Ace-Garageguy

"Hi. My name is Tom, and I'm a philatelist".

Looks to me like larger vertical stabs or a ventral fin might be more to the point aerodynamically than the slightly swept leading edges on the horizontal. She might just try to yaw a little bit when all the thrust of the turbojet comes on. Just sayin'... Cool project.

Kinda makes you wonder how long this "well, our Chinese toolmakers have never seen a real one, and nobody here knows how to measure and transmit accurate data anymore, so we just do the pathetic best we can what with all the communication problems, cash constraints and deadlines" BS has really been going on.

Ummmm...maybe a more efficient approach to the problem would be to just let them have it. Take them out of the gene pool quicker, ya' know?

Surely you jest, sir. If not, Dog help us.

Thanks for posting this. I'm going to have to have one of these as well. How remarkable it is that this aircraft managed to survive the war; I recall seeing the beginnings of the 1:1 flying reproduction, but forgot about it entirely. Thanks again for the link to the kit site.

I think I have about 60 going...they'll make it to the bench for a couple of days, then go back on the shelf while another one gets its turn...

OMG !!! I HOPE you got your new phones UNDERCOATED !!! OMG !!! OMG!!!

Nice there's not much graffiti, but what's happened to everybody? Seems like when I was a kid, paint was pretty much for painting stuff. Why do sheeple-followers of idiot vandalizers even exist? Why is it necessary to put your pathetic, meaningless little mark all over everything? What makes it "cool" to spray stupid scrawls everywhere? Learn a freakin' skill, people. Learn to DO something...instead of marking up other people's stuff.

Reminds me of the prisoners not being allowed toilet paper in the Alice's Restaurant bit...so they couldn't roll it out the window, slide down it and "have a es-cape".

Port spacing AND head-spacing and angle between heads. Fords (except Y-blocks) have evenly spaced intake ports...plus different water / thermostat and distributor locations...and whether the engine normally uses a separate valley cover and water crossover (like Buick)... It makes a difference, if you want a non-dorky look to your engine, anyway.

Seems I recall the old AMT '55 Chebby Nomad had an acceptable SBC / Hilborn manifold, too. The Revell Anglia / Thames kits have separate Hilborn-style manifolds with port spacing that would work for the SBC, but would require a separate valley cover and water neck. There are also several resin versions out there...these are from Speed City...

So, once again, the lowest-common-denominator retards ruin it for everyone else...

Really a shame the old Aurora scaling and proportions were so bad on all of these kits. When I got back into modeling in '05 or so, I bought several of all of them, based on the beautiful box-art paintings. If only the parts in the box looked like the paintings. At this point, they're all on the shelf, waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. They're honestly almost as bad as Palmer stuff, being only fair impressions of the actual cars. Again, what a shame, because a lot of effort went into doing all the little parts and opening bits. If only someone with talent had done the body tooling...

100% demolding too soon, still too hot, above its "glass transition temperature (Tg)". Styrene that's over about 100 C (212 F) will NOT support itself, and will warp and droop in any direction it's stressed in. Trying to cycle the equipment too fast to increase production and raise profits by a minuscule amount is a possible culprit, or the techs just not paying attention to the temps. A change in formulation of the styrene used during a run could also be the cause, because not ALL styrene formulations have exactly the same Tg . To UN-warp it permanently (IF the warp is the result of being demolded hot) you'll have to get it up past its Tg again.

Like I said, a whole lotta stupid around...

"At the paint rack. Why?" Cause there's a whole lotta stupid around, that's why...stupid with zero respect for other people's property, rights, or just knowing how to act like a human being.

The '37 is pretty much the same car...and AMT already has one...

Looking really good. I like the big 'ol pre-'58 Buicks, and of course there's nothing available in 1:25 styrene. Nice work.

Thanks for that. Again, from that angle the sides are too slabular, window profiles aren't right, proportion of greenhouse to body looks a little off, tail profile droops on top and should be more of a curved rising line on the bottom...hmmm...interesting.

I sincerely appreciate the interest, guys. I've been priming...letting it shrink-in...sanding...priming...shrinking...sanding...etc. Getting there, and will post new pix when she's ready for paint. As this will be a plug for molds of the hood, nose and tonneau, I'm leaving the scribed opening lines a little wide to accommodate paint thickness on the finished parts from the molds, but I'm trying to keep them tight enough to look good with the plug presented as a finished model too. Kindof a fine line, and I haven't done anything exactly like this before.

I kinda see your point, but it would take some serious effort to get the power, reliably, from an old Stude engine that you can get off-the-junkyard-shelf with an LS. The LS powerplant is rapidly going the way of the old smallblock Chebby, becoming the go-to HP source for just about everything, and for much the same set of reasons. Frankly, there are some things about the LS engine I don't particularly like now that I'm getting into them. I personally think this particular car would be more interesting with a supercharged late-model Hemi...but I have zero knowledge about them internally so far.

I'd love to see that. I've got a couple of the old Aurora / Revell-Monogram releases, and after looking at more photos of the real cars, I'm itching to try to build a somewhat corrected one. The real one is such a beautiful car, and the models I have miss it by a fair margin.

To address your original questions, I personally find that primering everything gives me better results. Every part will have some parting-line, flash or tree-attachment point that needs to be corrected, and many parts, like engine-trans assemblies, will need to have seams addressed prior to painting. Primering of these small parts and assemblies just gives you a more consistent surface to paint over, and helps to show up flaws that still need work. I also prefer to spray every part, small or large, to eliminate brushstroke marks.

What jumps out at me immediately from Greg's pix: the lower body sides on the real car have more inward-curvature, the windshield goes up into the roof a bit higher, the tops of the door windows are a flatter line on the real one, the tops of the rear quarter-panels do't droop at the back as the model does...and the tail doesn't appear to be so slab-sided and heavy, the tops of the front fenders are rounded as they come forward into the headlight bezels (not straight like the model), the grille of the real car slants back more at the bottom (and is really a prettier shape), the hood scoop is significantly different in shape and curvature too, and the side vents on the front fenders are smaller on the 1:1. Now, if you want to get really picky...