Ace-Garageguy

Without a doubt, some of the best texture development and weathering work, ever, anywhere. I've been looking at truly exceptional model RR work for decades, and none of it surpasses yours. There's a tremendous amount to be learned just from looking at your results, so thanks for continuing to post.

Missus Loopner...missus Loopner...I think somebody is calling me names.

Somebody put it in the wrong box. That's the Chuck Norris signature edition.

Yup...saw that and wondered who'd get the "what's wrong with this picture" aspect.

Thank you sir! Exactly what I needed. The shape doesn't look too bad in profile. I might give one a go, as it's apparently the only game in town in 1/16, but then again... We'll see. Again, THANK YOU.

There is at least one 1/24 scale kit, which I bought with high hopes, but the one I have is an awful, poorly scaled, poorly proportioned mess. It would take a whole lotta hacking and resculpting to make anything that actually looks like a C111.

I'm not getting much over on the "kit review" thread, and there's nothing built or even mocked-up online that I've been able to find, so... Anybody have any more insight into this kit? I'd kinda like a 1/16 GT40 to keep my Miura and C111 company, but I don't want to have to get into a lot of re-sculpting of the body to correct proportions. From what I can tell from looking at the sprues online, the wheels are entirely wrong, but that's not a deal breaker. How are the lines? Does the body look right, or is it another badly misshapen lump?

Better living through the power of AI to perfectly fake any image you can think of. It's a brave, brave, brave new world.

Just in case you find your electrical system shredded this recipe for squirrel stew is sure to make you feel better about it. https://honest-food.net/squirrel-stew-recipe-paprika/

Anybody have any more insight into this kit? I'd kinda like a 1/16 GT40 to keep my Miura and C111 company, but I don't want to have to get into a lot of re-sculpting of the body to correct proportions. From what I can tell from looking at the sprues online, the wheels are entirely wrong, but that's not a deal breaker. How are the lines? Does the body look right, or is it another badly misshapen lump?

And a couple more 1/16 kits, significantly under market prices...which is pretty much the only way I buy anything these days. Already moved West was a case of the flathead V8-engined roadster hot-rod derived from the same tooling.

A pair of rough 1/16 scale Schuco Mercedes C111 toys. The C111 was always one of my favorite big sports cars, along with the Miura and the GT40. There were several rebodies over the run of prototypes, with styling elements mixed and matched somewhat. The Schuco version is a fairly accurate rendition of the one I prefer, and it's a close enough starting point to make into a very accurate styling model.

Early '60s AMT kits were just sprues, decal sheet, instructions, and tires loose in the box. The box was usually "sealed" with two small pieces of tape. Loose tires account for the high incidence of "tire burn" damage found in old virgin kits. I think Revell was the first to start bagging parts within the box, but I could be mistaken. EDIT: I have a few AMT kits that were virgins when I got 'em...a '40 Ford Tudor, a '49 Ford, a couple of '36 Fords, and a couple of first issue Ala Kart double kits. None were internally bagged, just like I remember from the days when dinosaurs walked the earth.

Thanks. I hope so too...but if it doesn't, I'll just keep reworking it until it's right. The only problem is on the body shell itself, and it's not a very large body. Stripping is out, as there's bodywork I don't want to have to re-do, so sanding is the only way to go.

Yup, a real beauty.

Cut lines for the interior tub were determined on body from reference shots, transferred to tub and marked. Opening was cut for LH door, transfer template made to duplicate it on right. Tracings were made of tub panels to facilitate duplication of tub for full-detail build, later. Sills and jams were added. Tub checked in body shell. There's a little tightening up and smoothing to do yet, but it's going to be just fine.

Lefty has kept me honest over the years, ensuring a human could actually fit in whatever I build. It's tight sometimes, but it's tight in reality sometimes too. Lefty got his name after the tragic loss of his right arm to the carpet monster under the bench in my last house. Happily, the arm reappeared during the last move, and he reattaches it occasionally to check steering wheel and shifter positioning. Here, he's making sure there's still plenty of room for feet and pedals after a little further firewall incursion, necessary to accommodate the cylinder head stagger of the Pontiac, after moving the engine back a bit more to get pulley clearance at the crossmember. There is. The rear springs and axle control links had to be shaved a little to get the much meatier rear tires inside the sheetmetal while not fouling the suspension. Parts were primered after shaving mold parting lines and sprue attachment bumps too. It was finally time to permanently attach the new fabbed front crossember, made earlier. Bottle of cement is a weight to hold the rails square while setting up. I recently added the Trumpeter panel scribe tool to my arsenal. It'll do things the Tamiya scribers won't and vice versa. New crossmember in place, with one of the newly fabbed upper control arms in too. Black assembly below it is from an Aurora 250GTO gluebomb, essentially what I copied for this build. Not terribly accurate, but not terrible either. Coil springs were salvaged and reused on this one. Frankly, I probably would have salvaged both complete control arm / spindle / spring assemblies had they not been just too glooey.

A '32 with an Olds 371 J2 should be a real tire-smokin' stump puller.

They are the rubber tires that came in the original 1964 issue. Subsequent issues have had less satisfactory replacements. Thanks for looking in. I was pleased with how the posable setup worked out. The door cutouts and inner door-shells took a little more thought, but they're coming along nicely too...and thanks again for the reference shots.

Thanks, Tim. Always nice to see you taking an interest in my work. Thank you, sir. I was kinda pushing several to get to the "primer table" at the recent local show; probably time to clear the bench and try to bring one home. Thanks for commenting. At this time, the only full-scale Ford hot-rod project in my foreseeable future is the one derived from my big 1/8 scale build on another thread. This particular car would be a costly 1:1 project, as I don't have any flathead engines, or Ardun stuff, or a '28-'29 body shell, or an extra quickchange, or much of anything else necessary to build it lying around. But you never know (assuming I live long enough)...though it's far more likely if I were to dump a lot of money into something I don't already have a bunch of parts for, it would be the Cord one-off that Chris Drysdale did the gorgeous rendering of for me years ago.

I based the statement on the fact that the same crossover-pipe part # (B5A-5267-B) that fits the pickups mentioned above is also listed as fitting "1955-'56 passenger cars with 272 and 292 V8 engines and single exhaust". A quick internet search failed to bring up any photo, however. EDIT: Found one. '56 Custom V8 272 2bbl single exhaust:

Since you asked...I've been carefully sanding off the cracked layer of Duplicolor lacquer over hardware store "lacquer" to get back down to the Duplicolor primer on the main body shell. Then I'll re-prime with Duplicolor, re-scribe the panel lines, and finish with Duplicolor or Tamiya. Not much to see right now, but she should look like something by year's end.

Easy one.

Funny raccoon story: I woke up in the middle of the night with my cat Spooky pawing at my face, which she never did. She jumped down on the floor, went towards the hall, stopped and looked back at me like Lassie saying "come quick!! Timmy's fallen in the well". I followed her out to the kitchen where three juvenile raccoons were cavorting in the trash spilled all over the floor. Spooky calmly sat down, looked at me like "they're not MY friends, and I think YOU should deal with this". Seeing me, the 3 raccoons took off all in different directions. I blocked the front door open and was able to chase two of them out, but the third one had run back to the bedrooms. I cornered it in the hall bathroom a couple of times, but couldn't get it to herd in the right direction. I finally ended up getting the fireplace tongs, grabbing it by the neck, and dragging it outside. Had to lock the cat door at dusk after that, and ol' Spook would get on the roof outside my bedroom window, hang her head down over the gutter, and meow to be let in if she stayed out after curfew.

Front lower body panel now permanently installed, seams being worked. And a little additional fill was required in a couple areas where the Tamiya white putty had shrunk in. The auxiliary light bays are getting opened up to accommodate the nicer Marchal lenses I found. As I mentioned earlier, they're slightly over-scale, but I can make 'em look pretty close to right. And please forgive the soft focus, as it's impossible to override the autofocus in the old camera I'm using. I pinned the cockpit airfoil or roll-bar cover or whatever it is. It was no mean feat to get .021" pins drilled into those thin sections without breaking through the sides.