MrObsessive

I decided to order some parts from The Modelhaus..........I didn't want to go through the hassle of mounting parts to be sent out for chroming, so I ordered a set of front and rear bumpers from them, as well as wheelcovers and the rear taillight trim with lenses. The piece that I got from Porky's fit perfectly, so I was a bit surprised to find out when I got The Modelhaus piece that it was too narrow! Those of you who are kit historians might be able to help me on this..............Did AMT use different tooling for their promos and kits, thus the differences in the fit of the parts? It could be that The Modelhaus is using promo pieces for their replacements, thus the differences in the fit to the actual kit. Or is it possible that because this is a resin repop, that could be the difference...............? Anyway, one of the aspects of the kit I didn't like is the whole one piece look of the bumper/grille. Hmmm............what to do here?? I decided to take a chance and cut up and separate everything to make things more realistic. Below is the original front end from Porky's Resin............. Since the bumper from The Modelhaus was already chrome plated, that would save me some work in that area of having to send it out. I then took Porky's piece and separated the headlight/grille bar area, along with the outer trim pieces. These will be painted Alclad Aluminum, and then the headlight areas will be BMF'd to more represent the 1:1. The lower section of the grille I want to level out a bit more...........I'm considering drilling out the headlights and replacing them with actual lenses for more realism. The piece on top that was part of this section, I'll epoxy on to the hood during final assembly and then this piece will be BMF'd along with the outer grill pieces. In the 1:1, this center section is part of the hood that lifts up with it according to pics I have. That's it for now.............any questions ask away!

Following Ron's advice and looking closely at pics on my hard disc...........I corrected the lower corners of the rear backlite. Take a look................. Some slight cleanup to even out the lower trim is in order..............the main part of getting those corners square is done however. Interesting that AMT missed this detail in their annual kits. I suspect that while there were running prototypes of these cars back in late 1962 into '63, AMT got an early look-see to the cars as well as GM blueprints to start tooling up for promos and kits towards the end of '63 when these cars were intro'd. It could have been that those rounded corners were there, but GM changed the design at the 11th hour after the tooling by AMT was done. It does change the character of the roofline, but still looks good to me. More to come..................

Thanks John! If you click the link below, it'll take you to Special Shapes website. I'm fortunate that I live relatively nearby to a train shop located in Gettysburg that carries all of the Special Shapes products. I couldn't do half the fine detailing without 'em! http://www.specialshapes.com/

Beautiful job on both Janne! I especially like though the black one with dual stripes! Are these the AMT or Revell kits?

Nick the body was originally done by Porky's resin.........I don't think he's casting anymore as he sold the tooling to Bandit Resins. Whether they still have the body available I don't know..............

Hmmm........I always thought the '64-'67 roof sections on the Chevelle's were shorter and not as "stretched back" as the BOP versions. I could be wrong just as I was about to miss the rear window on my build! I know the windshields and headers were the same as they all have those signature "curves" at the corners.

Janne, I would try to fill them in with super glue or two part body putty and go from there. I don't know how skilled you are, but trying to attach styrene to resin can be difficult. You could end up losing some of the body contours trying to blend in the trim so that the super glue isn't showing where it was attached. It's really up to you but if it were me, I'd being doing the first method I just described.

Oh my you're right! I have a similar pic on my hard disc and I overlooked that one! That will be the next fix on the agenda! Also, I'm planning to "fix" the bumper/grille--------I don't like the one piece nature of it, and I've already taken to working on that. I'll have pics to show if not tonight............definitely tomorrow. I'm soon to go to bed so I can get to work tonight......... Thanks again Ron! Edit: I see that particular version has a rear mounted antennae-------Hmmmm............

Ed, if you remember-------Oldsmobile was once GM's technology leader. Whatever GM wanted to introduce new, Olds was usually one of the divisions to get it first. Automatic trans, hardtop styling, OHV V8's, wraparound windshields, autronic eye headlights, FWD-------etc. What did Oldsmobile in was GM stopped letting them be the leader, and let them become an also ran like all the other companies. I'll say that Olds started to die a slow death starting in the '70's sadly.

That is one heck of a tape and paint job Antonio! Absolutely love the fender skirts on that '62! Cars of that era were meant for skirts.

Nice and clean Bruce! You're a better man than I 'cuz I've had this kit for years but it's so nice---------I almost hate to touch it! Ain't that crazy??

A pic of the other side of the vent window.......for some reason it didn't show in my post above.................. Has the 10 pic only rule been cut down to five???

I've got another small but important update today.............I finally got the vent window posts done! Using Special Shapes small H-channel brass, I cut it to size, and bent it slightly to represent the curved glass that was new to GM for '64. Some minor clean up around the edges should take care of any problems that can arise when it comes time to BMF the vent windows. One of the problems when working with resin is replacing areas that were modified..............this happened to the lower edge of the vent window, and I needed to super glue a new lower edge with styrene. Some more cleanup will be needed there for a nice smooth look. Those that have known me for awhile know how much of a stickler I am for well fitting glass! Nothing drives me crazier than to see a nicely built model, only then to see glass that is ill fitting and/or just distorted looking. It's one of the reasons I have yet to build AMT's nice '57 Chrysler 300............I can't stand the halo look around the rear glass! Not to mention the woefully wavy look it gives to boot. One of the things I needed to do with this Olds, is to modify the window openings themselves. The openings have somewhat of a "tunneled" look to it and didn't look right to me. I got out my riffler files and proceeded to thin down the windshield and backlite trim on the inside to something more acceptable looking. I then made a tracing around the perimeter of the glass on a 3x5 card, then cut that to shape. I then made a couple inner pillars using half round stock and epoxied them inside the A pillars. The driver's side one is a little shorter than the passenger side due to how the interior is going to fit.............I don't want any clearance issues when it comes after final paint and polishing. Did the same for the rear glass................. Everything looks like it's going to fit..............I'll later take the patterns and lay them on clear stencil sheet (acetate) and get them so that I can easily fit them in and epoxy them during final assembly. For now the test fitting of the patterns are posing no issue. Now it's on to final tweaking of the body, and hopefully painting soon! Thanks for lookin'!

Skip, it's a two part putty.........mixes up pretty much like other two parters. Interestingly enough, I've had this putty for quite some time, yet it's still good as well as the hardener. In the past I've not had such good luck with putties lasting but for so long. I did make sure the last time I used it that I put the lid on super tight...............it was TOUGH to get off! Gotta get used to this new format and the settings for my font type!

Dynatron's been a favorite of mine for a number of years now Charlie. The full name is Dynatron Putty-Cote------and it's made by Bondo. I ran into it by accident as I was looking for Evercoat Eurosoft at a local body shop supplier. He didn't have the Eurosoft but intro'd me to the Dynatron and I've been a fan ever since. It feather edges beautifully as you can see in the pics..........and it has a bit of plastic in it if you need to attach some styrene trim to it for instance. I've used Ambroid Pro-Weld on it in the past, and the styrene trim glued just as if the surface were styrene. Good stuff!

One could always go for the gold and get one of Modelhaus's 1959-60 Flattop roof sections and make a four door hardtop out of it. I have TWO of these kits and that's what I intend to do with one of them sometime. The other one I would simply transplant the two door hardtop roof off of Revell's '60 Impala (MUCH more accurate), and correct the body to something a lot more suitable.

I first flattened and then bent brass tubing to make the arms of the hinge........this makes it easier to drill the hole for the rivets that I needed to use. The rivets were small pieces of brass tubing inserted in the holes, and then the edges were peened over to hold them in place. I had no digicam at the time I was building this (I got one later in the build), so it's hard to show the steps that I did. One thing that did help is that I actually had a 1:1 hood hinge sitting in the room that I could copy the details off of, and then "shrink" the details down to 1/25.

Just a quick update as to what I needed to do so far...........while I was working on the A pillars/vent windows, the crown of the roof just didn't feel right to me. It's as if there was a slight "dip" in the roof which I hadn't noticed before. Sooooo..........I got out the primer and just sprayed a small bit on the roof.............. Normally I block sand such suspect areas, but this time I could actually see the slight depression in the roof, so I went ahead and mixed up some Dynatron and spread away. After letting it sit for a spell, then I went ahead and block sanded the roof................... Yup! Just as I suspected-----there was a dip in the roof. I don't think it was this way originally, but probably a result of letting it sit in the Whestley's too long which also did in the hood. After some more sanding, the roof looks back to normal............I haven't built many (actually very few) resin kits, so this is teaching me some things here! I'm going to shoot some more primer over the roof again as sort of a "check coat" to make sure there are no issues with final primering and color painting. BTW, if you take a look at the first pic, you'll see where I did lower the windshield trim by a scale inch at the header, as well as get the chrome "ridge" on top of the A pillars. I'm working on the vent posts at the moment, (they'll be brass) and get those in place. Hopefully, I can get this thing painted by the end of the weekend if certainly by early next week. Thanks for checkin' in!

Okay, I'm home now so I have time to comment! I have a set of those hinges from MAS..........and while they're not bad, they seem to me a bit heavyhanded for what I would use. The ones I did for my GTO were scratchbuilt from brass, but unfortunately they wore out and broke before I got the model nearly done. (which I never actually did finish). I would do them differently today........coming up with some kind of way to make the hood removable to see the entire engine----and at the same time still having the hinges in place on the body so that they could be seen working as the hood is closing. BTW, I also had a latch mechanism for my hood.................... The hinges were spring loaded just like a 1:1, (springs came from a local train shop) but then I needed a mechanism to latch the hood and keep it shut. The idea was to have the latch exposed very slightly under the front bumper-----all you would need was to brush it with your finger and the hood would pop open. I also had it so that the back edge of the hood wouldn't raise up eventually from the stress of the springs. If I were building this again today, I'd have a different method of keeping the back edge of the hood down. Top THAT Danbury!

Hmmm....................... I could comment more...............but I gotta leave the house now and head to work.

John, you're a braver man than I cuttin' into that kit (resin no doubt! ), but I LIKE what I see! Those opened doors look great so far as well as the rest of the body mods!

Christian, when you say that it dries clear, do you mean that it won't yellow over time? All the epoxies I've ever used seem to yellow after so long. It's one of the reasons I don't like to use epoxy for headlights as an example.

All of the '64 Olds 442 engine pics I have show the engine as being gold. I'm not sure when Olds Bronze was offered...........Anyone out there know when? I airbrushed Alclad Gold as it's pretty durable.............I did use some Parafilm around the trans while handling, because as tough as Alclad is, it can eventually wear away from over-handling.

Wow! I like it! The stance is perfect as well as the paint! I have this one as well, but mine's a Tamiya one with an engine. Funny you don't see many of the 1:1's anymore...............they were all over the roads in the '90's and POOF!.............. they seemed to have disappeared now.

Thanks for all the nice compliments fellas! I'll try to keep regular updates on this one as I REALLY would like to get it done! It's too nice of a car to let languish. Yes, I've used Easy Off before..............This particular day I was out of it, and decided to use the Whestley's as I've used it on a 1/43 resin before with no trouble. I think the thickness of the hood (which in scale isn't very thick) and the fact I soaked it too long is what did it in. Now I know!