Tom Geiger

Wow! I'd love to have one of those. Classic Mopar from the forgotten era!

Logical manufacturer for a new kit would be Revell since they just did the '57 new tool and they're known for getting multiple cars out of their new tools! Crossing them fingers!

And this box too! I forgot I had this but this is the box art car for that issue. The color was retouched on the box art. I bought the car at the GSL auction many years ago. Note that box art cars are built without glass. This one also has gray painted into the tire tread so it will show up in photos.

I cut way back because I realized I really wasn't reading the titles I was marginally interested in, or just scanning them. It wasn't uncommon for me to find a months old magazine I hadn't read. And they pile up since it's sacrilegious to throw out a car magazine! Just too much clutter!

Very nice work! Very creative and unique! I enjoyed coming along for the ride!

A bit of caution. I've been a CAD user since 1981, and drawing on a system is second nature to me. I can concentrate on my design without thinking about the system commands and such. I wouldn't draw on paper today. My application has been architectural design, and I had most recently been using AutoCAD Lite (a $2000 program) professionally. Here's the deal. CAD is a profession. You aren't going to load in a free drafting program and crank out model parts. It's like buying and mastering a lathe. There's a real education to be learned and you must be very serious about it. Someone like Frank already had the professional knowledge and has adapted it to creating some really cool wheels. My own work has been architectural layout so there would also be a long learning curve for me to master 3D mechanical design. I always considered the first rule of CAD to be never to draw what you can copy. If you down load a program and try to draw model parts, such as wheels, from scratch, there's a lot to be considered. Systems allow you to work in full size and then scale down your work. So you would need to put the wheels dimensions into the program very accurately. Then you would scale your 3D drawing down to 1/25 scale. You'd have to adjust material thicknesses to work in scale, the actual thickness of car parts reduced 25 times would be like tin foil and would crush the minute you touched it, if it printed at all. After that, you'd need to measure off tire candidates and make the rim so that it would allow for mounting. This is pretty much the same job that a professional designing a tool for Revell goes through. Eventually a program that will allow you to create parts at a reasonable cost will emerge as the standard in the car modeling community. A cottage industry will grow that will sell you CAD files that you can use to start your own design. For instance Frank could sell his work on wheels that you could load in and start designing your own wheel center, knowing that he has already worked it to fit on a specific rim etc. Essentially the same as hollowing out a kit wheel and carving your own center. Most of us will need to wait a long while for this market to mature to this point.

David, I love your Hummer conversions! Very cool work!

A quick trip to Wally's found this interesting Motormax duo. It was the last one they had and was $19. The '66 Chevy pickup is one we don't have in plastic right now, so it's interesting. The details and painting are fairly nice. It would come apart with a few screws to detail out the engine bay and interior. The bed on it is plastic. I bought it for the camper unit. It's plastic so we can do a lot with it. It's different than the Open Road camper and I'm not sure if it's a replica of an actual camper or generic. It doesn't have an interior, the windows are solid plastic. As you can see in the last photo, it comes apart with 6 screws so once we hollow out all the screw posts we can either use the interior from the Open Road camper or scratch build our own. I've been on this camper kick lately so I'm likely to scratch build an interior for this.

Here's another photo of the pin method. Look at the two mirrors. They are both just sitting on straight pins in this photo. I drilled the holes prior to paint to avoid mishap with my paint job. If you look through the interior, you can see the pin on the passenger side. Once you figure out the length, just clip the straight pin down to size. Then you can glue it from inside the body. No chance of glue showing on your paint job! I do this with door handles too. And they'll never ever accidently come off! In fact on this model I never did glue the pins. They're just holding the mirrors in place. This truck was the box art model for the Model King '79 Ford pickup kit. I was afraid that the mirrors and other accessories would fall off while being mailed around, so I left them off for the photographer to put on for the photo shoot. Also I wasn't sure what accessories they'd want to photograph so every thing can go on or off. The front brush bar is on pins and the bed cover is just sitting in place. Note that the mirror isn't on in this photo. And here it is with the roll bar pinned into the bed. See the mirror is in place in this photo.

Tom C has the fastbacks cast and shipped. I saw photos on another site.

Putting it in perspective. It looks much more real zoomed in. Superb Job Jim! It was fun to be along for the ride.

I subscribe to Scale Auto but have been picking Model Cars up at the local hobby shop. I need to subscribe! My subscription lapsed a while back. I seldom buy a magazine at a store any more. I have gotten Vintage Truck for at least 15 years, starting back when it was called This Old Truck. I love Hemmings Classic Car. Those are the two must haves for me, I also got a bunch of auto titles that sent me subscription deals for $10 a year. Popular Hot Rodding is one, I can't remember titles on the others. Just weren't worth getting at any price so I let them lapse.

Try Googling "Doll House Miniatures". One of the good sites is Jim's Dollhouse Pages http://www.printmini.com/printables Doll houses are 1/12 scale, but there are also what they call "Half Scale" dollhouses and that's 1/24. Jim's site gives you the option of printing for either. You can also make your own stuff. It's really easy with the tools we have today. Digital cameras, photo manipulation software and color printers... I made everything in this picture. The box is made from 60 lb card stock I ran through my printer. The mail is just bits of paper in different colors folded to look like envelopes. The cigarette pack was printed on my printer, just the front of a Marlboro box and reduced down until it was the right size. I mounted it on a bit of Evergreen plastic to give it depth and I continued the red onto the side with a Sharpie.

I always look at eBay Motors first when I'm looking for reference photos. Some people will post a huge amount of photos that are perfect for build details. This week there were no '76 Caprices for sale. Then go to Google Images. There are literally 100s of photos that came up including the one above. Click on an image you like and it may lead you to a web page about the car that will have more info.

One of the pros showed me how he built his models. He designed the entire thing to assemble by pin or press fit. He then could assemble the entire model and then take it apart to paint all the parts. I do a lot of this now, note how this engine goes together. As an additional benefit, once you glue it together with bits of straight pin, it's not falling apart!

Like Charlie I liked the Plasti-kote primer, but since the supply has disappeared in my area, I've gone to Duplicolor. I like the primer gray, DS-39 in the short can, the primer gray in the tall can is the same. The local Ollies had a ton of Duplicolor last year at a buck a can. I bought all the primer, clear and primary colors!

Welcome to the board. Respect the person who doesn't have perfect English because it means he speaks TWO languages!

Rodney, those are pretty cool builds off the Suzuki! I'll be watching if you post their progress! Here's a Suzuki my daughter and I built together when she was a kid. Back when I got the Geo Tracker new she was all excited and into it. She asked if we could build a model of it. The Escudo kit wasn't out yet but I had this one. So we built it in the colors of my Tracker which satisfied her. A modeler friend of mine was also a jeweler and he engraved the little plates for her. That really made her day!

I like this project a whole lot. The building would also make a decent old time garage with some Model Ts hanging around. I agree with the dimensions etc posted here. I'd start with a scale sketch of the front, based on the size assumptions posted. It would be helpful to have a 1/25 scale ruler so you don't have to convert dimensions. Once you have established a proportion scale from the doors, it will help you determine the rise of the roof (the front peak) and the size of the upstairs windows. From the two photos it appears that all the windows (except for the side basement one) are the same size. So once you know that size, you can plot out the length of the side from that window placement. Also, note that in the front photo you can see straight through the second floor and there is a window on the back. So I'd assume the same window pattern on the other side, and the upstairs of the back. There would be no back or side door from the first floor due to the slope. But somewhere there would be an entry to the basement. If I still had access to AutoCad, I'd do a quick sketch in scale for you, just out of my own curiosity. Good luck with this project, we'll all be watching!

Yes, send that body off to Jimmy Flintstone. I'll bet he sells a ton of them!

Yes. I primer everything. Primer is a good last check for imperfections on your parts prior to your final paint coat. It's also necessary to protect the plastic if you use automotive lacquers like Duplicolor. I use a lot of those. The only time I don't use primer is on small bits that are being painted black or flat black like starters or wheel backs.

The most visible thing would be the valve cover. The 1950 engine has the classic two bolts in the center, while the 1955 onward engine has the modern style of the valve cover having the bolts around the perimeter. It also has the Chevrolet script the length of it . I've seen a lot of models done with the earlier engine and it's immediately apparent..

I don't know the sump location, but the '50 engine is wrong for the '57. The engine in the '60 pickup kit would be appropriate. The 8 cylinder radiator is on the inside of the radiator support panel (as is the kit) but on the outside for a six to accommodate the extra length of the engine. And if you are working on the '57 Chevy car, you need the special snorkel type air cleaner. Ken Kitchen, Kitchen Table Resins makes that part.

I'd be in for a resin copy! I had a '78 LTD II and put over 200,000 miles on it before selling it as a good running car. The guy who bought it never asked about mileage so he probably thought it had 100,000 on it. I saw it on the road a few years later. The best part about having this car was that the New Jersey State Police used them. I could cruise up the Parkway in the fast lane and everyone would get out of my way!

Here's mine that started life as a kid started glue bomb, currently be redone as a truck