Harry P.

Amen to that! When I was a kid, I was totally into funny cars, because on the surface, at least, they looked like the cars they were "supposed" to be. Today's FC bodies all look exactly alike, and nothing like a "real" car. Ditto NASCAR. I agree with you, all the personality has been stripped away, and all the cars are now generic "speed devices," one no different from the other.

Only if I bend it!

You could use solder for the pipes, and scratchbuild the mufflers out of styrene.

Transmission so far... handbrake linkage has a spring-loaded return function, same with the pedals (not all installed yet). I cut off the molded-in release button on the handbrake handle and replaced it with a pin for a little more realism. Easier to do that than to try and paint the molded-in button silver.

Are you talking about someone taking your scan and re-creating or touching up the decals electronically? If so, I can do that.

An "every day driver" lowrider??? P.S. Chuck–bring back scary guy! I miss him!

I can see why the car needs to be towed... it has no ignition wires! Just kidding... your weathering looks great, the rust is incredibly realistic. Nice work!

I'm just messin' with you... Although to me, pizza and beer go together like Abbott and Costello... or milk and cookies... or peanut butter and jelly... or... well, you get the picture!

Your details are great, but I have to wonder about the "chopped off" garage... it's a shame you didn't do the whole front end of the garage.

What are you, some sort of communist???

I agree... very nice work. Your detail parts really make the difference!

Hey! A review without photos is like... well, you know... pizza without beer!

Hmmmmmm... for a lowrider, it's not riding all that low...

Just call and ask for a new card... they'll send you one.

Send me a PM with your email address.

I think that the entire flange that's molded in place there is actually part of the intake and exhaust manifolds in "real life," so I'm going to paint it silver (bolt heads too). As far as the RR chassis color... almost all of the photos I found showed the chassis to be painted to match the main body color... in my case the dark red you see here. (Body will be 2-tone, dark red and ivory). Not a factory stock color, but with RR, since pretty much anything goes on those cars, is there actually such a thing as a "factory stock" color? From all I've read, the customer could have had any color they wanted. On the RR kit, the biggest pain was painting all the dozens of metal fittings, linkages, levers and rods to match the chassis color. That's the way they are in the photos... most all of the little mechanical gizmos are chassis color.

Operable brakes in theory. Not so much in reality. The problem is, no matter how carefully you build the braking system, there are just too many bits and pieces, each one with too much "slop" in the connections. There's really no way to build the brakes with the kit-supplied parts and have them really work... there's just too much slack in the system after it's all together. The only way to make the brakes work would be to replace all the kit supplied connectors and links with machined pieces that had much tighter tolerances. A whole lot of work and time for an end result that's basically invisible on the finished model. Again, way too much for me to ever bother with. Besides, this particular model does not have the operating brakes, so I won't have to worry about it... My Rolls, though (under construction) does have "operable" brakes... but I gave up on that idea a long time ago! I put the system together per the instructions, but there's no way it would ever really work using the kit parts. But all those rods, levers and linkages sure look impressive!

Never oil plastic parts! Lesson learned on your part, I think... As far as detailing bolt heads with paint, you have to remember that a lot of the assemblies on the real car would have been bolted together and painted afterwards, so the bolt heads in many cases should be the same color as the parts they're "holding together." You need a lot of good reference photos if you're going to go to that level of detail. That's a little too much detail for me!

A little reminder once in awhile doesn't hurt. So consider this to have been a little reminder!

Not really. Once the model is finished, access to most of the fasteners is hidden or obstructed. It would be a major hassle to take off the valve cover, for instance. The hood and radiator support rods would be in the way. That's why I'm taking photos... so I can prove that stuff is really in there! Here are the parts for the valvetrain... before... ...and after:

The engineering of a Pocher kit sometimes results in obvious inaccuracies. For example, the left and right halves of the cylinder head are held together by three screws. These screws would not be on the real thing... so after I built the head I used some Bondo 2-part glazing putty to cover the exposed screw heads. There are a lot of instances where fasteners are used in places where the real car would not have any, like to attach the muffler halves together. In most cases the screw heads won't be seen on the finished model, so it doesn't matter (for example, the screw heads on the mufflers are on the top side, the side facing the floorboard), but this is one of the most visible spots, so I fixed it.

Parts fit of Pocher kits is iffy. In fact, a big chunk of building time is taken up by prepping each part. You have to make sure everything fits, which it sometimes doesn't. Minor sanding, trimming, and general finessing of most parts is required before they'll fit the way they're supposed to fit. For example, all mating surfaces have to be leveled and smoothed to make sure there will be a tight seam, like on these two timing case halves. A poor fit between two mating parts could throw off the fit of subsequent parts down the line. I like to use an open-mesh sanding sheet, laid flat on the work surface (these sheets are actually meant for sanding drywall joint compound)... I run the mating surfaces of the parts back and forth across the sheet until smooth, then finish up with 400 grit sandpaper. The sanding sponge, with different grits on each surface, is perfect for sanding rounded parts because it has just the right "give" to it when sanding those types of parts. Great for removing mold seams from exhaust pipes and things like that. Minor blemishes like the sink marks on these mufflers are easily taken care of with Bondo two-part catalyzed glazing putty. To speed things up a little and make my life easier, I like to first build subassemblies that will all be the same color, then paint them as a unit. Much faster and easier than trying to paint each separate part and then assemble them. Here the supercharger, carb and related tubes and pipes were built as a unit... same with the transmission... then they'll both be painted silver before the final detail parts like linkages and such are attached. One of the pins on the transmission had broken off, so I drilled out a hole and replaced the missing pin with a short length of heavy copper wire (household electrical wiring).

Think about it: Your real name is everywhere. Your real name is on record with the government and Social Security, the IRS, your voter's registration, your landlord or the bank that holds your mortgage, your credit cards, your employer, your doctor, even the video store... everywhere! Every time you buy something at any store with a credit card, your real name goes on record. Every time! If someone wants your real name, there are a million places where it can be found with absolutely no problem. Nobody is going to "steal" your identity because they saw your real name here! It's already all over the place anyway!

What does the magazine have to do with this?

I guess your first name only is better than nothing... but we really mean your whole name.