Ace-Garageguy

Like the stance and the photos too. Good looking little truck, for sure.

Great looking little hot-rod. Looks like a really fun build too.

Please...lets not start this again. I posted the interpreted and scaled CORRECT measurements taken from a REAL engine on the kit review thread. They do NOT agree with the NEW Revell kit port-spacing measurements, but they DO agree with the OLD Revell parts-pack port-spacing measurements. I ALSO noted in THIS thread that the drawing above appears to be incorrect to me.. On the drawing above, NOT A SCALE DRAWING, the center ports / pipes appear to me a little too far apart. I have NOT scaled the port-centers on this drawing, as there is no need to use a non-scaled drawing as a reference when the real 1:1 dimensions are available. This horse has been beaten enough. Let's let it lie. The numbers and multiple references attesting to the port-spacing on ALL BUICK NAILHEADS are there for anyone who cares to review.

Thanks JB. No hard felings on this end either. Life is good.

So...I spent last evening swapping nailhead parts around. Interestingly, the OLD Revell parts-pack heads are exactly the same length as the NEW Revell heads in the '29. The old heads will swap on to the new block quite nicely. The oil pans and front covers can go back and forth easily too, and the NEW nailhead water pump / timing cover / water crossover actually will fit on the new block with the old heads. Fits perfectly, actually. I STILL prefer the correct exhaust-port spacing of the OLD Revell engine, but the NEW headers look really good. All it takes to get the new headers corrected is to take a small section out just behind the second primary pipe, and drill /pin the ends together. Let it setup completely, and then dress the header flanges off flat (very gently) gently on a flat file or sandpaper glued to the bench. After stripping the chrome, just a very small amount of bodywork on the pipes will have them looking right. The NEW Revell '32 chassis that comes in the '29 kit puts the nailhead exactly in the right position, height and relative to the firewall, for the look I'm after.

Printed out several copies of the profile shot, tweaked the image size until the car body was in scale with the Revell unit. Cut up some bits and pieces, transferred them to styrene. Beginning to get the general look. Sorry for the fuzzy pics, by the way. Still working on the photo-editing suite, trying to get it to run reliably under Win7.

Found a pair of wide-whites that are a scale 1.5" shorter diameter that the first ones. With some fiddling, I was able to drop the grille somewhat relative to the tire tops, and because the diameter of the tires is smaller, the front end came own a pretty good bit. The allowed me to drop the tail to where the rear tire tops are well above the turtledeck, and to drop the cowl to get a little more rake as well. The line between the cowl and the radiator shell is still good (with the top of rad shell lower than the cowl line) and I'm thinking I can come down on the cowl just a tick more. Ground clearance is also still acceptable for a real-world useful vehicle. The difference between this mockup and the last one may not look like much to many observers, and to others the changes will be significant in getting a lower, more aggressive and balanced look. A decision is yet to be made concerning the final front-axle placement and wheelbase...depending on whether the car is to represent a fairly current build with an electric fan, or an earlier period-build with a belt-driven fan on the water pump.

Here's one I started a while back...the correction to the lower body would be appropriate for any of the AMT '32 kits. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/78983-chopped-32-vicky-amt-body-on-revell-fenders-and-rails/

Another one of these...

Depends on the type of transmission, and the vehicle it's installed in. Automatics typically have a cable or a single rod going from the shift lever to a lever on the side of the trans. Some new automatics have only wires connecting them to the input device. Manual transmission linkage is just about infinitely varied. There's column-shift, floor-shift, 3-speed, 4-speed, more-speed; There are Lenco and other drag-racing transmissions that have multiple levers; there are air-shifters; there are transmissions where the gear lever goes directly in to the top or side or end of the trans itself, and many where the linkage is external and attaches to the side of the gearbox in a complex assortment of links and arms. Some technical knowledge about the real transmission you're wanting to model is helpful, because armed with that, you can get Google to help you find photos and diagrams that will make building a model of what you see logical and straightforward. There are even a few kits that have well-represented shift linkage in them. Not many, but they do exist in 1/25 scale.

That pretty well sums it up for me too. But I'll fiddle for days or weeks getting proportions and stance dialed in, then put the model away for a while to start on the (to me) more enjoyable initial creative phase of something else, or while I mull over a particularly difficult scale-engineering problem, or develop a necessary skill. I like getting details right, and I like my models to reflect correct, believable engineering and functionality of the real things. MY hobby, MY right to enjoy it as I see fit. It would seem that there are as many subtly differing reasons and approaches to building models as there are modelers, and as long as no one tries to define, enforce or criticize how or why anyone else enjoys the hobby, "it's all good". Fun is where each individual finds it. Even those who build for serious competition derive pleasure from it, though competition takes the simple "fun" out of most things (in my own experience anyway), but there is a thrill that goes along with the challenge to outshine one's peers in any field that can be addictive. Live and let live in this hobby, in life....so long as no one else is hurt.

Several more of these...

The Mattel unit is small and low-suction. As Snake says you CAN make parts on it, but not a whole body. I have a hot-rodded one here, but I can get better results using fiberglass. For the real poop on home-units, get these two books from Amazon. I also have them here. You CAN get reverse-curved bodies made on a vacuum-former platen, but you have to be very careful about placement of the air-bleed holes to do it. (RE: Jon Haigwood's post above) The problem arises when you try to take the body OFF OF THE MOLD. Think about it. The lower part of the body will be smaller than the part of the mold above it. The part may simply will not come off without cutting. This is known as not having sufficient mold "draft" to allow a part to release, and mold-designers using many materials and processes have to be aware of it.

And Matt Bacon's right about the Lambo Miura preceding the Carabo by a couple of years (1966) in using the slat-louvered rear window treatment.

This is where some technical history is interesting, and it simply depends on the manufacturer, design and vintage of the brakes themselves to determine whether they're correct "traditional" or not. Crosley offered Goodyear/Hawley disc brakes on an American production car in 1949. Chrysler Imperials from '49-'53 are reputed to have had disc brakes, but I've never actually seen them. 4-wheel disc brakes had been known in the US, on circle-track cars starting with the 4-WD Miller Specials in the late 1930s, and some racing units inevitably made it on to street-driven hot rods. You have to remember that guys made things work together that didn't come out of catalogs in those days, so just about anything was possible in reality. I have a client with a real-steel '32 5-window that was built originally in '64 with '63 Jag XK-E junkyard-sourced front torsion bar suspension, and Girling disc brakes. The car is as "traditional" as you can get, and the brakes are right. Lockheed, Hurst /Airheart, Kelsey-Hayes and ATE disc brakes have also been used on "traditional" hot-rods in the period builders today are emulating.

Cooler and cooler.

The operative word here is "should". Unless you have specific experience using things over specific products, you should refrain from recommending them. I know for a fact that Testors Wet-look clear works very well over Duplicolor lacquers, and only takes 3 coats to give plenty of material to colorsand and polish (assuming you shoot it with little to no orange peel). This is Duplicolor as-shot out of the rattlecan, with one coat of clear. Duplicolor colors labeled as "metallic" MAY have metallic flakes that appear too large for scale work. Products labeled "mica" or "pearl" typically have smaller flakes, for a more-correct scale appearance. Of course, if the metallic particles in paint were REALLY scale-correct for, say 1/25, they would be almost invisible. For some probably very interesting reason, the human brain seems to accept metallic particles in paint as scale-acceptable once they get below a certain diameter. This Testors One Coat Lacquer flake is huge, and comes off looking rather like a bass-boat or really gaudy kustom kar finish.

Seems like the Bertone Carabo of 1968 was one of the earliest uses of exterior rear louvers for shading a large piece of glass and still allowing outward vision.

Do the research on early rods, cars that ran on the dry lakes in particular, and you'll see the original purpose of louvers on the rear of a car...decklids, rolled pans, bellypans etc...was for aerodynamic enhancement. The idea was to let air escape from the inside of the body, at speed, in the hopes that some 'pressure equalization' and filling of the somewhat negative-pressure area immediately behind a fast-moving car would decrease drag, enabling a higher top-speed. Honest. Then, like lakes-pipes and moon-disc hubcaps, they became a fashion-statement. AND...on something like a '30s-'40s coupe, a well thought-out louvered decklid (that prevents water, critter and fume incursion) can be a BIG help in getting flow-through cabin ventilation to work. Its not enough to just have a forward vent or a fan. For effective ventilation you have to let the air go somewhere, and real rear louvers can work very well for that.

I was a little surprised at the almost total lack of remembrance locally of yesterday's date and the horrific occurrence 14 years ago. Though there were a few American flags placed around town, I didn't notice any flown at half-mast. And I had to be on the town square last evening to deliver some paperwork; there was almost a party atmosphere, with people playing Frisbee and launching illuminated flying whirly-things well into the night. Seems many of us have already pretty well forgotten that an American city was unjustly attacked in an unprecedented act of war, and that almost 3000 innocent Americans died as a result of murderous fanaticism.

I wouldn't do the cig lighter thing. HOT water is your friend. Honest. You don't really get even heating with a flame...only the outside gets hot while the inner part stays cool...and we see a lot of "smoked" roll-cages, etc. from time to time.

This has the potential to be seriously cool as a spyder. Your work looks good.

I've been wondering what the glooey-mess chassis under this thing started out as. Turns out it's the old MPC Switchers '32 Ford phaeton / sedan. While it actually looks nothing at all like a real '32 Ford chassis, it makes a good basis as a generic rectangular-tube racecar chassis.

All 3, complete, about $20. A deal for me 'cause I have about an infinite number of ideas for '32 Fords. The AMT phaeton is one of the 2 AMT '32 kits that doesn't have the awful blobular chassis. And though the chassis in the old Switchers kit looks absolutely nothing like a real '32, the rest of the kit is actually pretty good...with a lot of optional parts.