Harry P.

Another scary moment overcome.... The kit glass is thick... too thick to be in scale, IMO, so I replaced it with thinner, crystal clear Lexan, as I usually do. The problem is that there is almost no gluing area here... the glass sits in the frame with just the tiniest amount of it fitting into a very tiny recess on the back side of the frame. To make matters worse, when I was test-fitting the frame to the cowl, I saw that the frame must be distorted and bent a little in order to fit tightly against the cowl. There was no way I could cut and install the glass into the frame first, and then glue the glass/frame as a unit to the cowl, because then the frame would have had gaps where it meets the cowl. The frame had to be distorted a bit when glued in place, which alters the size/shape of the glass openings. And because the glue area for each glass pane is maybe 1/32 inch along the edges, if that, there was no room for error. So I had to glue the frame in place first... center post and wait for the cement to dry, then one side post, then the other... forcing the frame to follow the curves of the cowl. Then, once I had the final openings for the glass defined, I cut the Lexan to fit and glued it in using the tiniest drops of liquid cement possible.

The mesh on that site you linked to that looks the closest to being in scale goes for $45. No way I'm going to spend almost 50 bucks on some mesh. And the mesh in your photo isn't square, even if laid to be that way, and is way too big. I'm going to try a google search for PE mesh, but if I can't find something workable I'll just use the inserts in the kit.

Did you see the prices on this stuff? No thanks...

At this scale it's really not worth the bother. The "mesh" would be practically invisible. I'll just use the molded kit pieces.

Looking at the size of the mesh on the real car, I would need an incredibly fine mesh to be in scale. Almost doesn't seem worth the bother to try to use "real" mesh at this scale.

I don't see anything wrong with that (other than the engine block color). Beautiful!

I'd rate this kit fairly low. On a scale of 1-10, I'd say 4 or 5. Parts fit is basically good, but there's a "roughness" to the parts on the chrome trees... like the tooling wasn't mirror-smooth. There are scratches and irregularities on almost all the chrome parts (under the plating, the plating itself was not damaged). Luckily, not the grille shell and headlights, those are ok, but on almost all the other chrome parts there are imperfections of one kind or another. Oddly enough, the white plastic parts look fine as far as that goes. There's a fair mount of flash and mold misalignment on most parts... probably due to the age of the tooling. Every part took a lot of cleanup before I could use it, and I hate that part of model building. I really don't like having to spends endless hours making the kit parts look the way the manufacturer should have made them look in the first place. I would guess that the time I've spent cleaning up parts is greater than the time spent actually painting and building, I don't think I could honestly recommend this kit to anyone unless they were a die-hard MB fan and just absolutely had to have it. The Monogram and Johan kits of the classics are light years ahead of this kit as far as quality goes. But since the largest group of my "classics" is 1/16 scale, this one was a "must have" for me... so I'm trying to make the best of a sub-par kit. Despite the kit's shortcomings, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. But anyone thinking of building this kit better be prepared to put the work into it needed to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Got the rear bumper and taillights installed. The bumpers were attached to the sprues at their ends, so I had to sand the ends smooth and apply BMF to "rechrome" them. I googled "1936 license plate" and imported one I liked into PS, sized it, and printed it out (I wanted a US plate and not a Euro one). Also scratchbuilt what I think is the ashtray, at the top center of the dash. I'm not sure it's an ashtray, but since there are none in the door panels, and since I can't think of anything else it could possibly be, and since it looks in my reference photos to have a chrome plated lid, my guess is that's what it is.

Beautiful!

You should delete all the duplicates.

No, I was just wondering. I had never seen either of the two photos you posted earlier, and I've done a lot of googling on the subject.

Well, I managed to fix all of my mishaps from yesterday. Got the radiator tank reglued, made the new radiator support rods and installed them, got the dash reglued and the steering wheel/column installed...

Skip, where are you finding those great detail photos?

Remember... don't post any hints or answers here. PM me with year, make, and model. The answer: 1990-93 Vector W8

Wow1 You're psychic! BTW... I am soooooooooo tired of Tom Brady. I hope Seattle kicks the Pats' butts. Go NFC!

Bad Company, Rock and Roll Fantasy.

Boz Skaggs, Lido Shuffle.

"Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill"...

Foreigner, Feels Like the First Time?

So what's the deal with model car builders and bad hygiene? Seems to be a recurring theme in the posts I've read here, and a lot of you guys agree it's real. So... why do so may model car builders have such lousy personal hygiene?

That's the weird thing. She's actually a very good singer and doesn't need the "controversy" at all.

Nice job on one of the wackiest looking Mopars of all time...

Since my last photo posts I've had nothing but trouble. First... the braces that run between the radiator and the firewall are too short, so I had to make new ones using brass wire. While trying to finesse the rods into place, the radiator tank (that the braces attach to) broke off. Luckily I was able to finagle it back in there between the radiator shell and the fan without major hassle and reglue it. Then a much worse problem. As I was trying to feed the steering column through the dash and firewall, the dash fell off! Remember... at this point the body was already glued to the fender unit, and there was no way I could possibly get my hand into the interior and reglue the dash to the underside of the cowl, especially because that wooden trim piece that runs side to side at the base of the windshield was still in place and the dash had to go behind it. Finally I had a brilliant idea... first I had to remove that wooden trim strip (it snapped off pretty easily with no damage to it or the body). Then I took one of the shish kabob skewers that I use as "handles" for painting small parts and CA'd the pointed end into the hole in the dash where the steering column goes. Then, with that shish kabob skewer serving as a handle, I was able to maneuver the dash back in place and run some liquid glue between the dash top and the underside of the cowl. After the liquid cements sets up, I hope to be able to spin that skewer and snap the CA bond and remove it from the dash. I hope that will work... then reglue the wooden trim piece, and I'll be good to go. Just to be safe I'm going to let that reglued dash set up overnight, because it has to withstand the stress and stay glued in place when I try to snap that skewer out of the steering column hole.

Except the chrome trim on the tops of the doors and that thin strip across the body behind the seat.

ebay. If I can find a fine enough mesh. Maybe someone makes a suitable PE mesh... I'll have to check.