Ace-Garageguy

Man, that's a gorgeous frame. I've had adhesion problems with butyrate tube and rod, and I've never actually tried to build anything out of the wire-core variant. However, I DO build lots of things from lots of materials, and my first thought would be to cut your down-bars a little long so you can strip back the butyrate coating enough to achieve a 'pin' on the end, and drill your torsion-bar cross-tubes to accept the pins. A carefully fitted joint, assembled with this toughened CAA from Loctite, and carefully made fillets at the joins after the initial application has set up, would do it...in my best first guess. I haven't actually tested the toughened Loctite gel on butyrate, so I'd recommend YOU test before committing to a chassis build. If it's not strong enough, a high-strength epoxy (not 5-minute worthless goop) toughened with cotton-flock, with the joints pinned as suggested above, ought to get it.

Very clean, nice believable and aggressive stance...looks great.

Very nicely done. I'd love to see that in 1/25 too.

The Revell parts-pack engines are still widely available and cheap for what remains of the line. The Ford 427FE (top-blown 6-71), the smallblock Chevy(front-blown Potvin style), the Pontiac (again top-blown 6-71), and the mis-labeled Cadillac (wrongly labeled a 354 but in reality a 331-365-390) which comes with a multi-carb setup (as optional equipment included in the blown engines listed above) are often criticized as being "fiddly" and difficult to build, but with some care and patience, they build up into outstanding models. The AMT parts-pack engines are all outstanding...smallblock Chevy, Pontiac, Chrysler firepower and Corvair...not to mention the over-the-top Allison 1710 cu.in. WWII aircraft engine

Some vintage V8 engines: The Revell Anglia and Thames panel have injected Oldsmobiles that can pass for anything from 303 to 394 (1949-1963). The original Revell StoneWoodsCook Willys has the same engine, top-blown with a GMC 6-71. The Revell Orange Crate also has the same engine, but front-blown with a Potvin-style drive. Another version of the same Olds is in the (first version, NOT BB2) Revell Ed Roth Beatnik Bandit, this time top-blown with a 4-71 and multiple carbs. The Revell Mickey Thompson Challenger has 4, top-blown (6-71) Pontiacs that can pass for anything in the traditional Pontiac OHV engine line from 1955 on. The engines in the Challenger also have a nice Cragar chain-style blower drive. These Pontiacs are very similar to the tooling in the Revell parts-pack Pontiac, which has different accessories. The Tommy Ivo Showboat, also from Revell, has 4 injected Buick nailheads. These are similar to, again, the parts-pack version, which is now extremely rare. The Revell Miss Deal Studebaker funny-car has a top-blown Chrysler early "FirePower" Hemi and can pass for anything from the 1951 331 thru the later 354 and 392. This engine, once again, was available in an impossible-to-find parts-pack kit. The Revell '32 ford 5-window coupe has an early Hemi as well, with no-name valve covers. It is entirely different tooling from the earlier Revell releases. The Revell Ed Roth Mysterion has TWO Ford 406 /427 FE engines. Again, these are very similar to the Revell parts-pack 427 Ford tooling, but the Mysterion has multi-carb intakes. All the Revell '32 fords also have a good Ford Windsor that can pass for anything from a 221 to a 351W with the right accessories. And the AMT '29 Ford kit has a little Dodge "Red Ram" hemi.

The engine in the Wagon Rod is a Chevrolet LT5, double-overhead cammer.

Smokin' hot, much better than the as-kitted stance. Very nice work on everything.

Gee...all MY '39 Chevies are Monogram, and they're 1/24.

Now you know the secret to success with women. You're welcome. Giving the girls your phone number written on $100 bills works well too. Actually, after we got past "what's your sign?" and "do you come here often?", she noticed my Rolex and apparently wanted to verify that I could afford her hourly rate. She asked me what I did for a living, and I started to explain that I manufactured a line of aftermarket fiberglass parts for several other companies. That's where the term "manufacture" had her looking like the proverbial deer in the proverbial headlights. And now you know the rest of the story. ;)

Cool build. This and Thompson's Challenger are the two kits primarily responsible for me thinking, early on, that Revell was the best model car company on the planet. I'm really looking forward to watching your build of this iconic masterpiece.

It's truly sad, but ignorance seems to know no bounds. I swear these are true stories. I met a girl in a bar many years ago, a real cutie, and she did not understand the concept of 'manufacturing'. It had simply never occurred to her tiny little brain. During the course of our conversation, I asked her where she thought everything around her came from. Her answer: "well, you just go to the mall and everything's there"...said like I was the idiot. An occasional business associate and good friend was dating an adult, professional woman in Az. for a while. They went out in the desert to look at the night sky, and he mentioned how it just blew him away to think that all those points of light were other stars like our Sun, and even galaxies of millions of stars. She adamantly disagreed, saying "They are NOT!!!. The SUN is the SUN, and those are the STARS !!! They're NOT THE SAME AT ALL !!!". The very attractive and successful female real estate agent who got me into this house countered my complaint that nothing in the house seemed to be square, level or perpendicular to anything else by saying, with a straight face "well, the house was built a long time ago, in 1969. Maybe they hadn't invented levels yet". But boy, was she a babe.

Really looking sweet, Bernard. It's nice to see one that's been resting come back to life and start to look so very very good. Everything about it looks right, and that ghosted photo is super cool.

I've known a lot who were much less pretty and much more annoying.

Thanks for the info. I noticed it in the film, assumed it was Ghia from that era based on the nose, and had it on the research list. Thanks again for the time saved.

Thanks guys, for the kind words. The little car really appreciates them too. And thanks Chris, for the heads-up on the Microscale Gloss. Sounds perfect, and I'll definitely give it a try. Thanks again.

Love this...had a 1:1 '62 for many years and stupidly let it get away. Yours is looking great.

Me three.

I like the hammered look you've got going on this one. Much MUCH better than the too-high version the kit builds up into. Very nice work.

X2. Nice stance too. It appears to have a slight nose-down rake, which works perfectly with the overall look.

I'm sure that works very well, as his results speak for themselves. I personally prefer to thoroughly scrub my bodies with hot water, with a toothbrush and an abrasive cleaner like Comet. I find it roughens the surfaces perfectly for maximum primer adhesion and flowout (I use Duplicolor, SEM and Plasticoat automotive spraybomb primers); it also gets into the very small crevices around molded details that sanding misses entirely, and it doesn't soften the details like sanding certainly can. Then a hot water rinse, and a wash in isopropyl before primering. I do a lot of heavy bodywork, and my models often sit for weeks waiting for the primer to fully shrink in. I've had surface contamination issues that caused massive fisheyes and took a LOT of time to correct on a couple of occasions where I failed to iso-wash a primered body that had been sitting out for some time, before painting. It's more work, but it's good insurance for me, and I wouldn't skip the step now for anything. I got into the habit of Comet-scrubbing everything (even small parts) before primering as a result of buying and restoring rather a lot of gluebombs over the years, and noticing how paint on very old models sometimes seems to crack and pull away from crevices, indentations and areas adjacent to molded details. Paint tends to be thicker there, and so it shrinks more (as there's more there to shrink). The Comet scrub roughens these potential trouble spots nicely, and also thoroughly removes any stripper-residue (brake cleaner, Easy-Off oven cleaner, etc.) which is often left when one removes paint from a gluebomb. I finish with an isopropyl wash, as mild soap won't remove some contaminants like silicone...which will cause horrible fisheyes if painted over. Different methods work for different people using different materials in different situations.

What you've got so far for a small-scale Q&D looks pretty good to me. Are you planning to do an entire 917 in 1/6 or 1/8...I assume scratch-building everything?

You could conceivably make springs that look like that from old watch parts...specifically, the hairsprings on escape wheels (visible partially hidden here) but you wouldn't probably be able to get them to hold the hood open. If however, you riveted the hinge links together quite tightly (yes, you can get rivets that small), the friction in the linkage could be sufficient to hold the hood open. Very delicate work it would be.

...and then there was the fella who was working for me (not for long) who constantly referred to the "torque-to-ground-ratio"... ...Car and Driver mag once referred to the suspension design in the Nissan 300ZX as "various rods and levers"... ...my know-it-all idiot neighbor was recently explaining how more back-pressure from the catalytic converter made more horsepower... ...and another fella working for me (again, not for long) said you adjust the hydraulic lifters in an old smallblock Chevy by "tightening them all the way down and then backing off until they click"... ...and then there was the 'expert' who was telling me I had to polarize an alternator after replacing it... ...and the idiot neighbor's buddy was telling me his little Acura Integra was a "R type" (it had the "Type R" emblems), but it only had 4-bolt wheels. I mentioned the lack of 5-bolt wheels to him, and he said "dub..uhuh...huh...ah...well"... .

Wow, that IS nice.

That is really cool. And seeing that old brown Revell Chris Craft sure brought back some memories...