Ramfins59

Welcome to the madness Rex.

Hey Neil, how are ya..?? By model cement do you mean the tube glue we used last century..?? I haven'y used that stuff in about 20 years. I use non-fogging CA glue about 90% of the time. I use Tenax or Tamiya for "welding" plastic, Elmer's for glass, clear enamel for PE stuff, and 2 part epoxy now and then for "tough" holding power and also for making clear lens covers for dash gauges.

Hey Al. Nice work. Yeah I'm with you to a point on the engine work. Lately I've done a bunch of curbside models as going nuts on engine compartments gets to be a chore if I try to do it on EVERY model. I'll do one or two detailed builds and then do some curbsides to "give it a rest". I'm soon to be 66 and retired, and like Sam said above, the eyes need a break... thankfully my Optivisor helps a LOT for doing the small stuff. Keep up the good work.

Got some great "Loot" today. First went to Advance Auto Parts and picked up a BUNCH of Duplicolor paints that were on Sale - 2 for 1 - 10 colors, and 3 cans of clear and 5 cans of Primer, red, white, black and gray. Then went to Michaels and got a new sprue cutter, a pkg. of 4 new tweezers, a spool of black wire for spark plugs, a black and a silver fine point Sharpie, and a pkg. of chrome, round sequins to use for mirror faces, I didn't see any models there that I wanted or needed, but I met another retired guy who WAS shopping for models. He said that he's got about 120 kits at home to build. Sounds like the rest of us. Then I stopped at Jo-Anns and got 2 yards of 1/8" black ribbon for seat belts. I'm pretty well stocked up for awhile now. A GOOD shopping day...!!!

Yeah Tom, I also bought a batch of diodes at Radio Shack quite some time ago. Now they sell them in pkgs. of 2...!!!

Great looking model Rod and ditto on the engine bay...!!!

Great looking models Al. Nice work.

Beautiful work Clifford. I love the color.

Thanks very much Bob and Carl. Bob the trip to FL is on May 12th for about a week so hopefully it won't be TOO terribly hot and humid.

Hey James. That Edsel of yours looks great. I like the color combo. What will be next......Hmmmmm...... Well, if I finish this before the NNL East show on April 20th (which I should do) I have a Monogram '58 T-Bird kit and a Revell '58 'Vette in my stash. I'll have to toss a coin to see which one wins. I'll be picking up a resin '58 Oldsmobile curbside kit from The Modelhaus at the NNL, but I probably won't start work on that until around the end of May or sometime in June as I'll be in North Carolina for a few weeks visiting close friends, and then I'll be travelling to Florida. My grandson turns 2 and my daughter, son-in-law, his parents and my wife and I are taking the little guy to Disneyworld. Hopefully he will enjoy meeting a BIG Mickey and Donald Duck (A J calls him Duck Duck). After all that travelling I'm sure I'll be happy to get back to the peace and quiet of my workbench.

Shane the interior looks great. You did on fine job on your first time with flocking.

Drew you are right in that taste and style are very subjective and personal. Personally I LIKE the cars of 1958 along with ALL the cars from the 50's.... but that's just me.

Thanks again everyone for your input and kind comments. I made a little bit of progress on this build today. Almost all of the chassis components are now painted. I glued on the fan belt assembly and the exhaust headers so now the engine is complete. I finished fitting and trimming the PE Honeycomb grille piece and a picture of it sitting in the opening follows; I picked out the colors of green flocking that I'll use for the interior... a dark green for the carpet, and a lighter green for an accent on the seats and side panels. I have a dashboard gauge panel on the way from BestModelCarParts.com along with gauge panels for 11 other 1950's models that I'll eventually build. I highly recommend those gauge panels for the models that don't come with gauge panel decals. Thanks to Kevin (Magnum4342) for turning me on to them. More progress tomorrow. Thanks for looking in on this build.

Yeah it would be GREAT to see ANY 50's BOP's come out in kit form, but as Casey pointed out, it's probably never gonna happen. Until then those of us who like ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING from the 50's will have to keep the aftermarket resin guys in business with our modeling dollars...... or, take lessons from Juha Airio and scratchbuild our own.

Thanks very much everyone for all your encouragement. Yes Daniel you definitely have me beat on the Edsel builds. Yeah Gary, the Edsel was a very unappreciated car and with all its "strangeness", to me looks a lot like it was customized at the factory. I just love the looks and styling of ALL the '58 cars. David, it seems that I've been on a building "roll" since I came back from last years NNL East show. I reclaimed my basement modeling work area from my daughter, and this is the 10th model I've worked on since then....an all time record for me in one year. I'm retired and for the last year I've put in an average of about 5 hours per day at my workbench, which is why I've been "cranking them out". At the rate I've been working on models lately I should have this one finished before the end of March. I believe that I got my PE engine accessory brackets set from Detail Master. The Google reference pictures that I worked from showed the Yellow engine with White valve covers and air cleaner, and I believe they came that way from the factory. I'm wondering who picked those colors..?? Eugene that would have been cool seeing an Edsel as Christine..!! OK, time to get back to the bench.

Nice build Al. Yeah that's a great kit to build. I did one in Blue a bunch of years ago and it came out great. Good job.

That looks dynamite Tom. I agree on the pinning method for some assemblies. I makes for a secure attachment. Isn't drilling all those little holes for the pins fun...???

Hello all. In continuing my desire to build models of 1958 cars, I started work a few days ago on an AMT '58 Edsel kit, the "Ultimate" kit with skirts and a full continental kit. This is going to be another mild, bolt-on style late 50's Custom. I like that style which is why I keep doing them. I've almost completed the engine. In addition to paint detailing, I added a fuel line to the carb, installed an MAD prewired distributor, and put on a chrome air cleaner from my parts bin for a little bling. When I was fitting the pulley assembly I of course noticed that both the generator and the power steering pump would be just "hanging there", which I knew would NOT make Harry P. very happy. So I grumbled a bit and dug out my PE brackets and picked 2 which were the right size for each location. I painted them black and CA glued them in place, adding a couple of PE bolt heads to complete the chore. It was a bit of a time consuming task to get them lined up properly, so Harry, if you have trouble sleeping tonight, it's because of all the pins stuck in the Harry doll...!!! An engine pic follows... I also painted both the chassis rails (flat black) and the chassis floor pan (dark gray). I still have to paint and assemble all of the chassis components. Chassis pic follows... I attached the skirts and sanded off the Edsel and Pacer lettering for a mild dechroming. I also removed the molded in center backing for the horse collar grille on the front of the body. I then cut and trimmed a piece of PE honeycomb grille material to fit in its place. I'm going to mount the kit's chrome horse collar to that on final assembly and add some small chrome bullets to the center of the honeycomb also on final assembly. Body pics follow... The color is going to be Testors One Coat Lime Ice and Duplicolor White. The interior will most likely be shades of Green flocking and White. Thanks for peeking in on this. More pics will come as work progresses.

I do have a pair of those reverse tweezers but the tips are way too big and thick to get into tiny spots. I find the "wet toothpick" method of picking up the tiny PE parts to be the best so far.... whatever works right..??

Yep. See you on Sunday.

Great job Eugene. That interior is awesome... especially the dashboard.

Great work so far Bob. Isn't if fun doing all that bodywork..?? LOL.

I don't think many modelers have used aluminum foil since BMF became well known and widely used. I personally have never used aluminum foil on models but I believe you'd have to use some sort of adhesive to get it to stick to your model. If you don't have a LHS in your area, you can order BMF online from several hobby sources.

Al these are all fantastic looking. I can't believe you found ALL of them in that Hardware Store..!!! Makes me want to go to Chicago, but I'm sure that you bought all that they had. Man I sure wish I could find a great score like that...!!!

Beautiful job Jason. Very neat and clean and nice details.