Harry P.

No problem, I moved it for you.

A beautiful model of a beautiful car! Your attention to detail is outstanding. Nicely done.

I can answer for Jürgen, that's an Entex plastic kit.

I just grabbed that photo off the internet, that's not really my kit box (although it looks exactly like it). Actually I paid $20 for the kit on ebay.

Wow.... you're a really, really small guy! But seriously, folks... that looks pretty cool!

Unlike the painted wheels on the car in the photo above, I wanted to go with varnished wooden wheels, like on this Model 14: To get that look, I first brush painted the wheels with acrylic craft paint "Ochre," then when dry, I just dipped each wheel into the can of "Golden Mahogany" wood stain. No brushing, no muss, no fuss... just literally dipped the wheel into the stain, took it out, dabbed off the excess with a paper towel, and let it dry. It gave me what I think looks like a pretty realistic wooden wheel, and the gloss level of the dried stain looks right to me. No further work needed! All I had to do was paint the wheel centers to match the chassis, and done! The kit tires are a nice soft vinyl, in white, which look cool on the wooden rims:

Yes.

Same as the box art... dark green chassis/fenders, ivory body.

Look on the bright side: Instant collector's item! Do you know how much the old airmail stamp with the inverted Jenny airplane on it goes for? Hold on to this issue and maybe it'll send your kids to college one day!

That turned out very nicely! Great details, and I also like the use of mesh. Nice work.

Cool!

Wow... lows in the 20s has to be very strange for Florida. What happened to "global warming?"

As usual, I'm not following the instruction sheet building sequence. I like to skip around and build a model my way, for some reason. So I started out with the front axle. No real reason, I just decided that's where I'm going to start! I want posable steering, so the first order of business is to remove the molded-in front spindles from the axle. The way they are molded in place, there's really no way to cut them away and save them for reuse, so I just cut them away and used a grinding bit in my Dremel to finish the job. Once I had the spindles out of the way, I drilled a vertical hole in the axle to accommodate a length of brass rod that will serve as the pivot for the new scratchbuilt replacement spindles, which I made of styrene rod and tubing. Here's the axle with the new spindles installed. The brass rods will be filed flush: As you can see in the above photo, the kit's tie rod can't be used as is in a posable steering setup, so I cut it apart and drilled small holes in the spindle arms: Then I glued the spindle arms onto the scratchbuilt spindles, and rebuilt the tie rod with new ends that allow for posable steering: Presto! Posable steering!

This time I'll be building a very unique Buick, the 1911 "Buggyabout." The kit is pretty nicely detailed, with full engine and chassis detail. This is the 1/16 scale kit I'm working with, molded in dark green, ivory, clear and brass plated: The reason that it's a unique Buick is that it is a very small, very basic, and very stripped-down car, quite unlike the luxury image Buick was pushing back then. No windshield, no doors, no top, the bare-bones basic Buggyabout was "powered" (and I use the word "powered" very loosely! ) by a tiny 127 c.i. horizontally-oppsed two-cylinder engine! The engine was good for 14 HP (hence the "Model 14" designation). The hood had bulges on the sides to accommodate the cylinders. The rear wheels were chain driven. The Model 14 was introduced late in 1910, and it was priced to compete directly with the Model T. The 1911 model (named the Model 14B) was basically unchanged except for the gas tank, which was moved from under the seat to behind the seat on the rear deck. (Note that the kit is mislabeled... it has no visible gas tank, and therefore actually represents the 1910 Model 14 with the gas tank mounted under the seat and not the 1911 Model 14B with the external gas tank on the rear deck). Here's a real one... The Buick Model 14/14B never really caught on, and didn't exactly fit Buick's intended image of "premium motorcars." After a little more than 3,000 had been built, the Model 14 was killed off in 1911. It remains one of the smallest Buicks ever built, and the only Buick ever to be powered by a two-cylinder engine.

It does. Actually the kit is pretty well detailed, including full engine and chassis details. A real step above the typical Minicraft kits I've been dealing with (De Dion, Benz Motorkutsche).

Correct!

This week's car is a Metz Model 22, built from 1912-14 in Waltham, Mass. Who got it right: Badluck 13 Agent G sjordan2 customsrus MikeMc Don W george53 Chris R

Wear a modeling helmet while you build and you'll be ok...

Aurora 1/16 scale 1911 Buick Model 14B. It's already well underway with photos taken... just haven't started the WIP yet.

Wow... that's a big bump. More than six years...

That's really nice! Do you remember if the pinstriping on the wheels was a decal or did you do that by hand?

I might just do that.

I don't think that license is valid unless the National Rivet Counters Association signs off on it...

Once the baby arrives, get ready to not sleep for the next several months... My wife and I had three. Raising kids is at the same time the hardest, and most satisfying job you'll ever have.

Hemmings puts out some very fine magazines. I've subscribed to both "Classic Car" and "Muscle Machines" from the beginning, and "Collectible Cars" before that... back when it was in black and white. Aside from the fantastic articles, "Classic Car" and "Muscle Machines" are both a terrific source of reference photos.