MrObsessive

We left off the last time with the front end in pieces. Here it's mostly together with the exception of the turn signals. The middle fog lamps and the Shelby emblem were a press and fit type. I'm not so sure about the stability of this so I'm going to take a tiny bit of epoxy and put it behind the fog lights and emblem. Interesting that DeAgostini does not say anything about painting the PE grille. Every 1965-70 Shelby I've ever seen has a blacked out grille but the instructions say nothing about it. Not trusting regular primer to stay put without eventually chipping, I went to my local paint guy and I got a can of self etching black primer. I then scuffed up the upper and lower grille with 600 grit sandpaper and sprayed on the primer. I let it sit overnight and the results came out pretty well as you can see. Now I can handle the front end when getting it on the main body down the road and not worry about trying to fix a paint chip on the grille which you know is bound to happen. OK, moving on to the next step, they want you to assemble the one brake rotor and caliper assembly together and then put this in the Shelby Magnum wheel. Here are the parts for that.......... Here's the wheel and here's where I'm sorta stopped in my tracks. I don't like the finish of the wheels at all! Waaaay too dull! It looks like DeAgostini used some kind of aluminum paint over the wheels and then clearcoated over it. That's all well and good, but it's also dulled the aluminum finish giving it to my sight a bland look. Shelby wheels according to memory and with definite period correct pics have very bright almost chrome like wheels. Sooooo.............I'm VERY tempted to either rub out the wheels with the polishing cloths and airbrush the Molotow chrome paint over them, or strip it down to bare metal and totally redo them. Then there's the daunting task of painting that inner circle which was one of the reasons I bought this............. I'm going to try and paint that as my attempt as my hand painting it was a bit less than successful. Here are the parts mocked up for the time being. I'm not crazy about the whole appearance of the brake rotors inside the wheels. Too 'plastic' looking with some better contrast needed between the caliper and the rotor. Gotta get out the airbrush and paint those too. And for the final test of my patience with this whole step...............getting the wheel to fit inside the tire. This tire is HARD AS A ROCK! They want you to heat up the tire with either a hair dryer (low heat) or put the tire in hot but not boiling water to soften it up. I'm very tempted to simply put the tire in my dehydrator with the temp set to 110° and let the heat do its thing. I also have to be careful to NOT rub off the paint on the rim trying to get the wheel inside. I sure hope I can get through this without much drama. So that's it for the time being. Before the next week is out, I'll decide how to tackle those wheels and hopefully at least get this one painted and together and take a look at the next step. Thanks for lookin'...........this is going to take a while!

Ha! My AMX didn't even have THAT luxury! Imagine trying to do a panic stop on MANUAL drum brakes! Thanks for the heads up about the master cylinder. I would have later been building it and never paid that any attention.

Yeah, I can see that. Back in those days however one could order a car almost any way they wanted. My 1:1 '69 AMX for example, even though it was a 390 car believe it or not it had drum brakes on all fours! Needless to say, when I was running it hard, I had to be careful to give it PLENTY of room to stop!

That shade of blue in the first pic is a VERY nice color. That would be among one of my choices if I were building this. Chalk me up as another that doesn't car for the stripes. I think the 'forward thrust' of the fenders is what throws the stripes off for me. Of course, this is subjective........some like 'em, some don't. If/when I get to building mine, I GOTTA do mine with the optional mag hubcaps! To me, those just suit that car and IIRC it was the last year you could get those on any Chevy. Of course it's GOT to have redline tires! Rally wheels are nice, but soooooo many Chevy's I see have 'em that IMO they've become too commonplace. Once again, this is subjective.

I was taken aback by his message as it was the first one I saw when I came on the board a couple hours ago. I don't know what happened, but I'll miss his knowledge on car things and models. I've picked up some things from him over the time he was here. Speaking of that, in the nearly 13 years I've been on this board (here almost since the very beginning) I've had to use the 'ignore' feature a couple times for certain ones. I don't suffer fools gladly, but I won't get into a skunk spraying match over what's supposed to be a hobby about plastic cars (or what have you). Sorry this happened........hopefully he can patch things up (or whoever might have did him wrong can do the patching) and come back on the board.

Jeff, the board is back up and running now with someone making a post just a few minutes ago. In all the years I've know about that board (since 2002), I think this is the longest I've ever seen them down! About 14 hours they were offline!

There's a blanking plate on the dash where the radio is supposed to be and of course, there's no shielding for the distributor which makes it nice as I wanted to take some 'artistic license' and use those orange plug wires. On the firewall, there's some sort of cover on the heater box, so whatever car they modeled, it more than likely had no heater. Last I knew, George was in the hospital and I take it he may be back home but I don't know how well he's doing health wise. I had heard this at our club meeting a few weeks ago........his wife had emailed someone in the club about him.

Just a mini update for the moment. Got the engine all done as far as I'll go with it for now. The fan I won't try to put on until it's time to put the engine in the chassis. Since I modified the pulleys somewhat, I don't want to be surprised by 'scraping' or binding against the radiator. Speaking of the chassis, that's next on the agenda. Got the old paint stripped off for the time being and then it'll be repainted. I thought about adding brake and fuel lines, but I'm going to let that go for this particular 'Vette. Way down the road I have another 'Vette planned which will be more detailed and I'll add that. Since this was essentially a race car for the street, I won't bother with adding heater hoses and such. Not many of these had heaters so it's no biggie. I have the air cleaner for it which I really had to hog out the inside so it'll sit down on the carb much better. That's in the tank now getting stripped and I'll repaint that gloss black, with the perimeter in some sort of dull gray to simulate the seal that ended up against the scoop inside the hood. If there's clearance troubles.............well I'll just leave that off. Thanks for checkin' in guys!

I must be a Ferrari nut because I've got ALL of these, except the Daytona racer which I have the Fujimi Enthusiast Series street car. The California Spyder SWB I was fortunate to get Norm's V/12 engine kit and corrected interior set when he still made them. Besides that 250 GT SWB, that N.A.R.T Spyder is a REAL BEAR to get on eBay! I just happened to get on the 'Bay one day and it was one of the first I saw on the list. The fellow had a BIN for $50 I think with free shipping, but the windshield header had a split in it. Got the kit and fixed the break.......now it patiently awaits for the time when I want to build it fully.

Well, that wasn't quite what I had in mind but that is a BEAUTIFUL car! At first glance I thought it was a Fiat Dino coupe, but of course it wasn't.

No, your ISP sees it as a new addy so it would get the last thing that was posted. I have it bookmarked so my ISP knows I visit there quite a bit and would know ahead of time there's a problem thus the 'locking out'.

OK, your PC has the site "cached" meaning you're still getting the last time you visited, but no new posts. I'm sure guys tried to post something there since that time!

Yup that's it...................

Nope........just tried your link Howard and I'm still getting the error. Maybe you can ask Howard if there's an issue there with certain ISP's? I'm on Comcast so it could be they're having a problem with their server.

I just tried three different links through Duck Duck Go and each one came back as a server error. Some ISP's are being blocked for now perhaps?

Same here! I like the Mopar pics that Bill Goldbach puts up! I literally just tried before I typed this and no dice.

Anyone here having trouble getting on to Spotlight Hobbies? I've been trying since early this morning every once and a while and I'm getting the "Server Not Found" error. It's a bit unusual for them to be down this long, although the problem could be on my end with my network connection. I tried on my phone with a cell signal but I'm getting the same error. EDIT: BTW, the URL for them is here.

AHHH Yes! I absolutely LOVE the new Alfa Giulia's! One of the reasons I got a Challenger was space. I sat in a new Mustang which was coming out at the time I wanted another car, but the Mustang I found to be "cramped". Especially in the shoulder area as I sure need it! Interesting enough, of all the models I have (a lot), I don't have a new Challenger kit. That's something on my 'must buy' list this year for sure, but when I'd do a model of my car would be anyone's guess! Another car I'm surprised never made it to the hobby shelves were the late '00's Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice. While in 1:1 they were nice to look at, getting in one was a definite no for me. I was MUCH heavier then and my head hit the up top once I was in. Even with the top down, my head was about level with the windshield header. There were some diecasts out there (not bad actually), so that may be all I have to settle for and then detail it out. On another note of a foreign older car...............why oh why has there never been a model of this car in a standard scale?? I have a 1/24 diecast and an MPC 1/32 scale kit of this car, but it sure would make my day to see a full detail kit of a Benz 280 SL with BOTH tops.

DEFINITELY the latest Charger! Too bad they never saw fit to do the '99 Charger concept car. The current car takes some styling cues from that and I've always thought that it should have been the debut body style and NOT what they came up with for '06. While I'm not a fan of SUV's and Crossovers, I wouldn't mind seeing a new gen Cadillac Escalade done. Even a new Equinox would strike my fancy as they do look nice in certain colors. Some foreign subjects would be cool to see..........a new F-Type Jag, ANY new Aston would make my day. I'm STILL waiting for Revell (or someone!) to do a FULL detail new Mustang kit!

I've been watching that one too. There are some days the price is all over the map! I'll watch it till someone bites.......or not.

OK, yet another grail that's bound to lighten my wallet! This and the Maserati Ghibli are on my badly wanted list!

Some sniff at 1/43, but I can't think of any other scale where you'll have the most variety. Every once in a long while, I'll build a 1/43, just the ideal thing at times for a slump buster as there's no chassis detail to deal with and most times no engine. Here are a few I've built in the past.............. Thanks for the link Bruce.........very good site!

I've seen this car before, but dang if I can remember what it is!

Kurt, I love the color! That so says "VW". You're making want to start on that '63 VW kit I got the other day.............warts and all!

Yeah, I've seen that one around, but this set was more comprehensive than that. I don't think it was HRM..........in fact to show how long ago this was, I remember seeing it advertised in SA(E). So this was before my computer and internet days. It did include a PE set, but not as much as what MCG is offering. I distinctly remember the turned aluminum carb trumpets. That caught my eye immediately, but unfortunately I never bought it.