Ramfins59

Don't forget a bathroom too of course... and as Bart said... younger women... LOL.

The headlight things are parts available from Detail Master. They make sets of them to fit either the large single headlights or the smaller dual headlights.

Yeah I'm one of those old retired guys too. When I'm on a roll with building, I can go at least 5 to 6 hours at a time on a project at least 4 or 5 days per week. That's how I was just recently able to finish up 3 models in 4 months. Now I'm doing research to pick my next project.

I've used Duplicolor Acrylic Lacquer over decals with no problems at all. Just be sure to put the clearcoat on in light coats to start with and then build up to heavier coats once the first couple of light coats set up for 10 to 15 minutes each.

What everyone else said 10X... Absolutely a stunningly beautiful model.

Fantastic job Jim. I love your interior detailing and the engine compartment is great. It's fun doing all the little details isn't it...???

Thanks again everyone. I appreciate the encouragement.

Great job on this model. I'd say to throw in maybe a couple of gas cans, oil cans, a tool box, a tire iron, a floor jack and maybe a couple of used wheels & tires. You don't have to add all of that stuff, but I personally like a lot of detailed items.

Thanks again for the kind comments everyone... Yes, The Modelhaus resin kits ARE a bit on the pricey side, but in the case of this Buick, it was cheaper than paying for an original AMT kit from waaaaayy back...!!! Plus Don Holthaus' castings are so good that it's almost like working on a plastic kit. I treated myself to this at the NNL East this year and I have plans for future builds of his '58 Ford Fairlane and '58 Oldsmobile which I have yet to buy.... maybe I'll get myself some cool Christmas presents. I just LOVE all the cars from 1958... Chrome-laden land yachts...!!!

The headlights are the clear resin ones that The Modelhaus supplies with the kit. Looking at it now, I probably should have cut off the mounting pin on the back of the lens, then either used BMF or silver paint on the back... Oh well... too late for that now... LOL. Although I DID use photo-etched metal rings around the lenses... Does that help...???

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words.... and yes Jeff, barring any unforseen circumstances, I'm planning on attending the Castle Shannon show on September 30th.

I picked up the resin convertible conversion kit from Norm Veber (RMCOMD) to go along with most of the parts from the Revell chopped '49 Merc kit. I went into this build with all intentions of doing the best job I could in detailing it. I've seen the Revell kit made in almost every color of the rainbow... except Gray, and I wanted to be a little different. Almost all the Merc kits I've seen were built using the DeSoto tooth grille, as were about 80% of the 1:1 Mercs I saw online while researching for ideas... again, I wanted to be a little different, so I used the custom grille bar that came in the AMT '49 Merc kit. The headlights are from Bob Dudek and the turn signals are amber MV lenses. BMF covers the windshield frame on the kit's front glass and the visors are flocked in charcoal gray. The front hubcaps are '59 Dodge 4 bar spinners from The Modelhaus which I paint detailed with yellow and black paint in a checkerboard pattern and then added wire valve stems. I added lake pipe shrouds from the '50 Ford convertible kit with cut down Bob Dudek Lake Pipes and I added pieces of photo-etched metal flames under the caps. I sanded the inner leading edges of the Merc kit's skirts to create sort of a scoop opening, to which I added short pieces of the 'Galaxie 48 Chevy chrome trim which I cut to spear shapes. The flame decals are from a Slixx decal sheet cut to the shape of the front wheel openings. The resin body doesn't come with any taillight openings so I lightly glued stock '49 Merc taillights to the rear, scribed around them with my XActo knife, then carefully cut out with drills & files the area inside the scribed marks to make Frenched taillights to which I added MV lens blue dots. The convertible boot is flocked in charcoal gray with photo-etched pieces for snaps. The engine is the Caddy engine in the Merc kit to which I added a wired M.A.D. distributor (wired in the correct firing order of course..), Bob Dudek Cadillac valve covers, a cast metal alternator (with a mounting bracket) and a chromed Cadillac air cleaner from The Modelhaus. I removed the molded in 6 volt battery and filled the hole with sheet plastic and sanded it all smooth. In it's place I put a windshield washer fluid container from my parts box, with a line routed with wire looms to the parts box windshield wiper motor I added to the smoothed firewall. I omitted the air tubes and added a resin master cylinder & booster, with brake lines. On the other side I added a 12 volt battery with wires and photo-etched hold-down hardware. Heater hoses were also added, along with an aluminum radiator cap and overflow line. That engine compartment is really tight. The chassis is paint detailed with a few photo-etched bolt heads added. There are photo-etched brake rotors, cast metal calipers and wire brake line hoses routed into the chassis. Now the interior... and I LOVE doing interiors. I flocked the rugs in black & added black-washed, photo-etched pedals, including a small foot shaped high-beam pedal. The tuck & roll sections of the seats and door panels were painted with Pactra RC car yellow lacquer. The flat panels were flocked in charcoal gray with yellow detail wire for piping on the seats. I added some chrome trim pieces, again using Galaxie '48 Chevy chrome trim. Chrome door handles & window cranks are from my parts box. Front seat belts were installed using MCG hardware. The front floor tray is part of the custom console from the AMT '49 Merc kit to which I added a photo-etched key & key ring and sunglasses. The dashboard is painted body color and I used the kit gauge decals to which I added photo-etched trim rings and clear epoxy for lenses. I removed all the molded buttons and dials, drilled holes where they were and added milled aluminum dash knobs from Detail Master that I've been wanting to use for years. There is also a photo-etched radio face and BMF trim. The steering column has pieces of shirt pins for a shifter and a turn signal stalk, The steering wheel has a round shirt pin head as a necker-knob. The paint is Duplicolor Storm Gray Metallic, clearcoated and polished. I am super happy with the way this car turned out and hope you enjoy looking at it. Now I think I'll work on either another curbside or a slammer after doing all this detailing... Thanks everyone and feel free to critique or comment.

This is a resin kit from The Modelhaus that I picked up at this years NNL East. I got the inspiration from a 1:1 car I saw online while looking for reference material. The paint is Pactra RC car yellow lacquer with Duplicolor clearcoat. I sanded off the door handles, wipers & Buick lettering, and added chromed handles & wipers from my parts stash. I gave the grille a dark wash and coated the turn signal lenses with Floquil Dust color to look more like plastic lenses. I used photo-etched Wizard's O's from RMCOMD for headlight bezels. The taillights were painted with Tamiya clear red. It took me a total of 5 hours, and a quarter of a sheet of BMF to cut, apply and trim all the chrome on this beast. I LOVE these chrome-laden 50's land yachts...!!! The wire wheels & tires are from the Moebius '55 Chrysler kit. The antenna is a piece of a dot-matrix printer pin and a piece of surgical stainless tubing. The convertible boot has photo-etched metal pieces as snaps. Since this is a Curbside model, with no engine or chassis details, I had to kind of do something special with the shallow, resin interior bucket. I started out by spraying the same yellow paint on the interior and dashboard. I flocked the floor in brown and painted parts of the seats and door panels in flat white. I added photo-etched metal pieces to the seat buttons and pieces of chrome trim from the Galaxie '48 Chevy kit to the seats & door panels. I also added resin door handles and window cranks from RMCOMD to the side panels. The dashboard was detailed with paint and some photo-etched metal pieces. I also used parts box decals for the speedometer, radio, clock and gear indicator, and covered them with clear epoxy as lenses. The steering column has pieces of shirt pins for the gearshift and turn signal stalk. I'm pretty pleased with the way this car turned out and will be picking up more of these land yachts from The Modelhaus in the future. Thanks for looking everyone, and feel free to comment, as always.

Thanks for the kind words guys. I started out building this model with no intentions of adding a lot of details, however, the more I got into it... well you know how that goes. I had fun with this build. Your right Sam, The front wheels do sit a bit far back... but too late now... LOL. Overall I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.

Finally I'm able to post pictures of this finished pickup. The paint is Testors One Coat color Deja Blue with Duplicolor clearcoat, polished. The emblems, door handles & wipers were sanded off & I added chromed door handles & wipers from my parts box. The Cadillac engine from the AMT 49 Ford kit is wired & plumbed. The Caddy air cleaner is a resin piece from RMCOMD. I added a washer fluid container with a line to a wiper motor, a master cylinder with brake lines, a wired battery, a horn and an aluminum radiator cap & overflow line in the engine compartment. The grille was opened from behind. The chromed, reversed wheels & radial tires are from the Revell chopped 49 Merc kit (the tire treads were sanded & i added wire valve stems). Parts box bumperettes on the front and 59 Caddy bullet taillight lenses in the custom rear kit fenders. The CHMSL on the rear of the cab is a custom taillight from the 49 Ford kit with a red MV lens. The antenna is a dot-matrix printer pin with a short length of surgical stainless tubing. The tonneau cover on the pickup bed is flocked in the same color blue as the seat and the snaps are pin heads. I made the inner door panels from sheet plastic, thin plastic strips, BMF and resin door handles & window cranks from RMCOMD. The steering column shifter and turn signal stalk are pieces of shirt pins. The dashboard has gauge faces covered with clear epoxy for a lens and a photo-etched metal radio face. The chassis is paint detailed and the exhaust is solder wire with aluminum "Smithy Can" mufflers with aluminum tubing exhaust tips. I should not have used the torque tube that came in the kit and should have used a piece of aluminum tubing with parts box universal joints... but it's too late for that now... Thanks for looking everyone and, as always, comments, etc., are welcomed.

Very cool build. This looks like something Manny in Jersey would have in his junkyard diorama.

I originally built car models in the early 60's. I also built tanks & Jeeps & half tracks (without painting them) but I blew up & burnt pretty much all of them with lighter fluid and firecrackers. I started taking car modeling seriously when I rediscovered the hobby in 1991 and then joined the L.I.A.R.S. Club in NY in 1992. Until then I didn't realize that other grown men built car models too. Then came the discovery of the model magazines and contests and off I went.

Great topic..!! Back in the early 60's my stepfather was an Apartment. Bldg. Superintendent in the Bronx, NY, and I had a sectioned off area of a storeroom/workshop in the basement of the building that we lived in. I had an old table that I built on, and my finished models were kept on shelves in old breakfront furniture that tenants in the building threw out for trash. I painted with enamel spray cans and brush paint in that room. That was my own little world that I retreated to for hours and hours... Yep... Nothing wrong with being nostalgic sometimes. I do wish that I still had most of those models from those days, even though they would probably be considered glue bombs by today's standards. Good old Testors tube glue or Duco Cement is what I used back then... Yuk...

Doc I love your work on the interior with the license plates and covering those hinge holes on the firewall. I'm assuming that they are all decals... am I right..??? The ones on the firewall... did you mount them on tin foil first and then glue them to the firewall...???

Mike you can pick up some non-frosting CA glue at your LHS (if they carry it) which works pretty well.

Wow... Matthew thank the Lord you are still able to build models. I had 4 TIA's 12 years ago and thankfully was only mildly affected. My biggest issue is peripheral vision loss to the left (which is why I don't drive anymore). Other than that I continue to muddle through.

Hey Donn... I believe thatthe Castle Shannon show is on September 30th... If Virgil comes up in October he'll be so disappointed that you'll have to treat him to EXTRA Primanti sandwiches... LOL

Usually it is the weather here in western PA that slows me down as far as painting goes. It's either rainy or humid or windy. I paint outside with rattle cans so I usually have to plan by the weather forecasts for a good day to paint...... and I HATE it when the forecasts are wrong...!!! Since the NNL East I've been petty productive so far. I'm just about finishing up my third model since then. I'm hoping to be able to post some pictures in Under Glass soon.

Great job Manny. I've always wanted to do a cruise night diorama with a Diner... I've looked for an old rail car type building but yours is cool. You've definitely got lots of Diners in Jersey to get inspiration from.

Yes, Frog Tape does work on models. I used it successfully when masking off interior panels & seats. You have to burnish it down really well, then cut out what you want masked with an XActo knife, then reburnish the cut edge (I used a toothpick). Paint away... I removed the tape after the paint dried (lacquer) and had a nice, even, straight edge, with absolutely NO paint bleed.