62rebel

the AMT surf rod kit has a sheet of dark wood decal material in it to replicate the stained plywood of the actual "surf woodie", i haven't measured it but i think it's 4x5 or so; i have a planned project of a phantom and this is a crucial component. i don't know of any other source for this stuff but somebody is making it for AMT.

there's a ton of cool cars there. hendrix has the 59 sedan in 300 form and Galaxie in 2dr... might be able to fab posts and move/add door handles to make the galaxie a 4dr sedan. again, lots of cool stuff there. thanks for the lead.

1962 falcon 2 door sedan 1959 ford galaxie 4 door sedan 1961 ford unibody pickup 1965 english ford cortina or lotus transkits for 1953 ford to build post sedan instead of hardtop?

revell's instructions (as did most i think) mentioned swageing movable joints; in my hasty days of youth i usually swaged it SOLID so it was as good as glued anyway! i remember looking at the Ertl big truck kits and thinking they'd be cool since they had steering front wheels and were made to roll almost like promo models. i recently built the repop scout kit; it was a fun build and although simplified a la '80's monogram it was nicely molded. IIRC; ertl had several version of the scout available.

i get no images.... just text. grrrrr. i kill (slaughter?) a little time on forum at work because i'm too busy at home working on big and little cars to go online. grrrrr. i'd love to see this one especially.

i also remember the auto world "hot knife" ! it probably ruined ten times as many models as it helped. and severely burned those youngsters unlucky enough to convince their parents to buy them one! i remember reading a "how-to" that made a point of the fact that in order to make opening doors, etc, you had to have one model to cut the door openings INTO and another to cut the doors FROM since the hot knife melted down the edges of the cut edge. learning how to scribe away those door panels made SUCH a difference in how i built models. on a different note, i recall reading in a military model mag about builders who welded parts together with a needletip soldering iron. not metal models; mind you, but plain plastic kits!

way WAY back in the day... there was a toy(?) called spinwelder and it was a large model car you put together by melting plastic rods (spin welding) to hold the parts together... the attraction was that it was like a demo derby car; and you could wreck it and rebuild it. i don't think it lasted more than a year on the store shelves, and at that time i wasn't into model cars that much, so i am really stretching back if i'm thinking it was a petty nascar charger that was the feature car? i'm not confusing this with the old ssp demo derby cars, either, they were "pre-wrecked" and not "stock" cars. once you lost all the loose parts, they pretty much lost any interest anyway.

they acc glue to put them on, they have a solvent to take them off. i think it's really just acetone with perfume in it. is the trim plated metal or plastic? if it's plastic i'd do the freezer thing first, knowing acetone's appetite for plastic.

again; i work mostly with AMT stuff but in the old days the kit box or the instructions called out what the extra engine was and what the brand name was for most of the PROTOTYPICAL speed equipment. my emphasis because some kits had "engineered" speed equipment that never saw metal. i save old instruction sheets/books for this reason; not one new kit has decent instructions in it. the spreadsheets would be great if you also gave a level of accuracy or interchangeability but i wouldn't know where to begin with that, so don't consider it a challenge!

the movie with Jim Belushi as the guy who missed the home run and got a chance to live his life as if he had gotten his break: there's a recurring scene where he's building an AMT mercedes 300sl and part of the fun for him is being able to pick it up and look at it as it goes together; later on in the "success" version of his life, he has a real one in his garage, but he CAN'T pick it up and look at it! other than that, i don't know of any movie that has much in it about models, other than maybe "the efficiency expert" with anthony hopkins as the title character going in to a new zealand (???) factory town to clean shopand lay off a bunch of workers only to get caught up in their only pastime which is slot car racing? perhaps the biggest difficulty is maintaining continuity during production; if they had to reshoot a scene and it was obvious that the character had already completed a step, or they skipped steps too obviously, it would complicate production just that much more and be too much burden. it is a shame that more recognition of the hobby isn't forthcoming in the media; we don't have bench-clearing brawls at our shows and our "celebrity" members don't share exposure on national TV with the FBI's ten most wanted!

i can't see yer pictures fer some reason (my server no doubt) but if yer using the amt kit axles, i've done some lowering by slicing off the top of the front spring where it fits into the crossmember and relieving the crossmember a bit, also doing the same at the rear (not usually due to looking for california rake) for a lakes look to the car.

do these have any engine details? i 9-5 for VW and like to have some bling in the dealership showcase if they're accurate (ish) and not too much $$$...

how many of us build one particular model because we know it so well we could build it in the dark? so familiar that we can tell what year it was issued by the amount of flash or what parts the molders took out or put back? me, i'm a sucker for the AMT 49 ford... long out of production, so i switched to the 49 mercury. i must have thirty or more 49-50 ford coupes and convertibles in myriad configurations. from opening the box to putting the plates on, one of these never takes more than a week if box stock and the paint goes on right. now; the reason i NEED therapy models... i built a replica of my 1:1 1978 mustang II rallye using the AMT 77 MII kit. first; the model on the box ISN'T the AMT version, it's the MPC mold. the MPC mold has detailed but crude front suspension. AMT's has NADA. second; the styled steel wheels are AWOL; my car didn;t have them anyway but what's on the box oughta be IN the box... the engine is crude and inaccurate (again, not correct for my v8 car anyway) but why this lump of plastic when they had an EXCELLENT essex v6 in the CapriII kit? fabbed up my own "targa" bar and t-tops for it, and used parts box slotted mags to simulate the forged aluminum wheels. basically a curbside kit now, due to utter lack of detail underneath.

when i were a young-un, mom and dad splurged on models at christmas because the stores were trying to clear the shelves before new years' inventory... most of them weren't even wrapped because they'd bought them late on christmas eve! my friends at school derided me for "playing with cars" at my age (15-18) so i tended to keep to myself with the hobby. once, on the school bus, i was sitting next to a younger kid who was carrying a model to school, and ended up talking to him about it, and the next day GAVE him boxes of spare parts. i gave up on them for about three years while i was in the navy, but back stateside i picked it back up. THAT was 20+ years ago. i've sold a bunch, traded a bunch, trashed a bunch, and still got a closet full of "projects" waiting for completion.

"hi!" being a long-time modeler i JUMP at the chance to share with fellow plastic crafters... like my sig says; i'm a ford freak but i build almost anything. i'm a sucker for '50's and '60's cars, and flat chassis do not pose a problem to me. got a closet full of "nearly there" models, and boxes full of "finished" ones. expect me on the tips forum soon. i have some tricks i've saved up.