Ramfins59

Thanks Daniel. Since I'm doing up the interior, and it's coming along nicely, I'd like to be able to put on a boot cover instead of using the convertible up top. The IMEX kit doesn't come with a boot cover, so it looks like I'll have to try to scratchbuild my own. Is the Heller kit a 1/24 scale..?? If it is, would you be willing to part with the boot cover..?? Dan I thank you... both for your kind words and for the kit.

Thank you for your kind words everyone. Carl, I do my best to be neat and clean and to take my time, even though it seems like I'm working fast. Fortunately I'm lucky enough to be able to put in a lot of time every day at my workbench. John, the shot of the dash wasn't meant to be a "teaser". It's just all that I had to show for finished work. Hopefully I'll have more results to show later today. Bill, the quality of the kit isn't the greatest, nor is a lot of the detail. If you give it some love and attention though you can make it shine.

Beautiful model Jean-Jacques. You did a great job on a gorgeous 50's car.

Welcome aboard Jason.

Thanks very much Ira. Well, the car has been in the upholstery shop for the past couple of days. The "crew" has been hard at work installing Brown carpeting, along with some nice dark Leather tuck & roll upholstery. One more day in the shop should hopefully see the remaining Tan velour panels installed on the seats and door panels. Then the door hardware can be installed. If all goes well pictures will be available tomorrow. In the meantime, it wouldn't be a good day unless I had SOME sort of progress to show, right..? Here's a picture of the dashboard. It is painted the body color, Champagne Gold Pearl. The BMF trim was done and a speedometer gauge decal from my stash was applied. The clock and the gauge (below the speedo), and the radio were detailed with a super fine point black artists pen, and red paint was applied for needles with a sharpened toothpick. Then all of those were covered with clear epoxy for lenses. If the upholstery work is completed tomorrow as scheduled, then the body should be heading into the paint shop for priming and prep work. Thanks for looking in. Continued progress reports to follow as it happens.

Ditto to all of the above.

That actually looks kinda cool.

I guess it comes with old age, but I've had the Insomnia thing going for a couple of years now. It seems that 3 AM is my wake up time and have trouble getting back to sleep. I'd love to go down to my basement workbench for a little while, but my 30 year old daughter lives and sleeps down there so I really can't go down there to work on stuff or I'll "disturb" her. She's getting married in 18 months so I have to deal with that for awhile longer. I get an average of 4 to 5 hours a day in at my workbench as is, and I've been knocking out models in about 3 weeks. If I got another couple of hours in at night I'd probably finish one up in closer to 2 weeks. If that happened I'd eventually run out of models... (not really.)

Thank you Dan and David. I agree with you about the big and beautiful cars of 1958 Dan. I love the looks of all of them... and all that chrome and stainless steel...!!! David, I promise that when this Cadillac is finished I'll do my best to post a group picture of all 6 of the 58's that I've finished so far. (Buick, Cadillac (when finished) Chevy, Edsel, Ford & Plymouth). I still have a few more on my list to do yet. There's Lincoln, Mercury, Oldsmobile and Pontiac which are all resin kits by The Modelhaus, but I can't afford to buy them all at once. Then I'd love to find a Chrysler, Dodge and Rambler but I don't think those kits are or were ever made.

No need to worry about being a speedy builder Paul. We're easily entertained here.

You did a great job on that Edsel John. You'll get your "chops" back really quickly, you'll see.

Great looking truck Alan. I love the subject.

Thanks to everyone for your encouraging comments. John A., Thanks... I'm hoping that I can get the interior to pop as well, since it's a convertible. I'm thinking that it might turn out pretty nice if I take my time and have a steady hand with the paintbrush. The dashboard should be a real adventure... Lots of BMF work. John G., while the engine area in this kit is not the greatest or the most detailed, the rest of the kit actually isn't too terrible. The interior looks to be adequately detailed and should really POP with some love and attention. The body isn't too shabby either. I'm not crazy about the tires. They are a soft rubber, and blackwalls, which seem either stained or discolored. Since it's a 1/24 scale kit, finding replacement whitewall tires to fit the kit's wheels wasn't easy. I got lucky and am using some tires I got from Norm Veber (ReplMinCoMD), his Big n' Littles Whitewalls... I had recently gotten two sets of those from him. The Bigs from these sets fit the kit's wheels perfectly, so I'm using all 4 Bigs. Dr. Cranky, I'll be painting the body with Duplicolor Champagne Gold. I feel that a classy car deserves a classy color. James, I actually have to pick up many more sheets of BMF as I am down to using my leftover sheets with shorter lengths. It's aggravating when you wind up not being able to use almost a third of a sheet of some BMF sheets due to all of the wrinkles and crinkles. You can't cut a long piece because the foil always tears wherever there is a wrinkle. What a waste..!! Today I can finish up the chassis and hopefully start in on the interior. Thanks again for looking in on this build.

Nice job James. Great looking model.

Great looking model Al. Nice work.

Great work Doctor..!! They're both cool, but I kinda think the Luftwaffe Merc is great... and very imaginative.

Finally I'm able to post some progress pictures. It seems like I've been working on this "forever" and not making any progress. i've been doing a lot of painting of parts, drilling holes, and researching google reference pictures for details. Today was a GOOD progress day, in that I was finally able to assemble a bunch of stuff. Here goes... First of all, here's a picture of the almost completed chassis. I still have to install the front end/suspension, the rear shocks, the wheels and aluminum tubing exhaust tips. Here's a front shot of the engine and radiator. I had no idea what the canister looking piece was in front of the radiator support and when I googled some pictures I saw that it is for the A/C system. Since I was adding extra detail to the engine and engine compartment area, I decided to go a little further and try to add some detail to the A/C piece. It's not perfect but it resembles what was in the reference picture. The engine in this kit is not very highly detailed so I added an M.A.D. pre-wired distributor and an oil filler tube (which you can't see in front of the engine anyway). I added heater hoses along with a radiator hose (because there wasn't one in the kit..!!) I also added a radiator overflow line and a PE radiator cap, along with a couple of PE bolt heads. The snorkel on the air cleaner was drilled out and some flat black applied inside. I painted the air cleaner and valve covers the Champagne Gold body color and the rest is detail painted mostly semi-gloss black. In addition to all this, the firewall is painted and detailed. I added a resin master cylinder and will also add a brake line when the firewall goes in. The battery is paint detailed and wired and will go in when it is dry. The interior pieces are primed and ready for painting and detailing. I'm having second thoughts about the orange color for some of the interior. I'm thinking it might be too bold for the car, so I'm now thinking along the lines of some tan and maybe leather. The rug will be flocked brown so I think leather and tan would work well and also compliment the Champagne Gold body color. The chrome trim interior pieces that come in the kit, along with some BMF will really help the interior to POP..!! Thanks for checking in on this ride and stay tuned for additional progress reports.

Thank you very much Grant. Yep, the fleet of '58's is growing. I'm working on the '58 Eldo right now. Hope to have some WIP pics of that up shortly.

Great looking truck Ron. I LOVE the 50's look.

Welcome to our mad, mad, plastic world John.

Great model Sam. I love the setting... and the guy standing there looking at the car.

Great looking model Mark. Nice job.

Yeah, for me it's a LOT of the above. Definitely research on the vehicle you're working on, to get the details right. Realistic engineering, in that it shouldn't sit ridiculously low, shouldn't be chopped so much that you couldn't see out of the windows, nor should the steering wheel touch the seat. A model should look like, if it was a 1:1 vehicle, it could actually be driven. The workmanship should be neat, and clean throughout the ENTIRE model, chassis, engine compartment, interior and exterior... that includes paint and/or foil work throughout the entire model. I also think that color choices are important, meaning that interior and engine compartment colors should compliment the exterior of the car. Think and plan it out before you just dive in. When I start a build I usually have a mental picture in my mind's eye of what I want the finished model to look like, and then I work to make that vision happen.

Beautiful model Terry. Great job. That is one great kit to work on.

Beautiful model Thomas. Great job.