Ramfins59

Forgive me for this, but the solution to a cat problem, is to just not have a cat..!!

Harry, I can relate to your hassles with the door and windows. It totally sucks to have to disassemble parts of a model to fix a fit problem that shows up after everything is painted, detailed and assembled. I'm going through that right now with the '51 Chevy Fleetline Custom model that I put back in its box back in April. Although my model is in a smaller scale, the aggravation is no less annoying. Our perseverance ultimately wins out in the end, one way or another. Keep up your fine work.

Thank you very much Lee and Tom.

Thanks very much Cliff and Chris.

Thanks very much everyone, I appreciate all of your kind and encouraging comments.

John, you're doing some amazing and wonderful scratchbuilt details on this car. The finished product should be a real winner.

That's a great idea Steve. I'll have to remember that.

Isn't it great when you can score a "cheapie" on EBAY Steve?

Thanks a lot John. I'd been wanting to try clearing over Gray primer for awhile and I'm glad it worked out well.

Glad to hear that you are recovering, both physically and emotionally. I know how depression can affect you. I had a couple of TIA's or mild strokes back in June of 2000 and was really in a "blue funk" for quite awhile afterwards. A very dear friend reached into that dark hole and pulled me out and got me back into this wonderful hobby. That friend has since passed away but lives on in my heart and mind forever. Thanks to him I am again building car models. In many, many ways the models I'm now building are light years better because of him.

Thanks Harry, yeah I'll be fixing that convertible boot. I didn't get to it today because I was prepping the next resin kit on the bench...... a Modelhaus '58 Mercury Parklane convertible kit that I picked up at NNL East back in April. The parts are taking a Westleys bath for a day or so. I think the boot should be "an easy fix" by trimming the front bottom edge behind the rear seat and the bottom of the arms that would cover the top bows. Hopefully it will be that "easy".

Great job on this Jim. I love the color, the stance, and that interior is dynamite.

Thank you Dale.

Thanks again guys. Bruce, this lit was supposed to be the 1954 Pace Car and came with the Connie kit. I decided to build it more or less stock. Al, that's funny right there..!! I still haven't done anything with those 2 resin cars that you gave to me last year. Steve, you're right. There's ALWAYS some sort of fitment issue with resin kits. While Modelhaus' kits usually have the least amount of fit problems, I have had issues with interiors fitting properly especially after the glass is installed. I've had to either narrow the sides on some by sanding them down, or widen them with sheet plastic on others. I've also had to sand down the dashboards where they meet the cowl / windshield sometimes.

Hi Royce, welcome to our plastic playground. Try looking here for some models http://www.modelroundup.com/ They have a great selection and their prices are not too bad.

Richard, this is looking wonderful. Your scratchbuilding and creativity are amazing. Keep up the great work.

Thank you all very, very much for all of your kind and encouraging comments. Steve, I can't fix that wheelbase issue as everything is epoxied together. Believe it or not it doesn't look as severe on the passenger side. I am really bothered by that convertible boot and today will try to fix that.

Thank you Bruce, I appreciate your kind comments.

Thank you all very much fellas. Al, I love those "back in the day" looking Customs. Bruce, that decal on the continental spare is a "Nail Art" decal that I got from one of my daughters

I picked up this resin kit last November from a guy named Roger Bartholomew from CA on EBAY. While it is an unusual 50's car to find a model of, the kit was sort of a bear to get together due to less than perfect casting. The body and interior were OK but final assembly was difficult due to; 1)- Poor fit of the dashboard to the cowl after installing the vacu-formed glass. It required a lot of sanding and trial fitting. 2)- The thickness of the bottom of the resin interior bucket and the thickness of the top side of the chassis prevented the chassis from seating properly with the interior in the body. Both required A LOT of grinding with a Dremel and repeated trial and error fitting to get everything to go together properly. I was originally so frustrated with the ill-fitting parts that the unassembled car sat in a box on my shelf for about 8 months. Today I was determined to "beat it into submission" and finally won the battle. The kit did not come with wheels and tires. I wound up using tires from my parts stash along with '53 Ford hubcaps which closely matched Googled reference pictures of '54 Dodge's hubcaps. The wheels are mounted on brass rods run through the chassis's molded in mounting points. The bumpers and grille came chrome plated. The deck for the continental spare was molded to the body and I added a chrome tire cover and panels from Modelhaus. The car is painted with Duplicolor Gray Primer with a clearcoat and the trim is BMF. I imagined that a '54 Dodge would be a rather plain-Jane car which might have been owned by an older person. The chrome tire cover was used to give the car just a touch of bling. I installed clear headlight lenses, a mirror, and a wire antenna. The taillights are Tamiya clear Red paint. The interior consisted of the bucket with rear seat molded in, separate front seat, dashboard and steering wheel. I painted the dash body color and detailed it with gauges, chrome silver paint and BMF. The steering wheel is painted Black with a chrome horn ring from a used up ballpoint pen. The carpet is flocked Black and the seats and door panels are flocked Gray with Flat Black panels. The convertible boot cover is painted flat Black with PE bits for snaps and really wouldn't sit down right on the tulip panel of the car.. Overall it's really not a bad looking car and makes an unusual but cool addition to my '50's car collection. The fact that it only cost me $26 makes the building troubles all the more bearable. Thanks for looking in on this. As usual all comments are welcomed.

Hey Chris. Welcome to our plastic playground. You should not allow yourself to be intimidated by anyone's work here on this Forum. We all started out as "newbies" to car modelling just like you. The abilities, skills and techniques are developed over time and with a LOT of patience. We all learn from our mistakes and find "tips and tricks" from our fellow plastiholics here. Each model we build should get a little better than the last one, yet no one has yet built the "perfect" model. .

Thank you all very much guys. Al, I originally was going to use the Fairlane kit to make a mild custom but I just hate the lousy plastic hinges on it's opening doors.

Thanks a lot Sam and Steve. Steve, I had thought of doing it in a 2-tone, but after all of the 2-tone cars I've done lately I wanted to take a break from all that masking.

This is looking so very cool so far. I love all the creativity.

Al, you're a man on fire cranking out all these great cars!! That is a beautiful model. Great job.