Ramfins59

Beautiful car Gregorz, nice job.

Great job Al. I love it.

Thanks very much again guys. Your comments, kind words and critique's are always welcome. Ben, the "lines" that you see are creases that I couldn't smooth out when I applied the BMF. The pointed lines in the center are molded into the visor. Jim, yeah I prefer shiny too. Tom, wow, that's a pretty old picture..!! I still had a lot of hair on my head, and the hair on my face & head still had color to it instead of turning white and gray as it is now. I certainly do remember that "Mr. Potato Head" that we gave to Ken Walkley...... that was a pretty funny moment. Mike, I really loved that car.... a 4,000 lb. tank, but it sure did have a lot of style.

David, thank you so much for the kind words, and no, I never mind any suggestions about what I build. However, what I added to the floor of this DeSoto promo was a brake pedal NOT a parking brake pedal. I know exactly what you are talking about regarding the parking brake handle and setup...... I owned a 1959 Dodge Coronet for almost 10 years and it had that exact setup for a parking brake. The thing never worked anyway though... I tried getting it fixed when I had the transmission rebuilt but wasn't successful. I used to have to always park the car on a flat spot, and would carry a brick type rock on the floor behind the driver's seat to put either in front or behind a wheel to keep the car from rolling when I would take it to cruise nights..!!! Here's a picture of the Dodge that I owned.

Lately I've been buying promo's of 1950's cars that were not made in kit form or in resin. I find the ones that fill in the missing "marques" for my 1950's build missions. I don't collect them, I take them apart and repaint and foil them, add interiors and rechromed bumpers/grilles if I can get them and will sometimes change the wheels and/or modify the headlights/taillights to be more realistic looking.. I search through the various vendors at model shows and so far, the most I've paid for a promo is $75.00.

Thanks a lot for all the kind words guys, I really appreciate it. Don, I'm ready for a cruise. Tom, it's not exactly the same color combo as the old Tunaboat......but close... LOL The '56 Plymouth and the '58 Olds are next in line to be finished. Bruce, I try NEVER to omit any mirrors...... Can't piss off Harry...!!!

You could use flat, clear plastic, or, a piece of clear acetate (from the top of a box of greeting cards).

Ray, none of us build "the perfect model". You have nothing to be ashamed of with this build. No one is going to pick it up and look underneath... Yeah...... I know...... You will... Nice job anyway.

Thank you all very much for your great, encouraging words. That all helps me to keep up my game and continue to try my best for neat, clean builds. Virgil, thanks, and yes, I'll be keeping this one...... I keep them all. Matti, thanks a lot, and yes, I enjoy building some cars that are not the run of the mill, everyday model, especially the gorgeous cars from the 19'50's. Bob, I only have a few of those dot matrix printer pins left (A friend used to work for Pitney Bowes as a repair tech and he gave me a bunch of old printer heads that I took apart to get those pins from). You can also use a piece of an E string from a guitar (the high E string).

It usually depends on what type of car I'm building. I was into doing Street Rods for awhile and unless I was going for a particular look, I just went according to what the pictures in my mind's eye. I would sometimes see a particular car either at a show or in a magazine and "sort of" build something along those lines. Lately, since I'm now on a '50's car kick, I google a bunch of reference pictures for each year car so I'll get the details and colors right.

Thanks very much again everyone for all your kind words. Steve, I absolutely LOVE all of the cars from the 1950's. They all had their own style and identity back then...... not to mention all that chrome and stainless trim. IMHO cars today don't have much if any individual style or chrome. Mike, those wire wheels are not from either a Jag or Maserati as I've never had a model of either of them. I found them in my tire/wheel parts stash. I really don't know what kit they were originally from. The only thing I can say about doing BMF work is use a new, sharp blade, burnish it down really well with both a QTip and a toothpick, and after you trim it on the model, burnish down the cut edges again with a toothpick. Use a magnifier if you have to, and take your time.

Great looking model Michael. Good job as usual.

Thank you all so much for your great, encouraging words. Al, the BMF was a real chore on this one......more so than some of the '58's that I've done. Harry, WOW.. thanks a lot..!! Yeah, I'm really happy with the way that the taillights turned out. Larry, this car is far from immaculate, but thanks very much for your kind words. Tom, yeah I'm thinking that the Plymouth will most likely be next up, but I still have to do the interior work. I've also still got the '58 Olds in the works... the clearcoat is drying and I've got a lot to do yet on the interior.

Well, at times it was a tough fight, but I finally got this thing finished up. I painted it with Tamiya Tan and Tamiya Red Brown. The BMF work was a bear to do, but came out well in the end. The Modelhaus resin interior gave me fits to get it to seat into the body properly. I had to sand down the side panels and the front and sides of the dashboard, plus, I had to drastically trim the front and rear promo glass a lot at the bottom edges. The interior still doesn't seat in perfectly, but it's as good as I could get it. I added clear headlight lenses from my parts stash on top of the chrome promo headlight pieces. They look a lot better with the clear lenses. For the taillights, I got a little creative. The Johan promo body had the taillights and backup lights molded on in the same color plastic as the body. I snipped those off with a sprue cutter and filed the bases as flat as I could get them. After the BMF got applied to the taillight area I wound up creating my own taillights. I used the little round nubs attached to the clear parts trees around kit windshields that the ejector pins hit to push the clear parts tree out of the mold. I found 6 that were the same size, cleaned them up and painted 4 of them with Tamiya clear red. Then I glued them in place, using 2 unpainted clear ones for the center backup lights. I think they look pretty cool, and definitely a lot better than the molded on ones would have. I made my own twin antenna's from printer pins and stainless steel surgical tubing. I used a cool looking set of wire wheels from my parts box along with a set of whitewalls, instead of using the blackwall promo tires and hubcaps. I think that the wire wheels look a lot better on this car. Here's what the finished interior looked like before being installed into the body. The Modelhaus resin interior for this car is a 6 piece assembly consisting of the dashboard, steering wheel, 2 side panels, front bench seat and floor with rear seat. Doing the BMF on the side panels was a pain because the trim to be foiled was so thin that the foil didn't want to stick. It all came out OK though. I used brown flocking for the carpet and installed a brake pedal from my parts box, as there was no pedal molded to the floor. Thanks to all for looking in on the beginning of this new, Class of '56 build mission. All comments and critiques are welcomed and appreciated. Now on to the next one...

A great day's work Al. Although I'm sure Steve wouldn't have been able to chase the bad guys as well in a Maverick.

Now THAT is funny...... stupid......but funny.

I glue them too.

Thanks a lot for all of your encouragement guys. Charlie, I did get a resin interior plus replacement bumpers, grille and glass from The Modelhaus for this car. Ken, this is a Johan curbside promo that I picked up at the NNL East show back in April. Sam, I looked at the color charts for the '56 Plymouth and liked the 2-Tone green combo for this model. I've been bouncing back and forth between the '58 Olds, '56 DeSoto and this Plymouth for the past 2 weeks. I'll eventually settle into finishing one of them completely.

Thank you for your kind words Mike and Larry.

Nice looking Merc Arnold.

That's a GREAT looking '57 Steve. I love the custom work and the color is just delicious. Dynamite job.

Like a lot of those have already said, I build both, new and old stuff of whatever interests me at the time. Over time tastes change... I used to like only 20's, 30's 40's, 50's stuff and Street Rods, but for the past few years I've been "stuck in the 50's". I LOVE all those chrome-laden dreamboats. I will also buy resin kits of cars that are unavailable in plastic (for a decent price), and Promo's of cars you don't find in kit form.

I started building models around 1959 or '60 when I was 12 or 13. I built both cars and military stuff, but I blew up and/or burned the tanks and half-tracks with firecrackers and lighter fluid.... battle scenes you know..? I continued building car models through high school but stopped shortly thereafter when I discovered girls, cars & bars... (not necessarily in that order). Life continued without models as careers, marriage (will be 45 years this December), kids, etc., took over. Then I rediscovered car modeling in late 1991 when I got a Revell '57 Chevy model as a gift from co-workers. I was off and running again, especially after finding SAE magazines, which led me to find and join the L.I.A.R.S. Club on Long Island in NY where I lived at the time. I just LOVE this hobby and all the great people in it. I've made so very many great friends in many different states of this country through this hobby.

Thanks a lot Harry. The body was molded with that "divot", which is for a part of an emblem located on the top of the grille.

Thanks guys, I appreciate all your encouraging words.