62rebel

better stay away from Copperhead Road...... Virginia's Blue Ridge had (has) more than a few old 'shine runners that ended up doing dirt track duty when the pressure got too high in the woods. Dad told me what to look out for when hunting, so as not to get my head shot off...........

yeah, losing the original custom seats was a painful blow. i have used the new set in other cars, but they look completely out of place in fifties cars. i have never figured out that Meteor grille.... odd piece. shame that they moved a lot of the chrome sprue over to plain styrene on that one... better than cutting it completely off, i reckon.

decided on a 440 Dodge with a sixpack, no chrome on the engine, as if freshly lifted from a salvage yard Superbee.... 4speed, stock manifolds. cut the original 6v battery out of the fenderwell and found a JoHan 12v battery in the parts box. did the prerequisite mod to the interior panels and moved the door cut lines forward, added armrests to the front doors, found some handles. found an MPC three gauge instrument cluster to add to the dash bottom.... this would have been the guy who showed up out on Airport Road on Saturday night and was seldom seen anywhere else, probably worked as a cop in a neighboring county..... sneeeaaky...

while the hemi and sohc are visually impressive and undoubtedly powerhouses, they don't fit into the theme of my build.... which, unfortunately, i didn't expand upon very far. my percieved '49 Merc will represent a circa early '70's budget rod... maybe a recycled early '60's custom enjoying a life as a grudge match racer. i'm using the kit reversed steel wheels, and took some of the drop out of the rear end. i'm using the full duals from the kit; added a third hole in the floor for the clutch pedal and scrounged the custom shifter from the AMT '51 Bel Air kit to use. no skirts, no sidepipes; it might even get my first flat black primer paint job.

barn find! call Barrett-Jackson!

'shine cars had to look "normal"... which is hard to duplicate! they used powerful engines and heavy duty suspension to handle the weight of a trunk full of liquor or a transport tank, not so much as to try to outrun tax men. the real threat liquor runners had was RIVAL runners stealing their load or wrecking their transporters. that said... that looks like what my Pappy might have driven.....

i dug through my stash and found an unopened '49 from 2007... it's open NOW... i've already got a couple customs in progress and have decided that this one will be more of a hot rod than a custom. now, the Cadillac engine that Revell provided is excellent and i can't fault it; but i want something that says "coming THROUGH, back up!" so... what other engines have you guys been swapping into this kit?

when i was 15 or so, Dad had a '60 F100 that we used solely for emergency duty... well; we got let out of school early because it was snowing an inch an hour and Dad had heard this was going to last for at least three days straight... so he, Mom, and i piled into the truck and made the trip up to the grocery (ain't it always the way) for the necessities just in case. we were choogling along around 40mph through 4-6 inches of slushy crud and a semi came over the hill covering both lanes of the two-lane.... Dad never let off the gas and took the truck off the road and halfway up the bank until we passed the semi and he got her back on the blacktop..... i learned a LOT about snow driving that day.

the last winter i spent in Virginia i lost almost a month and a half from work because of sleet packing down on fallen snow... we couldn't very well dig out an entire salvage yard of 200+ acres every few days, and it kept freezing solid every night. the worst day of it was everybody who made it to work THAT day shoveling mush away from the office building so it wouldn't flood..... i'd rather try to push back the ocean.

TDR! here's your chance to help out us smaller scale builders.... how about some generic car door hinges that can be drilled for pins, with bases wide enough to superglue or epoxy into the shell? i've been looking at the hinges off my 1:1 Falcon and trying to work up a set of them that work in scale or close to it.

yep; fifties 'vettes that don't have glaring proportion problems, body/trim gaps, and mistaken trim for the year are far and few between, even WITH the seemingly endless supply of them.... i try every one that's offered, but sadly, all of them have issues....

man, that is a clean interpretation. and the detail added to the engine kicks it into overdrive.... superb.

i've used model railroad handrail ( i forget which brand and style, it just looked right) in stainless steel PE to replace the 7litre grille on the replica i did of my own '66 Galaxie 500... the 7litre grille can be scribed out of the surround with patience. the trunk emblem is another can or worms; the 7litre emblem is fussier around the center than the standard style. i replaced the bucket seats, console, and rear seats with standard bench seats as well, but darned if i can recall what kit those came out of. i do recall that there are molded-in front fender spacers on top of the front wheelwells that ought to be shortened somewhat to help get the front end down, although 90% of the '66's i've seen sit tail-down naturally.

the recent reissue '66 and '65 have generic Nascar parts in them; the '66 has simplified front suspension but better chassis plate IMHO; the '65 has an opening trunk and a separate trunk floor. both have convertible interior tubs and need some work to change to standard hardtop tubs. neither will build an accurate Grand National without widening/flaring the fenders and lots of careful trim removal. the teardrop hood is in both kits but was never a nascar item. they WILL build into convincing enough shelf sitters if you can deal with the little stuff ( I can deal with lots of quirks myself). personally, i'd chuck the kit roll cage and seat and source them from something better or scratchbuild them.

ahhh. well; the wife snagged several for her use and they do have some nice colors. wasn't sure how latex would interact.

i don't yet know how compatible these are but Home Depot is selling 2oz bottles of latex semi gloss paint for a buck each..... Glidden is the brand name, i know they make excellent house paint.... just thought i'd throw that out there.

i bought four of those cheap led yard lights from Wally World a couple of weeks back from their clearance bins, only to find that they throw just about enough light to imitate a lightning bug in it's death throes.... well; these were the red and white striped ones with cylindrical blue tops. the tube on each pops loose easily and measures 11/16ths OD, 1/2" ID, and 7" long. they fit snugly into Monogram Nascar tires and might fit a multitude of requirements for scratchbuilding. as a bonus, there's a mighty formidable looking spike that comes with each one. they cost about a buck and a half each and might be less on clearance.

i have fixed that problem a couple of times by wrapping a strip of masking tape around the rim to take up the space; one thickness at a time until the tire fit snugly. if there's too much room to use that method, consider replacing the whole set as i have done with my Revell XKE....

scratches are one thing; cracks are another. scratches can sometimes be polished out with care but a crack (especially repaired with superglue) is never going to disappear. what i would do, is polish the unit out as well as possible and use it to form a thin sheet of acetate or clear styrene to replace it.

as Futurabat said, there's the guys who try to sell kits piece by piece; if you search back and forth you'll find them selling most of, if not ALL, of the kit separately.... now; the buys that i've made on the 'bay have been good and i feel good about them, don't get me wrong; it's the feeling of having to wade through swamp muck for an hour and a half to find a decent kit..... shoot; i went to the LHS yesterday evening and came out with a new pack of #11 blades, when i really wanted a new project to start on..... too darn picky i suppose. i'm waiting for the paint to cure out on my Hudson before i touch it again.

if ever a car deserved to have a happy face, the Miata is it. big risk when Mazda took the leap and it STILL sells relatively well.... and that's a very nice build in a very accurate color.... nice job!

hmm. i'm not whining about pricing, per se; knowledge about what they're selling, basically..... sore subject, so i'll shut up.

i've spent a couple of hours wandering the dark corridor of the internet known as Ebay.... i need a shower and some antibiotics. i find myself confused by the question, are these people really that deluded as to the value and rarity of the stuff they're hawking? or are they hoping that their potential customer is unaware of the facts? i'm THAT much more certain that i won't buy off ebay anymore..... of course, if i knew that my stash of bits and pieces were worth the national debt, i'd have sold them on ebay.

yep; the guys on the HAMB are reaalllly bad about it... something about poor attention span or something, maybe lacquer thinner fumes or starting fluid.....

i've built one as a British military LRDG car, it goes together very well and has superior interior detail similar to the Revell '48. there is a problem with the cowl appearing lower than the hood at the front; i don't think this is a kit engineering flaw so much as a problem with the body shell. there is a nice rendition of a Columbia 2-speed rear axle and it has some nice wheels and whitewall tires.