MrObsessive

Wow! Unless I missed it, I'm surprised no one's mentioned this gem................. Those of you who remember the thread I did of building this a couple years ago, will remember the nearly COMPLETE re-engineering I had to do to make it correct! I tried my hand at this one originally back in the late '70's when I was starting to build, and it nearly made me give up modeling all together!

Chuck, I gotta second the motion about IMC's less than stellar '48 Ford Convertible! I built this one back in the early '90's and don't think I ever want to attempt it again! The parts fit is abysmal, the gaps are totally unacceptable to me...........too much in one area, not enough in others. This one I had put away for a long time, but decided to clean it up and display it to remind me how things were in the "bad old days"!

The '70 Monte Carlo would be about the closest IMO............shouldn't take too many changes to swap and make it correct.

R&R still offers that '60 convertible............ Click on the picture and it'll take you to Star Model's page with info how to get in touch with Steve Kohler.

There's a thread here that went quite in depth about paint booths.

Now I'm a mostly factory stock kinda guy with the occasional vintage exotic thrown in. So when Al Raab contacted me to build this little gem for him, I had no idea what it was! This is a "turbo axle" that was made by a company called Turbonique back in the '60's. The way it was described was about as close as you could get to jet propulsion for your straight-liner on the strip! Here's what you get in his kit................... Very easy buildup of this unique addition to rear drag axles in the '60's. Resin is very cleanly molded, and includes some PE parts for some extra detail. I soaked the parts in Whestley's Bleche White for a few hours to thoroughly clean off any mold release. Kit has neat PE "bolts" for detail.........note the white metal "spark plugs". Buildup is quick and easy with just some 5 min. epoxy used to affix the parts. Aluminum tubing can be shortened to suit the length of the car. Don't want to melt the back end! Parts were airbrushed with Alclad Aluminum. Here's a scanned pic of the axle under a '65 Chevelle......... Some of you old timers who remember when these were being used would appreciate this. This is the first time I've seen something like this and it was a nice diversion from the usual! Thanks Al!

Absolutely Beautiful Save Ron!! No one would ever believe that started out so pitiful looking! It's great you brought that one back to being a real showpiece!

If you check 1:1 photos against that newer tool '57 Bill, you'll see that the rears are also too elongated. The wheelwells flare back too far not showing enough of the horizontal part of the quarter leading back to the bumper.

Gonna be a nice one Bill! For some reason, I still like this one better than the "new tool" '57. It just looks truer to scale to me........... One can never have too many '57 Chevy's!

Interesting thread about smoking. I remember in the early '70's when I was in Junior High School, I thought I would be a cool kid and take up smoking. My Dad always smoked, so I figured he's in good shape so it shouldn't hurt me any. I was around 12 years old at the time. A kid in class sneaked me a couple cigarettes, and I went home and tried the first one before my Dad would come home from work. Needless to say, I coughed so HARD that I literally could see stars before my eyes! That cured me from ever touching another cigarette again! BTW, my Dad a few years ago, had part of his lung removed.......more than likely due to smoking. It wasn't cancer, just dead cells. He's almost 77 years old now and can't walk a few yards without being out of breath. So it's just as well I NEVER picked up that habit looking back!

There's one on the inside of each frame rail, behind where the front wheels would be. I didn't focus as much on the frame itself as the body because once the wheels and whatnot are on, (and as he said once it's sitting on the shelf) it won't be seen. If you look at the pic below, you can see the one sink mark on the inside of the right frame rail next to the engine. A bit shallow, but there just the same.

Yeah, I'll probably get one, if not to build right away------but certainly to grok it. The car looks great from what I see, but there are a couple nits I have. One being there's no up-top though I can make one using a '70 Monte Carlo roof. Another is the rear fenders at the edges, don't seem "finny" enough in relation to the deck lid. Not something everyone would notice or worry about, but that's my "obsessive" mode kicking in.

I just checked his site Cruz, and I see none...............yet!

Terry's right! There's no year zero..........check the link below...... No year zero??

Good catch Jody! I'm trying to speed things along as I have another buildup/tutorial coming along right after this one! It's the mold lines and such on axles and exhausts that drive me the craziest, even though this will never see a contest table most likely. The interior which I'm about to leap into I'm going to do a bit different being that it's a tub type. I truly hate painting these types of interiors so some slicing and dicing is in the works. It's a technique someone else described in another thread, but I'm going to go through it step by step for those that also hate painting tub interiors.

I lit up a candle and put my X-acto blade over the flame--------heated it up for a spell and then.................. Heat swaged the pin down just a scooch to form a "head". Now that tie rod's goin' nowhere! Moving on to the exhaust, I used Alclad aluminum airbrushed on.............I did cover this exhaust pipe and the muffler with Future before painting as there were prominent mold lines present that were sanded away. Once again a pain in the tush, but needs to be done! Gas tank was painted the same............ And here she is with a nice clean chassis! The drive shaft was painted Engine Black as well after its mold lines were sanded away. Now it's on to the interior............I got some good detail shots off a car that was sold on eBay recently. This will come in handy to getting the interior colors mostly right. Thanks for tuning in!

I wanted to show you guys the completed body now that it's all BMF'd and such-------but Mr. Murphy paid a visit and I ended up snapping one of the rear window dividers in half! I was able to get it back together, and right now the glue is drying. I have to file it down carefully so the split isn't seen, and BMF the divider again............ahhhhh such is modeling! Here's the latest of what I've got so far......... Here's the primer I'm using to simulate red oxide primer. A lot of American cars from the '40's (maybe earlier) through the '70's had red oxide primer as a base on chassis floors. This particular brand of Rustoleum is pretty decent as it dries very quickly, although I did let it sit overnight before I handled it to be sure. I pretty much spray bombed the chassis floor............I didn't feel like decanting the spray into an airbrush jar, as the spray nozzle wasn't that yucky "fan spray" which is annoying. After the primer was dried sufficiently, I hand painted the frame rails with water based acrylic Polly Scale "Engine Black". Good stuff as it is not a total flat, but not really a semi gloss either like Tamiya's paint for instance. It's great for simulating vinyl roofs or interiors for that matter. The brush I used I think is a 2-00, although I can't be sure as I've had my brushes so long, the markings have worn off. I just go with what looks sufficient when it comes to brush painting. The frame rails are all painted---------one thing I did do was mask off each section with Tamiya tape as shown in the pic above. It takes a while, but it's much worth it in the end for appearance. Okay, here's a step that can be a pain in the tush, but it's very important for getting a clean look to chassis components. You DEFINITELY want to file down any mold lines on even the little things such as these shocks. If you're ever planning to enter a judged show, the judges will notice if you've missed this step! One thing I did do but forgot to take photos was fill in the small dimples with a home made "plastic putty". It's too much work to mix up body putty to fill in small dimples and such, so I took a bunch of scrap plastic, put it in an empty Tamiya thinner jar, and then poured some Ambroid over the plastic. Let it sit overnight, and then in the morning had a nice melted goo which I took a little bit and filled in those dimples. Once the plastic was hardened up, I just filed it down to shape and it's good to go! Afterward, I painted the shocks with Tamiya white primer. When I want to paint chassis parts a glossy black, IMO nothing beats Model Car World's lacquer black! I don't know what kind of thinner Dave uses, but I've found that you can spray the paint directly on the plastic without primer, and it will not eat into the plastic! This saves some time-------however, if you've sanded away any mold lines or whatnot, you'll want to follow the steps I previously described earlier in this thread to keep them from reappearing. Here's the axle airbrushed with the black------along with the springs painted with Alclad Steel. The model has working steering which is nice, but it never seems to fail that the tie rod never wants to stay in place no matter how well they snap onto the kingpin end. We'll have to fix that.............. Stay tuned................

I meant to post these before, but I'm also in the middle of composing a write-up for the Merc tutorial I've been doing. Here's a Mustang I did a couple years ago that was cleared with Tamiya X-22. The stripes were airbrushed with Krylon White, and then the X-22 was done over the whole works. You'll have to trust me when I tell you the white is just as bright today as it was when I first cleared them. One caveat with Tamiya X-22 as well as all of their water based acrylics, is a dehydrator is nigh MANDATORY if you want these paints to thoroughly cure for rubbing out and polishing. The X-22 clear is particularly sensitive to the dehydrator as you don't want to put it in right away-------you want to wait a bit 'til it's dry to the touch. I did a Mach 5 years ago that I also painted in Krylon White, and cleared it with X-22............put it in the dehydrator right away and I did notice a slight yellowing after it was cured.

Out of all those choices Jon, I'd say super glue would give you the best bond. You've got to be careful though as you want to make it a one shot deal, and not have to "redo" your error! What you might want to try is to make "tracks" for your seats out of plastic strip, attach those to your seat with super glue (sparingly), and then you can use regular glue on the tracks for putting them into your interior. BTW, sorry about your dog in your sig............I've got a sick cat at the moment so I know what you're going through.

Wow! Good question Terry! I'm not into customs so much, but I'd have to say the '49 Mercury from Revell is definitely in the running! You've got a ready to be built "lead sled" with the chopped roof and other bits already done for you! Not to mention the myriads of them that showed up on the contest tables make this one a strong contender.

Yeah, I had the Sky and Solstice in mind after I posted that. There's a bunch of stuff that they could make that's current I'm thinking of, but I know it'll never see the light of day. It's too bad because the Japanese kit makers are more willing to put out stuff that sold right in their home market, but us Americans................Nooooo!

Hmmm................I've used Tamiya X-22 as a clear-coat and I've never had a problem with yellowing. I would highly recommend using THEIR thinner if you can somehow find it, as I've had bad results using Isopropyl alcohol in the past (fisheyes). I STRONGLY advise against using the X-22 over their gloss water based acrylics!! They'll look beautiful to start, but in a couple weeks the paint will have more cracks and wrinkles in it than you can shake a stick at! Now they may have changed their formula as this was years ago when this happened, but you know that saying about "Once bitten..........."

While the chassis may fit with some tweaking on the JF body, coming up with a suitable engine will be a whole 'nother matter! If you want something passable for an interior, hope you're good at scratchbuilding as they're quite different from one another. XLR's do NOT use Corvette engines BTW, they use Cadillac's V8 of whatever they call it these days. A decent plastic kit would have seemed a no-brainer as a number of 'Vette pieces could have been used as a basis..............but no we keep getting stuff that while nice, doesn't look ahead to what's current.

Not much into Gassers Andy, but that's pretty cool! Each year I was in High School in the '70's, there was always one of these being built up in shop class! Surprisingly, by the end of the school year, they had it up and running! Seeing these brings back some memories........not in Gasser form though!