Harry P.

Remember, don't post any hints or answers here! PM me with specific year, make and model. The answer: 1952-58 Woodill Wildfire

Yeah, it's pretty black in there. Hard to get the interior lit. How's this?

Yes. I have a couple of reference photos that color (but with body-color fenders).

All the money I'm saving by not running the A/C, I'm spending on my gas bill to heat the house...

This time a 1904 Wolseley... a cute little British car. No detailed WIP this time, but for an explanation of what I did, there's more info here. I'm pleased with the results. Despite the problems described in the other thread, it actually turned out looking pretty good! Comments, critiques, and criticisms welcome...

Well, the little bugger is finished and walking the runway "Under Glass."

Speaking of "spring"... it's supposed to get down to 10 degrees tonight. It's March 23. Almost April.

Pretty nice... but the real car would have had chrome trim around the windows, chrome plated door handles, silver wipers, etc.

Well, maybe if you weren't so obsessive...

Ok... here's a little trick you would never have known about if I didn't show it to you, because after this point it'll never be seen again... I was getting ready to glue the seat/top to the body, so like a good little model builder I scraped the paint from the area that would get the cement. But I got to thinking that those two narrow ledges aren't very much surface area for the seat bottom to glue to... and besides, I didn't want any glue to ooze out at the joint. So I glued together a little stack of scrap wood pieces with Elmer's glue (they are actually parts of the wooden "sprue" from a laser-cut kit... I never throw anything away that might be useful somewhere down the road!)... made the stack to be at the exact same height as those little flanges when the stack was sitting on the floor pan of the model... spring-clamped it, and let the glue dry. Then I cut some grooves in the top of the stack in a criss-cross pattern with my Dremel and a cutting disc. Same deal on the bottom of the seat shell. Then I used CA to glue the stack of wood down into the body cavity. Now I have a nice, large surface area to epoxy the seat/top assembly to. And since there will be no epoxy applied to those little flanges at all, no danger of "squish out." The grooves I cut into the surface of the wood and the bottom of the seat shell will give the epoxy something to grip. Should be a very strong joint...

Opening the box was the easy part! Top has been installed onto the seat shell, top snaps installed, seat cushions installed. Now I have to make the top straps that hold the top tight when it's up, epoxy the seat/top assembly to the body, and connect those top straps. I should have this baby "Under Glass" this evening if all goes according to plan from here on out (would be nice!).

The kit is molded in red, black, and gray. The wheels are red plastic, all in one piece, so detailing them means paint detailing. First step was to paint the whole wheel acrylic ocher. When dry, I dipped the wheels into a can of Varathane "Oak" wood stain, blotted the excess, and let dry. The wood stain over the acrylic ocher gives a pretty good "wood" look. Then I painted the rims and wheel centers, and there ya go... There is no windshield in the kit, but I wanted one, so I built one out of basswood, stained and varnished, abd "brass" details made of styrene strip and thin aluminum sheet. The "bolt heads" are tiny drops of 5-minute epoxy that I painted brass. The "gasket" is Evergreen U-channel, and the "glass" is cut from a sheet of thin Lexan (actually left over from another kit). The windshields in my reference photos are all different styles, no two are alike. I assume there were several aftermarket sources for windshields back then, so mine is a generic "could have been" design: I also replaced the kit dash with a scratchbuilt one made of thin wood veneer... The radiator was sprayed silver, then the tube corners and ends detail painted, then the whole thing given a few coats of Future/black acrylic wash. And I added a few missing details. The hood hinges are carved from tiny pieces of styrene and "glued" in place with Future. The hood latch handle is a sewing pin with a collar made of aluminum tube, and all painted brass:

I decided to replace the kit's molded plastic top with something a little more realistic, so I scratchbuilt a top. The kit top was used to make templates, then the templates transferred to pieces of newspaper to create three separate top sections–the back side, the rear top piece, and the front top piece. The three pieces of newspaper were first painted with a mixture of water, white glue, and Future... to make the paper a little stronger and thicker. The top bows were made by bending brass rod to shape, and the pivot ends are styrene tube glued to the ends of the three top bows. Then I began attaching the paper pieces to the bows, starting with the back of the top to the rear bow... then the back edge of the rear top piece to the back side, the front edge of the rear section to the middle bow, the back edge of the front piece glued to the front of the rear section with about a 1/16" overlap, and finally the front edge of the front section wrapped around the front bow. Once the top was assembled, I painted it acrylic black inside and out. It doesn't really operate (the paper is too stiff to allow for that), but it looks like it could. I cut the kit seat apart, saving the sides and throwing out the rest. New seat and seatback cushions were made per my usual method, and everything got painted acrylic black. Once the side pieces were upholstered, I found that things were too tight when I tried to assemble all the pieces into the seat's outer shell... so I had to trim a little off the back edges of the side pieces. No problem, though... those trimmed edges will be hidden by the seatback cushion.

Making the smallest car!

I will, once I finish it.

Believe it or not, it's plain old Testors Gloss Black enamel, straight out of the can.

I agree with Peter. A pretty much flawless model, except the white lettering on the tires is way too close to the outer edge. It should be much closer to the wheel rim:

Oh yeah, I'll win in the end. But when I post it Under Glass, you'd never know the fits it gave me unless I pointed them out!

Bill's hobby shop was my hangout when I was a kid. But it wasn't on North Avenue, it was on Fullerton. Quite a different neighborhood today.

So I'm building a 1904 Wolseley. Cute little car, pretty obscure... but that's why I like it! This is the kit I'm dealing with: It's roughly on a par with the old Aurora kits I've posted before (Buick "Buggyabout," Stutz Bearcat, Rambler) as far as detail level, number of parts, etc. It's a curbside, but includes fully functional steering through the steering wheel... kind of an unexpected feature. Seems like a slam-dunk as I look over the parts... Bot nooooooooo! This thing has given me more trouble than a Pocher! I've had to tear apart the assembled rear axle/suspension because after following the instructions (in Chinese, with some very questionable English translations), problems cropped up along the way regarding parts alignment later in the assembly process. And the fenders don't line up correctly with the step plates (again, found that out too late!). And I also created my own headache by trying to be cute and replacing the molded plastic up-top with a scratchbuilt top that is more realistic, but created all sorts of fit/alignment problems. After breezing through that three-kit kitbash of the Stutz Bearcat, I figured this kit would be a total no-brainer. Boy, was I wrong! Further updates as they become available...

Ditto. Their parts are absolutely flawless. The best aftermarket stuff I have ever seen. And prices that reflect that. Super expensive, but worh the price, IMO.

I'm not sure that entering an IPMS event is the best idea for a guy just getting back into model building. It's sort of like a "weekend warrior" competing in the Olympics. The IPMS boys take their model building very seriously. Maybe a better idea to start out in a slightly less competitive arena, like a local hobby shop or club-sponsored contest.

That doesn't exactly help me any.

Yeah, but remember this... once you've built a Pocher, you've done the model car hobby equivalent of climbing Everest. You'll have an incredible feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Every other kit you build after will be like child's play. You will have conquered the mountain...