Ace-Garageguy

For doing Goodyear "Blue Streaks", I've had good results from mounting the tire on a tight-fitting wheel, then chucking it up in the lathe and cutting the groove deeper with a specially ground cutter. Then white gel pen in the groove, followed by blue magic marker after the white is fully dry. Sorry...no pix currently available.

I'm still on the fence about embracing the longevity of liquid-resin printed offerings. Having a few not-cheap parts warp to unusable wads in just a few months (at least as bad as the old acetate took many years to get to), I'll most likely hold off spending anything more on 3D until I can print my own, and determine why and how what works and what warps...or until I have time to make stable silicone molds of anything I buy. There are casting resins out there that have a proven track-record of stability for decades. 3D printing resins, not so much. Over the decades, I've only had two old-school resin bodies warp badly, one because of my stupid way of storing it, and one where the resin was simply mixed wrong by the maker.

Anybody remember the last time the cost of anything went down ? Just curious...

PM'd.

A Q&D search turned these up currently available. I'm sure there are more.

Your last GMC medium duty truck runs the standard GMC pickup cab, with the bumper lowered relative the "face", and opened up wheel cutouts. I seem to recall a retrofit kit in resin to modify the Chevy cab to the GMC look. The other two cabs have been done by aftermarket resin guys, but never kitted in styrene.

Wow.

X2

That's gotta be THE best one of those I've ever seen. Just beautiful.

Nice...and I really envy anyone who has the space to build a layout in O.

I'm kinda thinking the old MPC 1/16 Cobra just might supply some wheels...centers, anyway...and probably a few other bits too.

Looking good. Kinda amazing how many people build this kit and don't even notice the glaring errors...especially the peaks on the front fender tops...you're correcting so nicely... My compliments on your work, sir.

For what it's worth, the thicker embossed foil that comes on blue cheese at my local market is a dead ringer (in scale) for some of the textured aluminum sheet kustom kar builders liked for firewalls back in the late '50s.

Very attractive model built from what many write off as too "simple" or "toylike". Just goes to show what can be achieved with some applied talent and skill. It really reminds me of some of the short-wheelbase "water pumper" dune buggies in SoCal way back when, a genre that's very rarely modeled.

Thank you, sir. Your reference photos were most helpful. During the process, I discovered the door shut-lines engraved in the body by the Monogram tooling folk aren't exactly symmetrical, and I'll have to make an adjustment to the tub so the door openings line up correctly with the rear shut-lines. There are a few other minor deviations in the body shell that I won't bother to correct on this build but probably will if I do the planned full-detail build in the future.

Thanks.

Always glad when somebody finds something useful in one of my builds. Thank you, sir. Good story. Sure wish I'd held on to some of the way-cheap stuff that was floating around back then. I bought a complete covered-headlight E-type once for $400, but it was so structurally rusty you had to jack it up in the middle to open the doors...and it was way beyond my fabrication skills at the time to save it. Sold it on for a grand and thought I'd made a killing. My first Porsche was a running driving '58 356A coupe for $600. Thanks for your interest and comment. Yup, but Lefty has a much more philosophical view of his styrene existence now, thankful that even with a significant disability, he was still able to contribute to some of my projects.

Did you notice those are all relatively small-scale (1/32 and smaller) ? And that none of those represents the 315-gallon P-38 tank that was the preferred starting point for a lakes car build ?

Definitely Johan promo tooling (not resin), possibly an X-EL styrene repop kit thereof, which I'd suspect judging from the perfect looking, bagged chrome, and the un-warped body. https://www.spotlighthobbies.com/all-products/promos/18242/jo-han-x-el-1958-cadillac-fleetwood-4-door-hardtop-promo/ An original promo would be acetate, probably badly warped by now. Here's an original.

Vast improvement, most especially the effect of getting the wheels out where they belong. Thanks for showing it.

And there's this...in 1/25 scale https://www.ebay.com/itm/325865176683?hash=item4bdf13fe6b:g:qQYAAOSwcUFZm4CU&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4OYgNMi4xh0nn4k8gsUBvCpuvek1%2FROzUg6UZaqFzd5TsMwPfeUmFSYObEy3nCio1M3ulVNrfUg7xGRM9RZ1f8OTPSvad21FER2KZt5UjNTvtwXB4ZgT5PGd0i6d0LCnDduiz1KRWu3vuabViFIBa5rqvspbSU0BEpqVeA6II99APwrWkbI9fyyMf34SpBuyJno8xxGpbkcfE9foStaC2e3Oks4YlNfo2PbQMzX%2FNecuLkSGKSRqcs9SnKSZScuJMAKASvIqeE2KU0PgT72eASeQwTNEEF9W5wTT4eICG1FR|tkp%3ABk9SR8ql1uH0Yg

If you have access to a lathe, it's really pretty easy to turn a master you can vacuum-form a shell from. The P-38 Lightning tank was by far the most popular, and there are plenty of dimensioned drawings on the web...like here:

Seems like a fun fella...

You mean as in dry-lakes cars?