Ace-Garageguy

Great model. I love these old big rod kits, and I like the cycle fenders too. Just in case anyone doesn't know, the cycle fender thing was originally a way of coping with California's for-a-while requirement that cars over 1500 pounds had to have fenders, but lighter vehicles were exempt. Go figure. Cycle-style fenders were the most minimal units that could qualify under the then-law.

Cool idea. With those canted-quad headlamps, it's a natural for a custom.

Your wood treatment is just beautiful, and to my eye the colors are absolutely perfect. Thanks for all the fine how-to info.

Great tech link, Greg. Thanks.

Man, I like it a WHOLE lot better in your red than the green of the original. Great choice. I really like your as-cast wheel-center treatment too. Excellent.

You're 100% correct. If it will still move around at all in the bottle, agitation and thinning as appropriate will bring it back.

Exquisite workmanship and finish? Sure. Good looking, coherent design? No. Nope. Unh unh. Great engineering? Questionable. Engineering has to do with FUNCTION, not hanging a bunch of shiny stuff wherever it happens to fit easily. Turbos in the back seat? Why? It's not like the engine bay is small on an old Riv, and last time I looked, placing turbos close the the engine for good throttle response was still the preferred setup. Yup. Kinda reminds me of some of the custom "improvements" made to the Loewy Studebakers and the '55-57 T-birds. I don't really get the point of taking a beautiful, perfect-as-it-is car and making it into a hacked-up, disjointed pig. Of course, there's folks who like big ol' rubber 44DD implants too.

Man oh man oh man. Really nice design and craftsmanship.

Yup, that's the basic problem. The runners don't match at all, and one side goes to points on the head where no ports could exist...assuming heads on OHV V8 engines are symmetrical, which they always are...at least in port position relative to everything else. I first got one of these as a built-up, and at first assumed someone had just put it together wrong. Nope. You'll notice on this old Mopar cross-ram, the runners are staggered and straddle each other, in order to match up with where the ports are on the heads. You would have to modify the kit manifolds to look like this in order to have any semblance of reality. Here's another view of a similar manifold installed. The intake port configuration of this Mopar is similar to a smallblock Chebby. The intake ports on a Ford FE, which the kit engine somewhat resembles, are not paired like this, but are evenly spaced. This is a Ford FE intake-side shot. Evenly spaced ports. Note also that the head has an incomplete valve-cover gasket seating rail. The rest of the rail is formed by the intake manifold, a design peculiar to the FE.

In my experience, between 40% and 60% humidity is optimum. Air temperature between 60 and 80 degrees (F) is also optimum.

Geez...you really make these old-timer kits come to life. Your work has rekindled my interest in cars of this period. Really nice stuff, Harry.

Gorgeous.

Always a pleasure to see another well-built '32 Ford. The real world thinks so too, as the cars continue to be reproduced in both steel and fiberglass, and the market seems to be pretty stable. Your choice of straight dark blue is perfect for the 5W coupe body, and the gloss appears to be stellar. Nice work.

Yes, a very beautiful model. I've always admired the clean and purposeful look of all the 196 iterations. Magnificent cars, and a model here that does them justice.

Definitely a Ford in your photos, but there are many significant differences between the 1:1 and the model. I THINK the model was designed and produced first. Much earlier.

Yeah, youse guys who said the model engine is a generic mashup are correct in your observations. The other odd thing is that the exhaust port spacing appears to have the end ports slightly closer to each other than the center ports. Only OHV V8 with that particular configuration is Buick nailhead. The cross-ram intake manifold port-spacing is totally wonky and doesn't exist in reality on ANY engine. One kit review I came across calls the engine a "wild fully modified Cobra mill", whatever that means. FE, supposedly? It's not an accurate model of any real engine.

Nope, you're not bidding against me. Ray is absolutely right about bidding-wars driving the cost up, sometimes far higher than what it can be just bought for elsewhere.

Yup, Letraset dry-transfers were a really great modeling product, and some fonts even came in white and red, as well as black. I used them extensively in my RR modeling days, and in design work. Sorry to see them gone, but there are still options. Chartpak continues to offer a limited range, and also sells film to print your own. There is a variety of fonts available from RR modeling suppliers too. Here's a way to make your own, any font, any color. http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/ NOTE: These are NOT decals. They are true, carrier-free, rub-down dry transfers.

I'm probably the worst on here for having multiple projects going and rarely finishing anything. Last count there were well over 30 "in progress", but they run the gamut from the gathering-parts stage to waiting for paint to shrink-in stage. And sometimes, either I don't quite yet have the skills to pull off what I'm trying, or my vision for the whole project changes. Because I modify everything I build, usually very heavily (and usually never to match an existing vehicle), it often takes time to work out problems that come up. Rather than chaining myself to a build-block (or risking that a hurried solution will end up giving me a model I'm not happy with) I'll work on something else. I have found that the solution to a problem will usually just come to me if I give it time. Seems like my subconscious is processing always in the background, and having the patience to let it work works for me. This is also a pleasant escape from my real-world existence of deadlines and spending limits. Getting just the right part to finish something is also a reason for occasionally shelving a build. The injector stacks on my Challenger One proved very difficult to source for exactly what I wanted. The model got shelved, and by the time I'd found them I was in the middle of moving everything I own. Carl's observation about leaving notes is spot-on, and I have to do this in order to have any real idea where I was when I put one away. In general, I enjoy the building process immensely, and I'd prefer to have only a few finished models that I'm really happy with than a lot of models I think are half-arred.

Yes, they're mostly monsters. But the figures like Spiderman and Black Widow, for instance could be used as starting points to get the proportions and musculature correct. Without a good representation of these two critical elements, any sculptural rendition of a human, in any scale, suffers. It's considerably easier to change details like clothing and specific faces than it is to scratch-build believable looking people, so using an existing model as a jumping-off point makes sense.

Some of the Moebius figures appear to be repops of old Aurora kits, while some are more current, like the Ironman movie characters. There's also a lot of anime available in about 1/7 (odd) but there are some 1/8 pieces too.

Moebius has a line of characters in 1/8. Same modeling techniques we already use could modify these, perhaps, into what you need. Not all sites show the full line, but there are poses and figures from many genres, and multiple poses available of the same character in some cases.

Absolutely beautiful. I especially like that you combined several somewhat marginal kits to produce something truly outstanding. Informative and inspirational build thread, too. Very very nice, sir.

Worth trying, but I'd think that wiping the highly abrasive paste off of the part would make undesired scratches. The beauty of the old eraser trick is that there's no residue other than possibly a little dry dust that will blow off.

And they're the ones who, when they call the insurance company or significant-other, say "the car wrecked".