Ace-Garageguy

What Mark said. A decent (not 5-minute garbage) epoxy-and-microballoon slurry is probably your best bet to stabilize the groove (rough it up IN the groove thoroughly first to guarantee adhesion), then repeated primer / block sand / primer / block sand on top until you can't see any ghosting in the primer.

Thanks to everyone who's followed and expressed interest. Rob, the hood, hood sides, nose, front and rear bellypan sections and hard tonneau will all be copied in molds made from the original parts shown here, and the final model will be assembled with those components being openable and / or removable. The parts, as shown here, are all klugey cobbled-up looking things on the hidden sides, just plugs for the molds to be made after the thing is painted. I've shown my technique of making almost-scale-thickness real fiberglass parts on several WIP threads on this and other forums over the years. I've been honing the process, and can produce a near-perfect copy now. From another of my track-nose builds...plug on the left, mold in the center, copied part on the right. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/66744-chopped-34-track-nose-3-w-coupe-new-nose-finally-july-13/ More recent type of mold on the left, copied part in the center... The completed parts are very thin, and because of the exceptionally high-strength of the 1:1 aviation materials I use, they are significantly stronger than either resin or styrene, and don't warp over time.

Got the filler panel for the front bellypan made. Measured, laid it out on cardstock, cut a pattern. Checked the pattern for fit in the hole. Transferred the pattern to .045" styrene, glued in place. Won't be primering today...need to let this get fully set up.

Less than 60,000 original miles, mostly original paint, original mouse-fuzz interior and faux woodgraining. Just got a new clutch, brakes, tires and a heater. Rewired several years ago after rats got to the fabric insulation on the old harness. Runs smooth, starts instantly.

Yes, very clean, very nice. Like the color and the flippers too.

Fine looking work on every phase of this.

Very nice, especially for a first attempt. I remember when fade-painting was popular on 1:1 customs.

Richard's right...definitely 1/32. When I first got back in the hobby in '05 or so, I got all excited seeing some of the smaller scale kits of '50s iron, and assuming they were 1/25. There IS an old Revell 1/25 '57 Caddy... ...but the '55 is in the 1/32 line too...

Here are some concept workups that look good to me...much better than the ungainly turd in the opening posts. The yellow and red ones may be a little too Camaro-ish, but not bad overall. Apparently the plan is to market this thing world-wide, so taking a lot of unnecessary pork out of the current Challenger was the reason for going with an Alfa Romeo-derived platform.

Thanks Tim. I'm getting happier with it. Maybe get her in final primer today. As for paint, probably white with red scallops, inspired by the old GeeBee racing planes.

Loving it so far. Flares and details look great. Thanks for callin' 'em "flares" and not "flairs", too.

I want one. Seems I have a '60 convert I'll never get to and an extra El Camino. Maybe if I put them in the same box, in the dark...

Inspirational to watch you correct what should have been right to start with. I have a couple of these and may try a different approach, now that you've so kindly pointed out what exactly is wrong. Great color choice for this car, by the way.

Nice project, ambitious restyle. With the chop and the skirts, it's taking on something of a '39 Lincoln Zephyr look.

Had some Nikon photo-editor compatibility issues with my new hard-drive in the Win7 machine that weren't there with the old drive, and that took a while to work around...but it works just like it worked in XP now, even better than when I had the old 7 drive. Finally got enough real-life fires put out to grab some bench time these last few evenings. Listening to the local PBS affiliate doing their classic jazz Saturday night program. Life's pretty OK for the moment. I lost a lot of detail due to primer buildup, particularly the (should-be) sharply-sculpted body lines on the rear quarters, and I had to correct them. Also had a devil of a time getting the scribed panel lines straight enough, learned a thing of two in the process. Now she's in Duplicolor white primer, getting very close. I still have to make the center panel for the forward bellypan, and finalize the header openings, then just a little more 600-800 grit sanding of some areas. The body lines on the quarters are still a little too fat and vague, but I have a method worked out to slim them down and sharpen them a bit more.

Good idea. Has the potential to get away from the somewhat overwrought, trying-too-hard look of an overall beautifully-shaped car.

I have several, from pristine original Pyro and Lindberg boxed kits to awful gluebombs, one of which was salvaged from a dump. They fit together very well, build up easily, the engines are detailed enough to take farther and look quite good, and the proportions aren't too bad. The chassis is very simple and pretty much detail-free. The scaling, however, isn't very accurate. The model is smaller than it should be for the scale, but it makes a great basis for a hot-rod-custom. I've never formally measured one to see how far off it is, but I've driven and worked on real 1:1 Auburn boat-tails and fiberglass replicas, and the model is definitely undersize. You could probably use the Pyro / Lindberg model as a good basis for making an accurate model of the subject, with some work.

Great post. Never knew that existed. Very interesting. Thanks for the info on the production figures and the pressing of the bodies down there. You must truly enjoy having her. She's a beauty.

Wow. Same car.

I need to do a T-shirt of that...

In all fairness, it would seem that many old farts are also homonym-challenged, but they don't have the ready-made excuse of being conditioned to quickie thumb-spelling on the ol' texter thingie. "HOMONYMS are words that sound alike but have different meanings.Homophones are a type of homonym that also sound alike and have different meanings, but have different spellings. HOMOGRAPHS are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.Heteronyms are a type of homograph that are also spelled the same and have different meanings, but sound different. WORDS THAT BOTH SOUND THE SAME AND ARE SPELLED THE SAME are both homonyms (same sound) and homographs (same spelling). Example: lie (untruth) and lie (prone); fair (county fair), fair (reasonable)." OMG, OMG...couldn't we just measure some header-spacing nits instead? Accuracy in ANYTHING is so hard !!!

1) What's a map? 2) I texted all my friends, and the only one who'd ever heard of the Revolutionary War said Germany won, in 1975. Tribal knowledge is powerful. 3) We should all be trying to conserve synaptic resources (whatever they are).

Here you go... http://www.jcwhitney.com/kleinn-horns-trail-blaster-horns/p3091903.jcwx

And if you have a life where you can be a couple inches off in your measuring, you have it pretty damm easy. The guys at the car model companies WANT to build good models without instantly visible flaws. Otherwise, we'd get Palmer-quality every time. QED In general, today's kits are VERY good overall, simply because the people doing the work care enough to make it so. Just a little more care in evaluating the work before it's committed to final tooling is all any of us are asking. Quite reasonable. Adult business men don't take their marbles and go home in a snit like babies because someone had the audacity to point out something that could be better with a product. They try a little harder next time, or carefully evaluate and correct the flaw if it's caught early enough.