mr moto

I still have a set of '57 T-Bird upholstery stickers around somewhere. Maybe I can get a picture posted later. The whitewall stickers came into being as a short term solution because the whitewall paint AMT used was found to contain lead.

Doctors don't know everything about life!

Not sure but I think that "pebbly finish" is just printed on the packaging and is not on the sheets.

I like to build period kustoms and to me they require stylish steering wheels like many early 60's Mopars had. Since Modelhaus went away I don't know of any source for those '60/'61 Dodge/Plymouth/Imperial wheels. Is anybody casting these right now?

Revell/Monogram 1959 Cadillac.

I had one of those when it was first issued. It was a lot more fun if you hooked it up to the blower port of a vacuum cleaner instead of personally blowing through the tube but it still got old before too long. It could probably be made into some kind of a futuristic kustom and be more fun!

You can try contacting them at modelhaustires@gmail.com. Can't guarantee that it still works but that was their E-mail at one time.

Model Car Garage has a photoetched version.

Another suggestion for the muffler situation is to tightly wrap it with a narrow strip of masking tape a few inches long or clamp it in a hobby vise to hold it together while you drill.

Absolutely.

Plastruct plastic-weld is MEK. The Bondene is methyl chloride as is Flexifile. Some others are acetone based. They all work but have various advantages and disadvantages. For instance, if you use the Flexifile Touch n Flow applicator you can expect the MEK based glues to clog it up. They all work pretty well on styrene but some work better on other plastics such as ABS.

My choice also. It's shiny and stays straight unless you deliberately bend it.

Not too many to show and an odd lot for sure but a good year overall. Here they are and not necessarily in any order. 1927 Model T Phaeton: The Bugsport Avanti: Rolls Royce Silver Cloud: Jaguar XK-120 (1/72 scale) 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk: Thank you to everybody for looking and supporting my efforts this year past. May you all have a great 2022 in every way.

Maybe a set of 1/32 seats is just what it needs.

Thanks for those photo tips, Peter. And huge thanks to everyone who has commented on this build. I think the main thing my photo setup needs is more light. As Pete commented they're underexposed. I going to be looking for some kind of positionable light - maybe something that will clip onto the chair. The one overhead fixture just isn't bright enough for this use. The door lines haven't been highlighted with anything at all. I never have liked the look of putting a wash in the panel lines, etc. Just make sure the lines are deep and sharp enough before painting. The window tint is described in the WIP thread. It's very simple - just a mix of decanted Testors transparent enamels. The recipe is the WIP. But I realize that I left out two things that may be important to the overall result. 1: I give the windows a short soak in Super Clean before painting - maybe 20 minutes - to remove whatever release agent or other gunk might be on there. 2: After they're tinted I dip them in Future. Now you know all my secrets! Pete, what did you use to improve my photo?

Wow! Those do look real! That's great work.

Has anyone been in contact with BMF lately? I placed an order for BMF chrome at the end of October and shortly after that their website started showing "out of stock" . I recently noticed that the site shows "In Stock" again so I've been trying to contact them to get the status on my order. None of my attempts by e-mail or phone has gotten any kind of response. Phone calls haven't gone through at all. What's your experience?

It's some of each plus a dollop of scratch building. The body is from R&R Resin but I re-mastered the hood and front bumper/grill assembly and did other needed mods also. You can check out the link to the workbench thread in one of the previous threads and get more details.

I don't know about availability in a kit but the vee angle is 65 deg. Good luck!

We may be outnumbered but I have some ammo socked away for future use!

Thank you for the suggestion! I'll add that link. And thank you to everyone for the nice words about my work. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/165044-1956-studebaker-golden-hawk-56j/

What to say? This one's a sort of holy grail (really, any Studebaker Hawk is) and it took me 10 years (not continuous!) and it's been a struggle most of the way but it all feels good now! It's decked out in the most mid 50's color scheme possible and certainly the most poetically named. Sunglow and Yellowstone. These low contrast, subtle two-tones made a big splash in the mid 50's but have disappeared ever since. The car itself was one of the first to use what became the classic muscle car formula of "stick a big engine in a car that was intended for a smaller engine". It has a 352 inch "Sky Power" that was intended for use in Packards. In a 1956 comparison test, Speed Age magazine declared it the fastest American "sports car". It was up against Corvette, Thunderbird and Chrysler 300B. Anyway, here it is and I hope you like. Photos came out kind of fuzzy. I'll have to work on that in the future. See hi-tech photo booth below.

Today's Adventure: Final Assembly or "Don't Worry, It'll Buff Right Out!" As usual for me, final assembly became an adventure in damage control. I really need to figure out damage prevention! But in the end, things have turned out pretty well. Progress has been slow with not a lot of time at the bench and I haven't really been pausing to take pictures very much while working but here are a few "highlights". I added a very minor detail but one that I thought was necessary - windshield washer nozzles. Since I went through the trouble of adding the reservoir (just a bag in those days) for the optional washer I had better include the nozzles! These are just some very small styrene rod inserted from below into pre-drilled holes. Push them up to the right height, glue and trim from below. Here's another one that I liked doing. The hood support rod can be raised and lowered like the real thing and even has a little bracket to rest in when it's down. I tinted the windows with a mix of decanted Testors transparent blue and green. The recipe is 4 parts green, 1 part blue and 5 parts thinner. Since I was using decanted paint, it was already thin spray without that extra thinner but it helps with preventing too dark a tint. I always mask off the outside of the "glass" a light colored tape so I can tell how dark the tint has gotten - don't use the blue tape or you can't tell. The lower one in the picture is before tint and the upper one is after. Foiling was complicated by the current unavailability of good bare metal foil. I have some new foil ordered but there's no telling when they'll be shipping again or how the foil will be. I ended up piecing the job together from the remnants of old sheets. It worked but not the finest job ever. I never have been able to get a good foil job on the narrow pieces at the back of the vents so I just brush paint them with a little Molotov. Now it was time to attach the hood but not before I managed to do this. I pieced it back together with a reinforcement and then attached it to the body by installing some tiny pins (Hobby Lobby sewing dept.) as retainers. You can see in this photo just how rough a resin body I started out with. In hindsight, I should have gotten the inside just as smooth as the outside at the beginning of things. Here's a couple of pictures of assembly and finishing bloopers. These don't even show half of the story but it'd hard to stop and shoot photos in the middle of stressful damage discoveries. The Molotov smears on the paint did buff out just fine.! The rear view mirror needed a very fine wire pin installed to hold it together but so far, so good. Like I said these are just a few among many but things have worked out a pretty good conclusion. I'll be posting in Under Glass later when I get a little more time. Thanks for looking and even more thanks for all the appreciation!!

Great build. The color looks terrific and I'm pretty sure that if you flash the cash Ferrari will paint your car any color you like.

What a crazy idea!! I love it! And your work is superb. Totally cool. Totally great.