MrObsessive

Future Floor Wax is not a "wax" in the strictest sense. It's actually an acrylic clear coating that's used to shine up floors. It's now called "Pledge with Future Shine", and can be found at most grocery stores or at a Wal-Mart for instance. I airbrush mine on, and I keep the pressure about 12 PSI because it can be rather runny. To get the complete rundown on Future, click here as this site gives some really neat tips on Future Floor Wax. As far as simply spraying Tamiya primer.........that's OK as far as it goes, but there are still solvents in their primer that may bring the red pigments to the fore-----especially if you want your T-Bird to be in lighter colors such as my Thunderbird Blue. One other alternative for using as a barrier coat is something called BIN Zinsser, which is excellent as a barrier for the newer softer plastics they're using these days. Hope this all helps!

I dislike the connie kits on the '56's as well, so I turned mine into a '55. I built this one back in '99. One suggestion-----I strongly recommend some kind of barrier on the plastic unless your intention is to paint it red. That red plastic is NASTY and is notorious for bleeding through. I used Future Floor Wax to barrier the plastic before I laid one coat of paint on it. No bleed through whatsoever! One faux pas was the color of the dash.....should be a darker green/turquoise, but I was using pics from an actual car at the time and that's the color its dash was.

I'd be curious to see that as well...........makes sense that Cadillac would have headed up something like that as it was seen as somewhat "exotic" technology back then. It may have have been that the setup was seen as more of a high performance sort of thing, and that's not what Caddy was about back in those days. Not that they were bad performers for the size that they were-------just that Cadillac didn't see the need to put that sort of thing into production IMO. IIRC, Cadillac was the one of the first American makes to reintroduce FI back into production cars in the '70's. Didn't the then new for 1976 Cadillac Seville have FI as standard equipment?

I don't think Cadillac fitted either the '57's or '58's with an FI setup. What you might have seen was a setup from another car. With the price as high as it was back then it would have been fitting, but GM was having trouble from the get-go with FI equipped cars including the 'Vettes. I had one started long ago, but I don't know what happened to it. It's in the attic somewhere (maybe) and in a million pieces. If I run across it, I'll post it here. I do remember doing quite of bit of reshaping to get the proportions right, and I hinged the doors with the center "lock" holding the doors shut.

I have this model and tried to "accurize" it many years ago when my skills weren't what they are now. I also have Franklin Mints diecast, but the door hinges on that one are so out of scale, it borders on being a caricature of what it's supposed to represent. I have a notion to kitbash both of them............use a corrected Revell body, and use the rest of the Franklin Mint diecast to make a decent replica. I'd love to do a very rare color offered then (1958 I believe), "Maharani Maroon". Yeah, as Art mentioned, they shared nothing with the standard Caddies of 1957-58------and at $13,000 brand new they well shouldn't have! Here's a pic I ran across of a '57...........

Thanks for the compliment Christopher! Yes, I was first at the Toledo NNL in October 2001, and that's when the '58 Chevy with the 3x2 BBL 348 was first shown. Time sure flies! I was about 90 lbs heavier then and of course the eyesight was a bit better. I need a jeweler's eyeloop to do the closeup work these days.........never thought I'd need them!

I like to use Evergreen .020 sheet plastic for body/door jambs. It's just thin enough to work with and be in scale.

The latest years I can think of that would have a separate frame, would be AMT's 1966 Olds 442 kit. This would be a basic body on frame mid size chassis that GM would use through the '70's. When you get into the '80's you're about out of luck as most were starting to switch to unibody construction at that point. There may be some others---------someone else may know more than I about other kits.

Yup! That's the one! I don't know of one in resin, but the originals are worth getting if you want one bad enough. If that's the one that's on eBay, yeah...........it'll probably fetch more than $60.

The Bonneville sits on a longer wheelbase, and the rear quarters/trunk are longer. The car you first pictured definitely has the longer quarters and trunk so it's a Bonneville. MPC kitted the Bonneville.............I don't ever remember seeing a kit of the Catalina though.

Thanks for the nice words George! Makes the end of a somewhat hectic week that much better!

That's a '68. The quarter panel has the side marker lights, which were mandated to be standard starting with the 1968 model year. There was a kit of it, but be prepared to pay big bucks for an original. It was a 1 year deal or an "annual" kit made by MPC. Decent buildups can be found on the 'Bay for a much more reasonable price.

I've got a resin repop of that car. Not real crazy about it as the quality is a bit dubious. May get rid of it on eBay.

Joe those webers were handmade, and they are 1/25......actually "1/24" as the kit is that scale. The car that they're in is a 1955 Jaguar D-Type that I converted from Revell of Germany's Jaguar XK-SS. Thanks for the compliment!

Nice job Rich! A '57 Chevy looks much more "complete" with the fender skirts!

Rustoleum makes a decent one as well.........it's what I've used in the past.

I have just one suggestion when you do your cuts.............cut along the windshield header first and not along the C pillars. This will minimize damage to the A pillars as you want those to remain as intact as possible, along with the vent window frames. If the C pillars get damaged along the way, it's no matter as they're going to get cut off eventually anyway. Hope this helps!

I had 2003 Viper Red (acrylic enamel) mixed at our local paint jobber. If you check the original build thread, you'll see that I airbrushed the paint right over BIN Zinsser which I have to say is an EXCELLENT barrier for plastic! Newer kits I haven't trusted for a long time as far as painting directly on the plastic. The plastic is not quite the same as it was 15-20 years ago, as it's "softer" and can craze much easier with even regular paint. BTW, there is NO clear coat on the paint.............it was simply rubbed out and polished with polishing cloths and Zymol wax. Yup! if you check here, you'll see the original thread I have of it. Not a lot of pics as I wanted this to be as simple as possible..........needed a breather from the Chevy for awhile. Those are the kit tires.............the wheels I used (out of the newer reissue '69 Shelby kit) just happen to fit those tires with a little massaging. They just look the part of an American "new classic" sports car, and just look so much better to me than the original wheels. I did use some BMF in the tailight section........just not the whole inside as it still would not have had the "faceted" look that the 1:1 has. Would have been much nicer if Revell had made those entire taillight sections separate chrome buckets.

Well! This is the first model I've actually finished in some time! There are a couple tiny details I may want to add, but for all intents and purposes...........she's all done! There are a couple nits I have with the kit................I wish Revell had added more taillight detail. They chose to mold the headlight buckets separately giving some nice detail, but the tailights are nothing more than plain red lenses giving it somewhat of an econocar appearance. It would have been nice if Revell could have molded the lenses with some detail in red, and also molded the taillight housings separately as they did the headlamps with chrome plating. Also, the chassis particularly the rear suspension was somewhat fiddly. It didn't help matters that I used different wheels than what was given in the kit-------but I simply don't like the Viper's standard wheels! They're too busy looking for sports car, and don't really look well to me in model form. Anyway, here are the pics..........enjoy! Thanks for lookin', and now it's back to the '59 Chevy!

Why indeed I did do that very thing to a Daytona! When I was building this (circa 2000), I at that point had never seen a Daytona with its lights open as well. I remember as a kid, a neighbor of ours had a Superbird which I saw at various times with the lights on at night------but this was many years before when the car was new (1970-71). So I searched high and low to find pics with one with the lights up...........and this was several years before I got a computer with internet access. I used AMT's '57 Chrysler 300C kit for the basic headlight bucket shape, and MV lenses were used for the headlights themselves. Might have sought out more realistic lenses if I were doing this today, but back then it was all I could think of.

Some may think this is a waste, but I use Bare Metal Foil for masking those areas as you've described. The reason being, BMF leaves a very clean sharp division, especially when burnished thoroughly. I don't do many modern cars, but here are a few examples where I have used BMF to mask off areas that require black trim. BTW, the paint I use is Polly Scale's Engine Black. It has just the right sheen IMO for window trim, and leaves no brush marks. I had a couple other pics I wanted to show, but it seems as though they've taken a permanent leave of absence via Fotki. Anyway, I hope this helps!

Hmmmm................I guess I'm Irish but certainly in name only! I can't spot an Irishman in sight in my family!

The above tips are very good, and I'd like to add another...............try "establishing" your cuts before you do any priming or painting. In other words, if you're doing a BMF intensive kit such as AMT's '58 Chevy (or Revell's '59) you might want to use your Exacto blade to make a slight "trough" in the trim. That way when you go and do your final BMF trimming after painting, your knife will have something of a track to slice through, than fresh untouched paint and plastic. You might want to practice this on a junk body, but it's what helped me years ago when doing the trim on the '58 Chevy I did. That model was no joke when it came to BMF!

Fellas, the solder I used was plain 'ol Radio Shack brand with a .062" thickness. Now that pic was taken 8-9 years ago when I was building the GTO, and some slightly smaller diameter solder might be available for use in this. The solder had a flux core which makes drilling the hole for your cable that much easier. Simply attach everything with some 5 min epoxy, and you should be good to go. Since solder is very soft, you might want to give the terminals a coat of Elmer's glue to smooth out the "dings" from handling. When dry, simply paint the terminals silver to give an even appearance.