Ramfins59

Thanks Charlie and John. I appreciate your encouragement. All the positive feedback from everyone really helps me to do my best to get things done neatly and looking right.

Ya know Luke, I WAS actually entertaining thoughts of scratchbuilding a pair. The aftermarket ones are usually way too big for 1/25 scale. They just might show up on the finished build.

Great looking model Carl. I love that paint job.

Thanks for your kind words guys. Yeah Mike, those suicide knobs, or necker knobs are pretty cool. I had one on my '59 Dodge a few years back and it felt great turning that big steering wheel. Del I will get back to the '36 in good time. It was just fighting me and I felt it best to just put it aside until I can come back to it with a fresh outlook instead of wanting to throw it hard.

I made a little more progress on this build today as I assembled all the interior pieces. Here's what it looks like... Tonight I'm going to start polishing the Duplicolor clearcoat that I applied yesterday. When that is done, tomorrow I'll start applying the BMF trim. Hopefully I won't run into any glitches along the way. Further updates to come. Thanks for following along.

Thanks again to everyone for all the positive feedback on this build. David, I'll keep your recommendations for Tamiya gold paints in mind the next time I go paint shopping at my LHS. In the meantime, as I stated above, I already painted the side trim insert with brass metalizer and it looks really good. Bruce, I thank you for the compliments but all I did was press the button on the spray can. The paint just laid down perfectly. I did warm the can a bit in warm water before spraying as it is kind of chilly in my basement. The Coral Blue color is sort of like Aqua and/or Turquoise and is a real 50's car color... I love it. I can't wait to see this baby finished but I'm restraining myself from rushing to finish it. I've learned the hard way that rushing will screw it up somewhere along the line,so patience is the key word here. Tough to do sometimes but the right thing in the long run to have it come out right. I again thank everyone for following along on this little journey.

Thank you Johnny, Randy and Jim. Yes Randy the bumpers come already chromed, and if you get the continental kit, you also get the extended rear bumper which is also chromed. Since this is a curbside kit you don't need to use the '57 Ford kit as a donor, although, if you wanted to put an engine in it you'd have to cut open the hood. You could then use the '57 Ford kit engine and chassis pieces, along with the inner fenders, radiator and firewall, etc. I flocked the carpets black and clearcoated the body and connie kit platform with Duplicolor clear and they are all drying at the moment, so I don't yet have any updated progress pictures. I want to give the clearcoat a good couple of days to completely dry before I start to handle and polish the body and apply the chrome foil. I should hopefully at least be able to assemble the completed interior pieces tomorrow so I'll most likely have pictures of that to post tomorrow. Thanks very much again for all the great and encouraging comments.

You're right Harry... my stupid finger hit the wrong number. Sorry about that.

Hey John. Yeah I have some dry transfer letters and numbers sheets, but I was thinking more of PE stuff which would look more 2 dimensional and also look more like chrome.

Uhhhhhhh......No...... I don't think so...!!! Thanks again for all the great comments everyone,I really appreciate it. More photos to come later today when I get some more work done on this beauty.

I also think that it would be pretty cool if some enterprising aftermarket company would make a PE set or sets of generic numbers (0 through 9) and alphabet letters in caps (A through Z). Maybe have like 3 of each number and letter in a set. I think this would be a welcome addition for detailing models. I thought of script letters too but I think they would be too difficult to line up straight on a model.

Thanks very much to everyone for all the encouraging words. I am just loving this paint color. This is really my very first time using Tamiya spray paints and I'm thrilled with it so far. It does tend to chip easily but is very easy to touch up with a small brush. Yeah... curb feelers...!!! I had them on my '59 Dodge when I owned it and I got a lot of questions about them from "younger" guys at cruise nights. I've always liked the "bolt-on" customizing that was done back in the 50's & early 60's. It was a relatively cheap way to customize your car. By the way, I tried putting the gold BMF on the side trim insert and...... well...... that stuff really s--ks...!!! First I burnished it down with a QTip and then found that It tears really too easily when burnishing it into corners with a softened wooden toothpick. I tried twice and gave up and just pulled it all off. I wound up painting the insert with Brass metalizer which really looks pretty good. I've NEVER had ANY problems with the chrome BMF in 20 years. Tomorrow I flock the carpet, trim the vacuformed windshield to fit, and apply the chrome BMF. This thing is just coming along great, almost like it wants to practically fall together the way I envisioned it. I've only been working on it for about 4 or 5 days so far. I highly recommend this kit if you like '58 Fords. It is a little on the pricey side ($125 for the kit with the conv. up & down top, skirts & connie kit) but worth it for the quality. That's still a lot cheaper than trying to pick up an original AMT kit, if you can even find one. More pictures will come as the work progresses. Thanks again for looking in on it and "cheering me on".

Hello all. I put the '36 Ford HiBoy aside because it was fighting me at final assembly. Instead of throwing it somewhere, I'll just come back to it at some point when I'm less aggravated with it. In the meantime, I started working on the '58 Ford Fairlane kit from The Modelhaus, which I bought myself for Christmas. It is a great casting with absolutely no cleanup needed. I soaked it in Westley's for a day, washed it off and let it air dry for a day. A thing I really love about this kit is that the interior is a platform style with side panels and not a tub casting. The front seat is also a separate piece along with the dashboard and steering wheel. My plan is to make this as if someone in the late fifties customized this car by throwing a J.C. Whitney catalog at it to see what would stick... all Bolt-On Customizing. I've pretty much got everything painted as of today, so here's what things look like at the moment. The color is Tamiya Coral Blue. I sanded off the name badges and the door handles which I'll replace with chromed ones from my parts stash. This is a curbside model so I only sprayed the chassis flat black. I put '59 Dodge Royel Lancer 4 bar spinner hubcaps on the front (from Modelhaus). I think these hubcaps are the ULTIMATE spinner hubcaps. I detailed them with some white paint. The interior is Coral Blue and white. The side panels have been detailed with paint and BMF. The steering wheel is paint detailed and has straight pin shifter and turn signal levers and a round pin head for a necker knob. Istill have to flock the rugs black but I painted the floor flat black first. I modified the grille by installing some pieces of polished aluminum tubing to make a tube grille and also mounted 2 pieces of round wound guitar string for curb feelers.. The continental kit is painted and the platform has some BMF on the ribs. I have a sheet of gold BMF which I'll use for the side trim insert. Then I'll clearcoat the body and when that is dry and polished I'll apply the chrome BMF. I'll be mounting Bob Dudek lake pipes, dummy spots, mirrors and a swept back antenna on the trunk. I also put tiny blue MV lenses in the taillights for blue dots. I'm hoping to have this finished up in a couple of days. Thanks for looking in on it.

Absolutely great Job James. I can't wait to see it after you put on the BMF. By the way, I think the AMT '64 Mercury Marauder is the kit that also has the taillight bezels you need.

Hey Dan, that is one good looking '67. The first car that my wife & I had was a '67 Galaxy 4 door. Can you tell me where you got that kit...???

Maybe I'm blind, but I didn't see the HHR listed on RMR's site. And I really don't think that JF's HHR looks bad at all.

I can go a hundred miles an hour as long as I've got the almighty power glued up there by my pair of fuzzy dice...!!! I used to LOVE listening to Don Imus.... Imus in the Morning... he and his buddy Charles McCord... He was one irreverent SOB, but VERY funny.

Beautiful build. I love that color green.

Yes John, I also keep the Scalecoat in a sealed Rubbermaid container. I use a toothbrush dedicated for this use for scrubbing panel lines & such. I also keep another sealed container with Westley's Bleche White for cleaning resin parts.

I have had success using a product called Scalecoat, which I got in a well-stocked hobby shop. If your LHS has a train section, they may carry it. I've left resin parts in Scalecoat for over a day with no ill effects at all.

Thanks John,but I think I'll just stick with the plate that's on for now. I'll be glad to finish this one up so I can get started on my next project....... a Modelhaus kit of a '58 Ford convertible.

I finally made some more progress on this build. I got the body and inner fender assembly painted with Duplicolor flat black primer. I put BMF on the strip styrene window frame that I added and also installed the windshield and an interior mirror. I attached the MCG PE grille with non-fogging CA glue and also glued in small amber MV lenses into the drilled depressions where the horn grilles go, and attached PE screens in front of them. I wound up removing the hood sides because they were constantly fighting me in getting the hood to fit properly. I think it looks pretty cool without them anyway. I also wound up having to remove the flathead engine from the '48 Ford kit because the body would not sit down onto the chassis without some major modifications to the firewall and trans tunnel, which I was just not in the mood for. I'll be using the custom engine from the '36 Ford kit instead. Out back I attached a 1952 license plate, as that was the year that my friend Dave was born... A little bit of work left on this build and I'm hoping to have it all done by the end of this week or sooner. Thanks for looking in on it.

Great work Art. Good to see you working on something.

Check out this site for brochures on cars that you may have owned or just like. http://www.lov2xlr8.no/broch1.html

That looks very cool Andy. Keep going. This is a great Curbside kit to build having no engine. I did one about 3 years ago and it came out pretty good. A picture follows (I'm not trying to hijack your thread here).