Greg Pugh

Exactly! The original builder had some good ideas but lacked a little bit in execution. Lol I sure hope so! Lmao! Thank you so much!

I use whitewall cleaner.

Nice lookin' Poncho! The clear went on without incident. I'll give it a few days, then I'll wetsand it, throw down another coat or two of clear, then I'll be ready to start the polishing process.

Wow! Thank you for putting it that way! It's very flattering! If you look at the first couple of pictures after the car was stripped, you can see some blue paint on the roof. The layers of paint went: black, silver, blue, then black again. I believe the black to be primer, the silver the base, and blue must've been the desired color. When that didn't work out, the blue was then primed over again in black. Judging by the cracking in the black, I would guess that the primer was too hot for the blue and crazed which most likely ended up killing the progress of this car. Sorry to go all CSI on you but in keeping with the original builder's vision, I will be painting the car blue.

Ok. Foil and decals are on. I'm off to bed. Clear goes on tomorrow...

I made several attempts to match the paint color using Testors paints and I got pretty darn close (so much so that I painted it) but it was only that close under fluorescent lighting and not under regular lighting. UGH! So I stripped it back down. I saw another '65 Satellite being built on here and it was painted with Duplicolor primer and Duplicolor color and he had no issues. I have NO idea why I've had so many problems but it pushed me to try it ONE more time. It didn't craze this time but I ended up getting a pretty rough surface. I figured I would throw some clear on the hood and see what I had and so far, it's looking like it should work. I'm thinking that I'll be able to knock down the roughness and smooth out the clear top coats with wet sanding and I should be in good shape. Hopefully. Lol. Anyways, I'm applying BMF and decals and then I'll be hitting the body too. Wish me luck!

Nice job on those wheel wells!! I'll be watching this one!

That is wicked cool!!

This is how the taillights/rear bumper rested against the body where it was originally glued and then the original builder went crazy with the putty. I wanted to pull them closer into the body. And by grinding away at the backside, I was able to do just that. Just like the front, the rear will need to be narrowed to fit the body as well. So this is going to be my method. I will shorten it from the ends rather than section it in the center. More to come. Stay tuned...

I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do out back so I moved back there. First, I started by smoothing out the tailgate and shaved it of it's emblems and the hinges. I also filled the gaps on the sides of the tailgate as it will be "welded shut". There were a couple of sink marks where the locating studs are to screw the body to the chassis plate. The black marks were to remind me where to put filler to fill those in.

I started working on getting the front end smoothed out. You can also see that I filled in four of the holes that were in the tops of the front fenders. I can't believe this is the same car!!

Thanks guys! I'll be working on it some this weekend so more to come!

Yeah, I was shocked!

I'm so bummed today...

Are you talking about the old SMP long box?

Unbelievable!

Dude!!!

I've got 6 going and that's an all time high for me. I'm getting pretty close on a couple of them though and this one popped up out of nowhere. Lol Thank you!

The first thing I did was remove the lower end of it so that it could set flush with the body. In place but too wide... ...I then cut it in the center to remove some material. Then attached my two sides. Now time for some automotive grade spot putty!

The front grille piece is from AMT's '57 Chevy and the rear piece is from a '61 Thunderbird I believe. They're both wider than the Ranchero body by a good 1/4" on each side if that gives you any idea how much putty they used! They completely smoothed the sides out to where I didn't see any of the coves on the sides, door handles, scripts...nothing! There must've been a good quarter of a cup of mud-like putty at the bottom of my container when I pulled this poor thing out! In this picture, you can see how the front grille/bumper was married to the car. The sides protrude out from the fender. That's not going to work.

Well, I must be a glutton for punishment! I happened upon this poor '61 Ranchero in a recent vintage kit score I purchased. I took it to last Sunday's club meeting because I thought it was cool to see somebody's unfinished custom from back in the 60's, but I also wanted to offer it up to anyone in the club that wanted to take on the challenge of finishing this bad boy up! No one stepped up. And I can't blame them! Lmao! I was literally walking it to the trash can the next morning when the voice in my head ...said "Oh heck..." So in the tank it went and I'll be danged if it didn't clean up pretty good! The plan is to follow the original builder's vision but to do it up right this time and add a couple of things here and there. I'll post pictures as I bump along. Here are a couple before and afters:

I sure hope so! Lol I had a blast with you guys! Looking forward to doing it again! Thank you!

I don't know what colors he'll be using. I only gave him the theme I wanted and I'm going to give him the freedom to take the ball and run with it from there. I haven't really decided on the wheels yet. I'm going to wait to see what it looks like and go from there. That's also why I haven't started any assembly on anything yet.

Wow!! That's beautiful!!