcome Alessandro! Great choice for building! That's a neat little kit as I have the street version------I haven't built it yet though. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Hmmm.........I didn't know Humbrol made such a thing! I'll have to check that out. I'll check around for that also Mike. I'm going to try a couple other plastics for the windows. Right now what I have is OK-----but if I can mold them to be just a bit clearer, that's all the better. Still, what I've molded is a LOT better optically than what was in the kit.

Very sharp and clean Jim! Your BMF work is terrific!

No, never did finish that one. After a coupla three warped hoods including the one I had made, I put that one away for awhile. Something I learned with resin despite the fact that it's pretty much etch proof from hot paints-------you have to paint both sides. I painted only the one side, and I believe this is what caused the hood to "curl" due to the hot solvents in the paint. They were quite thin as they were cast, which would make sense in that they were repops of the original. I've since found an original hood off the 'Bay, and maybe down the road I'll get back to that one. Yeah, I used the chassis out of the AMT '66 kit which makes a world of difference detail wise.

As promised, I took a few pics of the latest molding of the glass from the vacuformer. A lot nicer this time around, albeit the glass is a bit mucked up from my fingerprints! The glass is just set in at the moment. It's being held in place by little channels I made in the roof itself so when it comes to final install, the glass should just "pop" in and held permanently of course with 5 min. epoxy. I definitely want the glass to fit in those corners..........can't stand HUGE gaps in glass! Here we are.................. One technique I'd like to try and I've got junk pieces I could try this on------tint the glass on the inside using Future Floor Wax and some blue/green food coloring. This would give a nice subtle tint that was fairly common on cars out of the '50's. That's it for now!

Phil, I've not noticed a problem with shedding for the embossing powders. I just finished the '67 Mustang, and I haven't seen any residue on the glass at all. Hope this helps, and sorry for the very late reply! I've not looked at this thread till now when I needed to post an update!

Since I'm done with the '67 Mustang, I REALLY wanted to get back to work on this Impala! As I mentioned in previous pages of this thread, one of the biggest hangups I've had with this kit is the terribly distorted glass in this kit. Since I swapped roofs, the '60 kit's glass was as bad if not worse than the '59's. Well, I'm glad to say that I cleared a MAJOR hurdle in the last few days, and got the Micromark Vacuformer to work as intended. There is a learning curve to get parts to come out right, but it's worth the time and effort if the desire is there to get something done that to me was a MAJOR distraction for what is otherwise a nice kit. Here's a few pics of what I've come up with so far. One of the first things I did was to try and get the outside of the glass as smooth as possible. I started with the windshield since my curiosity was getting the better of me, and had to see if this machine could work as well as I hoped it would. I "boxed in" the windshield with styrene and filled the cavity in with Plaster of Paris. This would ensure that the there's a minimum if "flexing" of the glass from the force of the vacuform coming down. I mixed the plaster, poured it in, and let it sit overnight and it was hard as a rock the following morning. I did the same for the rear window. And here's the result........................ And here's how it fits............. This is just a test piece and I did vacuform another one just last evening as well as the rear window. I took some pics of those and will post them later on. I just wanted to give you folks an idea of how nice this vacuformer can work. I can tell you it took several tries to get things to come out right, until it looked right to me. BTW, I used .020 sheets of PETG (they can be found on eBay) and cut them to size to fit it in the vacuformer. Thanks for lookin' folks------any questions just ask, and stay tuned for more info later.

Not a real big fan of this year Hudson, but I certainly DO like this one! :wub: LOVE the color......very nice and clean! It suits this car very well!

Scott, any word on which kit it is?? I'm hoping it's the Italeri one and not that junky ESCI kit.

The one time I tried it I may have put to heavy a coat on...........I'd have to practice with it like anything else. Could have been a bad batch, but I did try to airbrush it. It just didn't look right to me.

Thanks Harry! As far as the bumpers, I may disconnect them down the road (the front one at least) to get chromed with the bumpers for the '59 Chevy I'm working on now (got an update coming as far as the glass over the weekend). The chrome on those has been worn away from being tossed about in the box all these years, as well as my handling them to suit the body. As far as Aclad or Spaztix, that would work as far as it goes, but I've always had bad results from Spaztix. Can't get that stuff to cooperate for me to save my life! Alclad might be a better alternative, but unless somethings changed with it-------it's not as durable as it once was. Of course, once it's on, I wouldn't be handling it like crazy either. Sending the bumpers out to be chromed would be good practice for me, as I need to learn how to make a mounting rack, and put would I need on it. I'm not that far away from Little Motor Kar Company (they're in Reading), and that's most likely where I'd send them as I've had good service with Dale before.

Oh no..........the 1:1's roofline is terrific looking! It's Revell that didn't model it correctly, especially the rear part of the roof which is too flat. It doesn't have those subtle curves at the upper corners which give it its "signature".

Harry, I'd have to go back a couple model years to 1965. That's when the big three completely changed everything, and completely broke away from the '50's which there was still a hint of it in their styling of '64. Especially the full size models where all of them changed all at once. I can't think of any other model year in which this was done------or at least 1965 was the first. Styling is subjective of course, and while those '67 models you mentioned were very handsome cars, I particularly didn't care for the Pontiac full size models as they seemed heavy handed to me, compared to the '66's. And yes, I like the '67 Belvederes too! I'd like to build one someday, but there's that wonky roof shape to deal with!

Why thanks Frank! One of the things that bugged me about this kit was the way it sat. It was difficult to my finger on why the rear sat the way it did, till one day it hit me---------the interior sail panels are the culprit. AMT engineered the roof sail panels maybe a scale inch or so too low. What I did was extend the sail panels upward and painted it red. It's not noticeable just looking at the car, but if you were to peek inside, you can see where I made my sail panel extensions. AMT's '67 Shelby suffers also from this same malady. By making the sail panels a bit taller, the body has a "stopping point" on those panels, thus raising up the rear end. The front end I tweaked ever so slightly so that it didn't appear to sit too high. I elongated the mounting holes for the spindles just a hair, so that the wheels were a bit further up into the fenders when mounted. Otherwise, the front end sits too high, lending more of a tail-dragging look. There are so many other details that AMT missed when they modeled this car. I just couldn't let it pass me by as this is too important a Mustang (to me) to just build it out of the box. This build has helped me in that if and when I ever get around to building the '67 Shelby, I'll know what to do ahead of time to make things go smoother. One of the things I see with that kit is the front end will need some work..............particularly the nose. Something about it is not quite right to me............ Thanks so much for the compliments!