Ramfins59

Thanks Tommy, I appreciate your kind comments.

I've never had any problems with BMF probably because I use it up pretty quickly. I keep all of my decals in large ziplock bags in a drawer in my workbench. I rarely ever have had a problem with any of them "disintegrating".

Thank you all very much for all of your great and encouraging comments. Rob, I haven't built a full Custom in awhile and this one is fulfilling all my "urges" so far. If I can get the rest of the car to look as good as the body does I will be super happy. I normally work on the body last and finish all the other assemblies first. On this one I've completed the body first and I'm hoping that doesn't come back to bite me in the butt..!!

You did a pretty nice job on that Mark.

Thanks very much James and Billy. James, when I get to working on the interior on this I plan on using one of the Blue & White teardrop shifter knobs that you sent to me a while back. It should look perfect in this car. Billy, I wish I had more of these flame decals and it would be great if they were made in other colors too (Blue, Red, Green, Black, Yellow, Orange).

Thanks very much guys. Tom G. - What......no popcorn??

So why can oil filter decals not have those same issues?

Harry......Wow..... what else is there to say. Excellent job as usual. Some day you'll have to take a "group picture" of your Brass Era cars and of your buggies and carriages so we can see them all together, that is if they'll all fit in one or 2 pictures.

Well, I've made some decent progress on this car over the past several days. All of the chassis pieces are painted and somewhat detailed but not yet fully assembled. I painted the chassis side of the floor pans, the firewall and the engine compartment side of the inner fenders in a "speckle" finish by first spraying everything with flat black primer. I then "dusted" them all with gray primer from about 2 feet away, followed by white primer dusted from 2 feet away, followed by a turquoise color dusted from 2 feet away, and finally with the black primer again dusted from 2 feet away. I then brush painted the chassis rails and parts of the firewall with semi-gloss black. The brake system was "upgraded" with a resin dual master cylinder RMCoMD) with brake lines and pin heads for caps. Disc brakes will be going on all around. The gas tank, tie rod and sway bar were painted steel metalizer. The lower control arms and rear end were painted gloss black. I put in a piece of round wound guitar string for the fuel line from the gas tank into the frame rail. Black wire will also be connecting the brake calipers to the chassis rails. I still haven't mocked up any wheel choices yet as I'm waiting to complete the assembly of all of the chassis components so everything will hopefully sit right when I do that. Now, on to the BEST part (IMHO)...... the body. After priming I sanded a few "imperfections" and filled in the lower corners of the grille surround with another drop of CA glue and sanded everything smooth and reprimed. Then the body was sprayed with Duplicolor Navy Blue paint WHICH CAME OUT GREAT...!!! I decided that since this is a Custom that it needed some pinstriping, so I picked through my ziplock bag of assorted decals and decided on a couple for the hood and trunk. Some setting solution helped them lay down really nicely. Here's the hood and here's the trunk That went so well that I thought that some flames on the sides would be cool, but I wanted to stay with the "White" of the pinstriping so I cobbled together some pieces of the White stripe flames from the Revell '58 Impala decal sheet, and this is how that came out Once all of the decals snuggled down real nice and into the door lines on the sides I gently cut into the recessed door lines with an XActo blade and then ran some more setting solution in the door lines to get all the cut edges of the decals to really snuggle down. When everything was fully dry I sprayed it all with about 5 coats of Duplicolor Clear which also lay down really nicely. There is definitely an advantage to warming up the rattle cans prior to painting. I still plan on going over everything with some Novus 2 polish before I apply the BMF. I will give it all a day or so to gas out first. In the meantime I'll complete the chassis assembly and then start in on the engine and interior. I'm VERY happy with this so far and I'm hoping that I can get the rest of the assemblies to look as good as the body does right now. Thanks for checking in on this progress. More will be posted as it happens. Please feel free to post any and all comments.

X2

That looks very nice in Gold Bernard.

I'll see you there Darryl.

Great collection Tulio...... what'd you do... pick up a case of '57's...???

Great looking car Tulio, but it's strange seeing you build something besides a Ford..!!

Yep, Tamiya clear paints are great... Clear Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue.... They're all good. I've been using them for years.

Congratulations John. This could be the start of a whole new career for you.

WOW......Does that look awesome..!!! It just POPS with those flames on the bright green paint. Ira, your imagination and scratchbuilding skills are just amazing.

Niko that is looking really nice so far. Good luck with the hood.

It should say something on the spray can label about recoating times.

Very nice Harry. Besides the mirror, how come it doesn't have any brass accessories..??

That looks good Stan. I'm looking to get one of these for my 50's car builds.... trying on EBAY but worst case I'll wind up getting one from Modelhaus. BTW, Modelhaus has replacement bumpers & grille for this car.

David G., you're right, it functions. He hooks it up to a power drill. I mis-stated by saying "It works"...... although, it does "work", it just doesn't "run", like on fuel... Sorry to mislead you.

Congratulations Dave... you're gonna love it.

You have GOT to check this out..!! Do you think this guy is talented or what...!?!?!?!? This is interesting even for the non-mechanically inclined. A guy built this 12 cylinder diesel engine that runs and fits in the palm of a hand. Don't know if he was an engineer or machinist or just a very talented hobbyist, but it took him over 2,000 hours from conception to finished product. Counting his labor and material its cost is just over $100,000.00 and all that for a conversation piece. I think it belongs in a museum for unusual accomplishments. This guy made everything at home on his lathe and drill press. It took 1220 hours just to make the 261 pieces: 12 individual cylinder heads, tiny rods and pistons, dual "underhead" cams with pushrods to rockers in the heads. And he did the break-in runs using an electric drill driving the crankshaft. Even if you're not an engineer you should enjoy watching this video. www.wimp.com/tiniestengine/

Thanks Stan. I clearcoated the body yesterday and will be starting to polish it out shortly.