Zoom Zoom

Beautiful conversion!

LOL Steve, everyone's on the same wavelength when they see this model...looks awesome, great with your "real" Black Widow buildups, and...where's that Plymouth to go with it?! Steve heard the same thing when he showed the car the first time, I'm pretty sure he's got the Plymouth project coming sometime. Big plus is availability of the Modelhaus Savoy and plenty of cheap '57 Chrysler 300 kits.

I built one in the same color scheme back around 1981 or 82 when that kit was new! It was the first body I sprayed with an airbrush that I got for Christmas in 1981; I still have the airbrush but not the model. For it's day it was a pretty nice kit, though Fujimi and Tamiya did much better. Yours looks pretty authentic, nice work on the weathering.

Vac forming isn't terribly difficult; a local hobby shop is selling laser cut boxes that you attach a vacuum hose to and frames for the plastic. You have to cut plastic, clamp it, warm it, and then place it over a buck, then apply the vacuum. There are some good books and tutorials on it if you dig enough, you'll find some good stuff just by doing a google search.

I use several glues. Most of the time I use superglue, applied carefully to the part that I am gluing to (such as a drop of glue in a locator hole). The part that I am locating I apply a bit of superglue accelerant with a Q-tip (such as a locator pin that goes into the locator hole). This allows me to place the part against the glued surface, and it sets in a few seconds. I also have a small needle applicator for accelerant (screwed to the top of the accelerant bottle) for less intricate work, I'll glue a part, apply it, then hit the joint w/the accelerant. Superglue w/accelerant is one of the greatest time-saving inventions that have really helped me speed up my building! Plus, the accelerant I use, from Bob Smith Industries (it's private labeled in a lot of hobby shops, in a brown spray bottle), doesn't affect paint, and also seems to completely eliminate the white "fog" that superglue can cause. I use accelerant all the time, I'm not patient enough to wait. I haven't had superglue fog on me in years. If it does happen, it's usually just a white powdery residue that wipes or polishes off. If I want to weld styrene before paint, I use liquid glue like Ambroid, Plastruct, Tamiya, Tenax, Testors. That's when I'm doing bodywork and whatnot before getting to the paint, and I want a particularly strong joint. Works great for motorcycle tanks, gluing two wing halves together, two halves of a fuselage, a bumper to a body, or a body-colored accessory that needs to match and won't interfere w/final assembly. I never use tube glue for styrene. It's bad stuff, it'll cause sink marks years later...it's too slow. I give it away. Funny how some diecast kits from Maisto and Revell came with great big tubes of the stuff! Certainly won't work on metal... I use "Formula 560" Canopy glue for gluing in glass/clear parts, and a few details that go on a painted/finished body. It's really strong when dry, and cleans up with water if any seeps out onto paint, it's easy to clean up. Far safer than using superglue on a body! Much stronger initial bond than Future or clear paint which some use to glue small parts. You can also find watch crystal glue for gluing clear parts. It's a lot like the Testors tube glue, but it dries better and the applicator is much finer. Testors sells it as well. I use it very occasionally. If I need a particularly strong glue joint, I'll use 5 minute epoxy. I don't use it much, but sometimes it's necessary for side mirrors, wheels, or other fragile parts. It also wipes clean w/water before it dries, if you have any accidents with the glue.

Ditto to what he said It's spectacular. Nice work Dave! Hey Izzy, did you see me waving to you from the deck of the cruise ship as we passed PR ? We passed right by PR on the way to St. Maarten and St. Thomas.

Ah well...makes me feel a little bit better that I couldn't find my Bburago diecast when I looked for it before the holidays. Guess I'll settle for a standard convertible and a vintage racer. Maybe I can get a friend to recast their Scale Kraft 120 coupe before building it...

What's funny is that I had walked right past it, glancing at it a bit but not too closely, something else caught my eye further up the lane, as I was walking back towards the '32 I realized "hey, that's the Revell Tudor kit that was just announced!!!" (this was in July) so I took the photo and then looked at the car more closely. That's when I realized how sweet it was, it's as nice a street rod as you'll ever see, but done in a very subtle/non-flashy color combo. I'm glad it wasn't bright red, or a candy color, or pseudo-rat-rod. Up until seeing this car, I wasn't particularly wild about the new kit, I've already got the chopped Hoving 3 window and the highboy to build, but dang it...I saw this and I HAVE to build it!! So don't blame it on me, blame it on the guy who built the 1:1

Saw this one locally at a cruise night in July, it was a knockout. I'd like to build one pretty much exactly like this, nice subtle look to it, love the odd warm gray color (probably stock), though I may do the wheels in another shade...maybe cream, maybe orange...

Renaissance has done the TR in 1/24, as well as Danbury Mint. With the Hasegawa announcement Renaissance has said they'll offer optional decals (he posted on GPMA about it since the Hasegawa kit renders his resin pretty much useless). The Danbury Mint model is pretty nice, the Renaissance model is okay but the body is kind of wavy. I have a MFH TR and am not terribly impressed with it; it's got a lot of nice things about it but the white metal hood/deck don't fit their respective holes in the resin body and it's not a simple fix by any stretch. I'm sure I'll be a lot happier overall w/the Hasegawa kit. If it's anything like the Miura it will be perfect. Hope this is just the start of some new/modern kits of some ignored vintage Ferraris. A Lusso would be a nice addition to the line. I bugged Ed Sexton's ear in November at Rennsport and ACME NNL about getting Italeri to reissue their 250 SWB kit that's only been issued once, it's the best of the styrene SWB's and would be welcomed by anyone interested in building plastic Ferraris. Since MRC is tied w/Italeri, he has some influence there that I hope he can help get Italeri interested in going down the street in Maranello and getting some licensing deals going once again. Seems like a no-brainer if they have the tooling and a hungry worldwide audience.

I have no idea until we get more information on the kit. I posted everything I've found out so far.

What I find fascinating is that people who will badmouth common mass-produced diecast seem to be just fine with low-quality white metal. I've seen spincasting in person; I know too well that it's a cheap/fast way to make parts vs. resin, and if there's a bad part...throw it back in the vat, remelt and recast! It's like the dirty little secret the aftermarket doesn't want people to know. They rely on modelers thinking "oooooh, white metal. That's GOTTA be good! It's so HEAVY. That's GOTTA be good! That's real QUALITY. WOW." Seriously, I can't believe more people aren't chastising these high $$ model makers for their overuse of white metal. For a few of the dirty underneath detail bits, perhaps for engine castings they're fine if the mold/casting isn't too grainy or porous...but just say NO to white metal wheels and body parts! The SMS Cobra Daytona has a bag full of "over 50 top quality white metal details" as described on the box. They're just as cheesy as anyone else's. When it comes to white metal, yes they may be "top quality", to me "top quality white metal" is an oxymoron. The SMS white metal parts are grainy, sometimes porous, some are bent/mis-shapen. The usual Resin pieces/decals/instructions are very nice otherwise. I wish there was a better solution to using white metal for low-volume production of small parts.

I have the Fujimi 512 kit in my stack (too many other projects in front of it...); it's very nice but the wheels are a couple scale inches larger than they should be, and the tires (sourced from one of their older Porsche 911 kits) had to be stretched a lot to go over the wheels. There was some rumor that Fujimi might retool the wheels, the Japanese builders were very disappointed in that one aspect. Otherwise it's a really nice kit. The engine detail is somewhat simplified, but the proportions are perfect. If you Google enough you find stuff like the following from a Japanese builder, his kit came out really nice, it's all in Japanese but you can figure out what he did by his photos, and he did do some extra detailing: Ferrari Boxer A Ferrari Boxer B Snoop around on his site, there are some really cool projects there. Wish I could read Japanese!

It is a Franklin Mint, it's a later tri-tone '55 model, a really nice model. The Modelhaus kit of the '53 features the original Caribbean styling; simpler and more subdued/elegant than the flashier later-model one. A group of us got to ride in a metallic green '53 Caribbean at the Packard Museum in Dayton Ohio a few years back on our return trip south from Toledo; the caretaker was moving it from one part of the museum into another building and invited us to ride along. A short trip around the block, but it was fun with the top down. One of those rides you never forget

Bill, I think your new year has just been made! Can't get much better than that! There's a thread on Automotive Forums started yesterday, someone saw the preorder information on Hannants, a UK hobby website and the information was confirmed by one of the reliable Japanese sources (hirofkd) that always seems to know ahead of time what the Japanese companies are up to. He said it's in Hasegawa's '08 catalog for a March release, full-detail in their historic car line, product # HC19. You can find the thread in the general car modeling section. Great news, very unexpected! Something we used to think would be great for Accurate Miniatures, but they're never getting off the ground w/anymore car stuff from the look of things. While I won't hold my breath until I see it for preorder from other sources, I'm pretty sure the information posted on A/F is accurate. Hannants preorder page for Testa Rossa With an "inexpensive" plastic Testa Rossa, I start thinking about doing a roof swap from a 250 GTO onto the pontoon-fendered car for a real "what if"...sure will be fun to have a couple of good Testa Rossas to play with. Who knows, at this rate maybe we will see a styrene Lusso someday! This hobby is far from dead, regardless of Wal Mart's "influence" on the thrifty side of the market

The Modelhaus has a very nice curbside '53 Caribbean. It's $85, but it's the only game in town. If I have any gripe about the kit, it's that it doesn't come w/an uptop option (that's just a personal thing, not a knock on the model). Otherwise it's superb. I've had one for several years, haven't had a chance to build it, but I've seen them built and they look fantastic when finished.

Got one of these myself as a Christmas gift, very nice kit indeed In fact I like it better than the MFH kits I've seen; MFH relies too much on white metal for my tastes. I prefer resin over white metal most of the time, especially for body components. I have no argument w/their machined parts and photoetch. I only have one MFH kit, a '58 Testa Rossa, and the white metal body pieces (hood, decklid, pontoon inserts) don't fit the resin well (the hood/decklid stick up too far, not an easy fix at all...), plus they're insanely heavy. Very dangerous to have to hinge these heavy parts with leather straps, so easy to break and get damaged. And now Hasegawa has gone and announced in their '08 catalog a full-detail 250 Testa Rossa.

As some have pointed out, it is indeed Goodyear's greed that is what has seen their removal from models. Corporate stupidity at it's finest. I've been buying tires for decades, it's really easy for me to boycott Goodyear from my 1:1's to show support for the model hobby...it's not exactly rocket science to make a better tire than Goodyear. They were some of the worst OE tires I've had on cars. I've had much better service from both Michelin and Dunlop, and even from cut-rate tires from Sumitomo and Kelly vs. the garbage Goodyears I had on a couple of Fords and one of my Mazdas.

Hey Doug, good to see you here!

Yikes. I say it's real.

I'm in the "wish I had waited" camp with the Imperial; while it was nice to get the reissue before, I wish I'd waited and gotten the latest release instead, not only for the new boxart but also for the decals. Oh well, at least the Model King is getting it right the first time around with the newer stuff. I'm not compelled to buy more kits just for better decals and boxart. Funny about the steering wheel issue; I have an original '60 and it's steering wheel is just as poorly centered as the reissue, but also found that it's not hard at all to fix w/a few minutes of careful X-acto and file work.

Already covered here...

What the blue devil is that? Love it. The spy photo from last year w/the clear engine cover was real! I figured as much the way they had been camoflaging the hood. Dear Revell...I can't afford the 1:1...please do this car!

Cool looking wagon. What's the donor kit? Revell Torino Cobra?

Sounds to me like you're more a builder than interested in collector value, which is of limited value when you're already starting w/vintage buildups and not a fresh vintage unbuilt kit. If you want one accurate '63 w/the working headlights and are going to the trouble to source some aftermarket goodies like fresh chrome, p/e, and decals, I'd say by all means fit a Revell chassis w/the separate suspension/exhaust; as the AMT chassis is pretty simplistic aside from the fact that the kit does come w/an engine. I'd also use a Revell snap interior, as it's got separate door panels and seats vs. the AMT's one piece bucket w/integral seats/door panels. Fitting Revell pieces may require some ingenuity, but shouldn't be too hard, and you'd end up w/the best hybrid of all the various parts. I could have fun in either scenario, building the more detailed hybrid or restoring the original and just using careful paint detailing techniques. It's a Corvette, it'll look good regardless