Ace-Garageguy

Really looking forward to seeing that. ZO6 and Corvair probably have never even been in the same sentence before. I'll be watching for it.

Beautiful builds all, and very fine conversion work on the first one. I've always loved the big Healeys, especially the engine sound from the driver's seat.

Kewl interior and details. I assume no scale leopards were harmed during the making of this model. The actual sunlight makes the car look really great too. Photographed with an exterior background, it would look 1:1 at first and second glance.

The Cragars, wide whites, shaved hood and mesh grill insert all work to make a nice, coherent low-key custom. Looks good.. Is the continental wheel-cover kicked back to clear the opening deckild?

That opened-up roof is really an imaginative treatment and freshens the look of the car a lot. Great idea.

Okay, finish it all the way I will. A 1:1 mod on these old Hemis is to raise the deep part of the sump (and the pickup) and lower the ends....split the difference, so to speak. It raises the oil level closer to the crank, but a windage tray pretty well sorts the whole thing out. Better than raising a 700+ pound engine higher in the chassis. Still gotta be careful, but it's not immediate disaster like the deal here would be. Other than polishing the metalizer on the hood and putting glass in the windshield, headlights, and adding rear lights, the body will stay as-is.

Only one word.....incredible.

This isn't really finished-finished, as it's missing engine wiring and some other detail parts, but it DOES live in a clear plastic box on the shelf, and is probably as "finished" as it's going to get in this lifetime, so I hope it qualifies for Under Glass. It's something I threw together from an early issue AMT '32 Ford gluebomb and some other stuff lying around. I started to strip the chipped, pink-painted and flamed body, and then decided it could make a passable patinaed survivor barn-find, getting a new lease on life. Blown Chrysler Hemi. It was just a quick, fun build to have something else "done" on the shelf, but it was a lot of fun. I hope it makes you smile.

This one's in clay over a balsa and basswood chassis. It's a 1/8 scale styling exercise for a possible body kit for the first generation Toyota MR2. RC car wheels and tires.

This is a 1/10 scale, 100% scratch-built model of an original design for a 1:1 vehicle. Info on the real one is available here......... http://contest.techb...ation-2012/2250 The model was built like a Guillows model airplane with balsa ribs cut out, held together with basswood stringers, and planked with balsa. It was then fiberglassed and surface-finished with bondo. Paint is Geo Metro white acrylic urethane, and the blue is Ford dark engine blue rattle-can, polished. This is the full-scale model under construction. It's built much the same as the little model, but urethane foam is the material rather than balsa.

Two suppliers I use for scale rod, tubing, structural shapes and sheet plastic are Evergreen and Plastruct. I normally buy it at my larger LHS, Hobbytown. Both companies have websites and both began business, to the best of my knowledge, making styrene parts (girders, columns, pipes, valves, stairs, etc) for industrial, engineering and architectural modelers who built scale models of things like oil refineries and skyscrapers before the days of CAD. I have an early set of several hundred plastic valves, from the '50s. http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/ http://www.plastruct.com/ The parts trees are generally way too large diameter for making anything other than maybe AC Cobra main frame tubes, or something similar. The rod, tube and structural shapes I mentioned above don't have parting lines or flash like parts trees either. Still, parts trees can be extremely useful for a variety of other applications like driveshafts, fire extinguishers, steering columns, etc.

Harry, do you have a particular recommendation for CA and epoxy brands? I've not been getting good results with mine on 4043 aluminum TIG rod. And I should have said "with aluminum roll cage structures", rather than "aluminum tubular-type model car chassis."

Yup, beautiful build for sure. Chassis work is truly outstanding.

I just love seeing stuff like this. That old kit kinda reminds me of the Joaquin-Arnett Bean Bandit dragster.

Sleek and low and beautiful.

Man, that thing has had a rough life. Very convincing.

Yeah, the engine bay detail looks great. What did you use to get the "Cool-Flex" water hose effect?

Really nice job on this vintage race car. Looks great.

This is a really fun concept model. I love the idea of a Corvair based flat 12. Back in the dawn of time, I had just about every version of Corvair offered, from the '60 4 door to the last 2-door style from '69. Along the way, I had both early 150 hp and late 180 hp turbocharged Spyders. I mean I really loved Corvairs. There was a guy here in Atlanta who put a big-block Chevy in the back-seat of a late convertible and ran it in (SCCA) A sports-racing against McLarens, etc. It sure would have been cool to see what a 12 cylinder like yours could have done. It's really great to see this model, and thanks for putting it up.

Man, that is REALLY slick !!! A lot of work obviously, and all your mods work together very well.

Those wheels and your color and detail choices really work great on this model. The '56 Ford has always been one of my favorites, and this one reminds me why.

That polished showroom floor and backdrop really show off a good looking model. Nice photos too.

I like it a lot, especially your wheel choice, the molded rear gravel pan, and those little slit taillights. Cool model.

Though aluminum rod bends beautifully to any radius and holds its shape, I've encountered bonding problems with almost all of the adhesives commonly used on models. This isn't surprising, as aluminum "glueing" is well known to be problematic in the aviation and automotive industries, and special adhesives and pre-bonding surface treatments have been developed to deal with it. The limited bond area of a butt-joint at the end of a tube is a real problem with aluminum tubular-type model car chassis. Tacking aluminum chassis tubes together with CA and then creating a "weld fillet" with a slow epoxy has worked acceptably for me, but it's been much easier and quicker, and a lot less frustrating, to just use styrene for chassis work. One thing I've found aluminum rod does work exceptionally well for however, is exhaust systems. They're attached at the end of a build and don't get as much handling as a tubular chassis during construction.

Yeah, that will be a cool one. Kinda my idea of a daily driver.