Harry P.

The body features inset panels of woven "cane." The kit parts are molded incorrectly... the "holes" in the pattern of woven cane are actually molded as raised dimples. But that's actually a good thing, because it makes detailing the panels easy. First I painted them a "cane" color, then carefully sanded the paint off the raised areas to reveal the black plastic. These panels would have looked much better as decals, but oh well...

Nicely done! The time you invested in this model was well worth it... it's a beauty!

The stuff kids are exposed to in video games make this look pretty harmless.

Update on my situation: Monday morning I will be going to the hospital to have a "mediport" implanted in my chest in preparation for chemo. It's a reusable "port" that is implanted under the skin and is connected internally via a short catheter to a vein; the point being that the IV chemo needle can be inserted into this port over and over again (it has some sort of self-healing "skin" on it), instead of having to stick me directly in a vein every time I undergo chemo or a blood test (constant blood tests are part of the chemo treatment). Once my chemo therapy ends, the port is removed and I'm technically none the worse for wear. I'm told this port is implanted under local anethesthetic–they don't put you under. That sort of freaks me out, but they assure me that's the way it's done. Yikes...

Beautifully done!

The seat comes with the sides as separate pieces, so I glues the seat parts together and reinforced the joints from behind with scrap styrene... Then I filled the gaps with Bondo and sanded everything smooth... And finally I sprayed the seal with gloss enamel, added a wood stain wash to emphasize the detail, and finished it off with a coat of satin clear. The seat is actually not as shiny in real life as it seems to be in this photo...

Wow! Scoring this kit for $41 is the steal of the century. I paid over $100 for mine and thought I had a good deal! Anyway... back to the model. Skipping around again as I always do, I built the firewall/dash/windshield. This kit features chrome-plated parts, not brass. My reference photos show the car with both brass and nickel-plated trim (depending on the year and who built the reproduction, I guess)... in this case I decided to stick with the nickel-plated look rather than brass. The hardest part of this assembly as installing the glass. The kit glass was all scratched up, so I made new pieces of thin clear sheet styrene. But the real trick was gluing the glass panes to the frame without any glue showing! It wasn't easy, but I did it... I glued the side lamp halves together, sanded the seams smooth, and used Spaz Stix on them.

Very similar.

Skill level 4? With 64 parts?

Correct!

You do realize those are all just made up, right?

The spoked wheels are made by mounting a rim and a hub into a special fixture supplied in the kit, then winding black nylon "thread" around the rim and hub in a specific pattern. It took me about 7-8 tries before I finally got the winding pattern down in my mind. Once you have the sequence memorized, it's actually pretty easy, and wheels 2 through 5 went a lot faster and easier than wheel 1. The hardest part (once you get that winding sequence clear in your head) is manipulating the fixture/rim and flipping it over and side to side with one hand while winding the thread and holding the spool in the other hand, and all the while keeping the thread under constant tension as you go, so that the "spokes" are nice and tight and straight, and not loose or saggy. It's not easy to do. Building the wheels is by far the hardest part of building this kit. Here is the basic setup... you put a rim and a hub into the two-piece fixture and screw the halves together, then begin to wind the thread around the rim... Once you finish winding the rim, you tie off the thread, then glue on a second, back side rim and wind the "spokes" around that one. But the winding pattern is much simpler, plus the hub is already being held centered in the wheel by the "spokes" from winding the first rim, so the fixture isn't needed to wind the "back side" spokes. Here you can see that back side rim before I wound the thread around it, and also the separate outer and inner "finishing rims" that get glued to the outside and inside of the wheel and hide the thread winding around the rim... Here you can see that "finishing rim" in place, and how it finishes off the face of the wheel...

That's cool!

Very nice. Now add a black wash to the wheels and improve the realism 100%.

Actually it's not Krylon, it's Rustoleum.

I don't see anything wrong with it. But then again, I don't believe in today's PC nonsense.

Love the sprue frame.

Or easier yet... just scratchbuild the thing out of styrene sheet. Forget vacu-forming it.

Thanks, guys. I'll keep on keeping on as long as I can!

Love that interior!

Those bumper guards front and back make this a '78 or '79... the '80 didn't have them anymore.

"This item is currently unavailable."

Thanks, Scott. I'm hanging in there. Soon to start chemotherapy.

Just a little embarrassing to make such a dopey mistake.

Shouldn't a free car come with free maintenance?