Ace-Garageguy

One of the shops I work with recently hired two new kids as apprentices. So far they both seem smart, willing to listen to the old geezers who know a little about how things actually work, and are eager to be doing something (as opposed to hiding while they play on their phones). Most excellent so far.

Just about any model-car "glass" can be made from clear sheet styrene, acetate, or PET (soda bottles), and if you do it right, it looks much better than the kit parts.

Counting to three must now be harder than it used to be. I ordered and paid for THREE books, tracking showed three books shipped together under the same number, opened the package and saw three books on the packing-slip...BUT THERE WERE ONLY TWO BOOKS IN THE ENVELOPE. Now I'm getting the runaround because USPS shows all three delivered. Morons everywhere.

It just depends on how much work you want to do, and how accurate you really want to get. The opening doors on the '40 can be glued shut, of course, and they actually fit pretty well, so it shouldn't be much of a problem. But the firewall's wrong. There's obviously a fair bit of forward-cab modification necessary to get the '37 truck cab to fairly accurately represent the '38. But another thing I've been looking at from time to time is using the '37 CAR (Monogram 1/24 kit) firewall and forward cab ahead of the doors, grafted to the '40 pickup cab. I'm generally pleased with the way the build looks now from a proportion standpoint, but there are several ways to skin this particular cat.

Thanks for the continuing interest and comments, gentlemen. Glad some of you found something of value herein.

Looks like really nice work on that. An attention getter, for sure.

Exactly. In heavily-glooed situations, you have to choose which part to save, then proceed accordingly.

What parts do you need? Any window or windshield can be made using old-school techniques, from clear sheet styrene, PET, or acetate. Headlight and taillight lenses can be easily copied using small molds that can be made by anyone with reasonable ability.

Great illustration of using both old-school and newfangled approaches to the best advantage, where appropriate. Rationality wins.

Entex. Very simple kit, very few parts in the box.

Very nice upgrade of a kit that's really more toy than model as it comes. Looks great.

Today it's a '38 International D2 pickup. Made by First Gear, Speedway livery. Little truck's had a hard life. Missing front bumper and brackets, LH headlight, wipers, interior bits, and there are definite signs of having been "fixed" by chimps some time in the past....and no opening hood or engine on this one. On the up-side, the scaling (1/24 or 1/25), engraved details, and proportions look very good. A pretty decent model for what it is, much less toy-like than the '49 above, and for $2, I have no complaints.

All the while collecting a good salary with benefits in spite of being a moron.

True, but you gotta admit...when the new testosterone-free PC Bullitt 2025 comes out, that Camry somehow just won't have the screen presence of the Mustang. But heck...they'll probably do the car chase in self-driving 35MPH Uberpods anyway.

ECOTOOLS 1606 makeup brush set. The big one is soft enough to safely remove dust from models with no damage to fragile parts like mirrors and antennae. The others are great for working with weathering powders, chalks, pastels, etc.

Fine lookin' rig.

You're probably one of 10 Amazon customers...or employees for that matter...who even knows tires have date codes.

I seem to have developed a thing for kinda unusual diecast trucks. Got a Liberty Classic 1949 International pickup (like this, but my cheap one is in the "Parts Plus" livery). Referred to by sellers as both 1/24 and 1/25, though at first glance it looks underscale to me. The real truck is on the same chassis as the '54 International above, supposedly 1/24, and this little guy is a lot smaller under there...but I haven't measured anything yet. S'okay. I can deal. It's a nice model, again better than I'd expected, and it will do exactly what I want it to do. The UPS chimps apparently played keep-away or soccer with the box again, as the plastic base the model comes screwed to was shattered into a dozen pieces, but the model survived with nothing more than a broken door mirror, and one leaf spring. Amazing.

If you want to represent the bumper-attachment brackets / flanges with a scale-correct appearance, I suggest considering something like 3M's heavy aluminum tape, used for temporary aircraft and race-car skin repairs, among other things. Easily cut with scissors or sharp hobby knife, self-adhesive. It's 2 mils thick, .002", which is roughly .05" in 1/25 scale, between 16 and 18 gauge in 1/25 scale, and about what you'd expect to find in a real bracket that is primarily in compression, and also locates the struts laterally and longitudinally with small through-bolts or rivets into the bumper. NOTE: Your photo appears to show the bumper brackets as having ears and a cross-bolt that attaches the struts to them. Not very easy to do in 1/25 scale, but small squares of the above mentioned foil will at least give the initial impression of something more elaborate than pins stuck in holes.

* IMAGE SCRAMBLED BY SOURCE. NEVER MIND.

I'm not arguing with you about anything. All I've been saying is that the Gremlin / Challenger nose swap could work, as the widths are close enough for a talented and skilled builder...real or in scale...to make it work. EDIT: It wouldn't be the first time a pony-car nose was grafted to a Gremlin; AMC built this in 1968...

Nice start...

Very nice, very unusual, obviously. Sure would make a great old hippie bus.

Thanks. The Rover setup even has twin SUs. That single-plane 4bbl manifold isn't much like OEM on GM engines though.