62rebel

a crash landing is still a LANDING....LOL!

inspired, of course, by an impecuniary position; i wandered the aisles of the hobby shop and began to wonder where else i had seen materials similar to those offered at such highly exorbitant prices in the LHS... Jaffa touched on this recently and i'm sure many of us have scoured the various aisles of wallyworld etc only to find many of the same products that we use under hobby pretext in much less expensive branding in other areas of the store. yes; we are pretty much bound to LHS pricing for quality kits and paint, but for a great deal of detailing stock it pays to search elsewhere! milliput, for example, sells for 10-12 bucks/pkg at LHS (when they HAVE it) while fine-grain white epoxy sells for 2 bucks/pkg over in the automotive/boating section of wally world. see where i'm heading? we have it pretty good in car modeling; i've seen little bags of common twigs sold for 8-10 bucks (!!!) as HO scale logs for model railroading... i must have a million bucks' worth in the back yard alone!

just being peculiar; my old display case was a glass jewelry cabinet and i had it filled side to side with my favorites; had to add two glass shelves inside to create a second level. all was fine and dandy until my teenage son came home angry and plopped down on couch slammed big chunky boots on top of case... this is the same kid that never took to any hobbies except video games. what i have actually "displayed" now is the diecast falcon my wife got me for christmas. everything else (!) is back in boxes in the back bedroom and the model closet until i get another display case. and that 1/8 golden t... is that your own creation? sounds cooool...

For more info check out a Ford Model "A" restoration site or book; they'll have detailed data on how many and what size ribs and what kind of batting they used.

if you can scare one up, the amc pacers AMT did came with excellent six cyl engines and torqueflite 904 tranny. i "faked" a '65 mustang 200 by turning the amc engine backwards; attach the timing cover etc where the bellhousing was and vice-versa. not entirely accurate since the ford had integral intake but when you got nothing else....

i wish AMT had repopped their 65/66 fastback; i've built a number of R-M 65/66 fastbacks in differing configurations but can't display them alongside my (mostly) 1/25 models; there's something odd (to me anyway) about displaying 1/24 and 1/25 together. i have kitbashed the 66 hardtop using the 67 fastback platform; it looks convincing enough and does a great job of getting rid of those circular front fender wells! which leads me to another "great idea"; a set of resin inner fender wells to do mustangs and similar cars without resorting to destroying half a new kit!

Bill; i found the same itchy spot on the AMT 56, 57 ford and 58 impala doors; that the inside panel was molded as part of the door shell, and took a similar approach by cutting them off the "frame", cementing the frame in place to the door skin, and installing the inner panels later on. this greatly simplified creating customized interiors for me, and eased doing the fine detail work on that great '50's trim. if i were a little more ambitious i'd create some working window lifts... but i'll leave that to YOU!

forget california sun; i read a great article on the ford futura show car (which barris made into the batmobile) and the drivers had to keep the sliding canopy opened to keep the heat and moisture down, even in the winter. a friend of mine worked an auction where one of the copycat cars built on LTD chassis were sold, he said it took three people to drive the car; one to operate the car itself and two spotters on the street to tell him when and where to turn! but i'd LOVE to have one of those copycats....

i'm a victim of that urge myself! i really do try sometimes to build a kit right out of the box but WHAM i get this demonic voice telling me to "just add this one thing, curt; it'll look so cool" and it just balloons from there! another great piece of advice is to research whatever it is you're building; even if it's fantasy there's a reference for it somewhere! the best part of that is the learning aspect; it teaches you the history attached to the subject just as much as building teaches math (OOOOh no not MATH!) while you're learning to calculate proportions and scale. for me, model building was never a "waste of time" as i've often heard it referred to by the unknowing.

wasn't trying to sound sarcastic; sorry. i've gone from the days of $1.79 kits at drug fair and 15 cent tubes of testors' glue to $15 kits and $2 bottles of cement and paint, so i might seem cranky at times! building models is a way to express your imagination, IMHO; and however you choose to construct your idea is always up to you, yourself. some builders challenge themselves by limiting their builds to only what is in the box; some use anything and everything they can imagineer (thanks to walt disney for that word!) into a build. i admire any and all builds for the effort and care involved. i would suppose the best advice or support i was offered was to be more patient with my builds and not rush them. of all the skills required of a good model builder, patience is the one that pays off the highest dividends. one more thing; NEVER criticize a beginner modeler for making mistakes! point them out KINDLY and show how to avoid them in future. i've heard from so many people that they had given up as children on their first kit because someone had badly criticized their work. that's sort of the other piece of advice i learned as a youngster, only the other way around.

seems kind of odd to ask that question as regarding a tom daniels kit; most of them are pretty clearly a "concept" car and couldn't be driven if they did happen to be a real car in 1:1 ! not that they weren't cool; far from it! but in the area of styling exercises, i believe that imagination over engineering is the rule. make it WORK after you make it look cool!

I don't normally build rigs but i was admiring this one! i could almost smell the diesel fuel and the exhaust. man that is a great model.

in the floorboards (since my server is BLIND) are there hinged covers with cables attached? if so, they are there to allow the driver to inspect the tread at speed! some crew chiefs added photo strobe lights to flash on the tires to "freeze" them visually so the driver could determine when to pit next. as for the rears, the driver had to assume they were doing as well as the fronts!!!

and; a randomly flashing led to simulate the work touching the wheel; this would also work for simulating someone welding; the led could be hidden in the work surface instead of trying to hide it in the welding torch head. this is sounding like a very involved diorama indeed! is there a missing touch that i could help out with?

(ooops) sorry steve! i was recalling the "bullitt" i built from the combination of those kits.... and i was SURE i was recalling correctly (so much for THAT...) and i apologize! where can i get a 1/25 steve mcqueen/frank bullitt to put in the car now?

YEP; the t-bird comes with fuel lines too! had forgotten that.... mix and match to find some chrome "thunderbird" valve covers... or the nice "mercury" high pent-roof chrome ones in the current AMT 66 mercury kit. but for the planned '68 fastback i'd go with the fairlane or comet versions to get the correct hipo exhausts, then mix and match for intake options.

bills absolutely right; i used that engine to replace the plastic lump in the 70 ford police car. it is an excellent fe representation. also used in the 67 comet gt and fairlane gt/gta kits!

BOB, that's a classic case of "oops" on both parties! i imagine lots of promised kits never saw light due to that!

seems i had forgotten that tried-and-true method myself; almost as good as the 6-foot drop-from-the-shelf method!

Since testor's red tube cement is solvent-based you're going to have damage to the parts regardless of method used; depends on how much the original builder used in most cases. if they were prudent and used only as much as necessary, patiently prying pieces apart may work. if , however, they used one tube per model... you gotta job ahead of you. i'd run the model under water and put it in a bag and stick it in the freezer overnight. the cold may pop lightly cemented joints apart for you. be extremely careful of using any solvents to soften joints! scalecoat paint remover might do it; i never liked the stuff myself. good luck and i know there are more answers coming.

the 67 platform will probably adapt very well, Bill; i've built two AMT 66 mustangs using the 67 platform and they look much better than the promo style plate. it will probably require lengthening but thats easy enough. can't wait to see on at lhs.

street rodder magazine ran an article a coupla years back that covered the chrysler hemis in detail; it showed the differences between the desoto dodge and chrysler versions and explained why parts from one would not fit another. plymouth didn't even rate a hemi in those days; it would be the sixties before they got the rb version! IIRC; dodges were "smallblock" hemis, desoto used both small and big block versions, and chrysler used the biggest ones. slight differences in the manifolds and accessory drives are not noticeable at 1/25 though! sidenote: the new ala-kart kit was criticized over the seemingly small red ram hemi; it might not be as far out of scale as is thought, since the red ram was engineered to fit where the old 215 straight six had been. chrysler and desoto had much more room to work with having had both big sixes and straight eights.

i recall someone wanting to superdetail the ertl scout; wanted to know how they were getting on with it? i built mine O/O/B and like the way it looks on the shelf.

bill,didja ever notice how much the dodge magnum copied that look?

plenty of tutorial available on this; but when you say "swing" open, do you mean as in stock automobile or scissor style like current tuner fashion? there's two-three really effective ways to hinge doors in normal fashion but for the other, i'm out of water. remember when planning hinged doors to thin the leading (hinged) edge of the door panel from the inside along with the trailing edge of the body panel to provide clearance for the panels to go past each other. also; observe how a full size car door hinges. most models make do with huge non-prototypical hinges that swing the entire door out of the opening in a most-non-carlike fashion. duplicating the operation of 1:1 hinges is not that difficult if you have patience. getting them down to scale is the truly difficult aspect but not really that important since they're near invisible once the car is finished. read through the tips and tricks for more details; there's lots there to soak up. welcome to the group!