Ace-Garageguy

Wow. There's all kinds of issues all over both of those if you really study 'em. At this point, I think overall the blue metallic one comes closest to getting the initial impression of the real car, but it could use a very slight top chop, and a few other minor corrections to be dead-on...like the shape of the quarter window, and the slope of the rear of the roof.

TIM BOYD PHOTOS, FROM THE LINK CASEY POSTED

Love that Russkie "Spitfire", man. I need to find one of those. Some friends of mine brought one into the USA in a crate, disassembled, mostly covered in cosmoline, years ago. Fair bit of P-51 influence too, with the wide landing gear and belly cooling system arrangement.

A first-issue, missing a few engine parts, but otherwise complete and remarkably cheap. Bought it specifically for the "artillery" wheels the first issue ($1.49) of this kit had, before the tooling was modified to remove the slots. Unfortunately, all 4 wheels have casting flaws, making them unusable as-is for masters for resin repops, or on a model. Upside is that the box is excellent, the best one of these I've seen in many years. It's also fascinating to see how well the chopped-top section fits the body of this kit. VASTLY SUPERIOR to the "restored" version released recently.

Thanks for pointing that out. Saved me the trouble.

Great looking little Bug. Really makes me miss my blue '62.

Well, if you just have to do a Ford, this is surely the one to do. Am I seeing that the windshield wiper is also molded as one with the body?

Anybody notice the reference to "file card" stock to represent the fabbed sheetmetal panels (26, 32) in this 1965 build? Interesting, because though railroad modelers still routinely used card stock for building a lot of things, by the late 1950s, sheet and strip styrene had begun to make serious inroads into the RR modelers' repertoire.

Yup, and I'm always entertained when younger folks rip into some of us old geezers for lamenting about how much better it was in times past. The thing is, it WAS better. A LOT better. Sure, there was crime, but you kinda had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for it to be much of a worry. And there were the occasional nutcases that would go on shooting sprees for no rational reason, but nothing like the frequency we see today. The world we inhabit now is very sick, and there are far too many people content to just look the other way, or pick on a convenient scapegoat rather than looking for the ROOT causes.

In my experience, the batting has almost no strength if it gets caught on something. It's like cotton-balls. It just pulls apart with almost no resistance whatsoever. Unpacking intelligently is also the buyer's responsibility, and no matter HOW well and carefully you pack something, you just can't make it idiot-proof.

I think it would work better to wrap the model in the batting first, then fairly tightly bubble wrap over it. That would allow the very soft batting to progressively take up space around irregular features and shapes, and tend to spread the loads into the model more progressively. Heavy damage occurs when the model slams into the inside of the box because it's too loosely packed...just like your face hitting the windshield when you drive into a wall without airbags or a seatbelt. But minor damage can occur if the model is too tightly wrapped inside its first layer of padding too. Having a very soft nest of batting against the model, and then the first layer of harder bubble-wrap that keeps the whole thing from slamming around is going to be your best bet. Placing all of it inside a sealed plastic bag to keep parts together in case something DOES get broken is an excellent idea, as is double boxing, with more bubble-wrap or peanuts between the boxes to protect the model from crushing and penetration damage as well. NOTE: I've had models wrapped in grocery-store plastic bags, not sealed, come in missing a lot of small parts that escaped from holes in the unsealed bag and made their way entirely out of the box through gaps in the tape.

Sounds like a good way for some clown to get all his fingers broken.

sun warmed sneakers

Perfect.

(tastes like Campari)

Yeah, the bag is a very good idea. I've bought a LOT of built models. This is typical on arrival. Carefully packed.

In 1970, the people who went to races at Road Atlanta were like that. You could leave expensive camera equipment set up on a tripod while you went to the head, or to get a dog, and it would still be there when you got back. Not so today.

marinate or mayonnaise?

In no particular order: AMT '40 Tudor, '36 3-window, '49 Ford, first issue Ala Kart/'29 Ford, '53 Ford pickup, '60 Chevy pickup, '55 Nomad, Chopped T double kit, Fiat double-dragster kit, XR-6/T phaeton double kit, first AMT T-bird styling kit with clay and sculpting tools, '61 Falcon, '64 Merc, '62 T-bird, Barris Surf Woody Revell '55 and '57 Chebbys (everything opening), '31 Woody/sedan kit, SWC Willys gasser, Orange Crate, all the parts-packs double kits, lotsa parts-packs, Roth Mysterion and Road Agent, '56 Ford pickup, Thompson's Challenger I, Anglia drag car There were a coupla IMC kits I haven't replaced yet, a GT40 and a Mustang II prototype. The Mustang had the first heavy mods I ever did, a custom sport-wagon rear section, with wood side panels. Everything got away in the mid-'70s, when the young lady I left in charge of paying my storage space in my absence...didn't. Along with the models, I lost a small container load of Porsche 356 parts, and a lot of specialty tools, including a Sun machine. Probably more, but that's all that come immediately to mind. EDIT: After thinking it through, that's about all the car models I ever had when I was young, spread over many years....except the first decent paint job I ever did (man, was it some kind of effort to convince the parents to let me have a can of spray-paint) on a Pontiac convertible that got melted in the sun while sitting in the top well of the family car. Oh...and the models that started me on the road to ruin (haven't replaced the Ford wagon yet either):

TODAY, Jan. 15, 2018 3:28 PM EST. Trying to post a text response under "questions and answers" got the big 404, multiple times, then got locked off the forum for a little over an hour. Tried again to post the same text, got 404 again, cut the post in half and posted it normally in two separate responses.

^^^ I could only post 1/2 of my comments due to the big 404 dump, and subsequent offline for an hour. The illustration of the '56 Two-Ten 4-door wagon is incorrect, as it does not show rear doors, or the length these should be relative to the front doors (though they ARE shown on the Bel Air, and their relative lengths can be accurately scaled from same). I believe the period photo is of a two-door wagon, as the door shut-line for a rear door should be just visible on the dogleg immediately forward of the rear wheel otherwise.

Couple things... I think Casey's suggestion "The Revell '56 Del Ray Sedan would be a good starting point, as it has the correct height windshield. You could modify the Revell '56 Nomad's roof, tailgate, etc. to convert it into a wagon" is the best. The resin body pictured has a distinct downward slope to the rear of the roof that the real cars do NOT have. Revell's '57 Nomad has a similar problem. I don't have a '56 here to check.

Nice. I looked at your beautiful girl too. Very nice.

phrangg deloopey gingrap

As I often lament, the web is full of and seems to breed incompetent people doing work wrong and telling noobs and the mechanically clueless how to bodge their cars, often unsafely. THIS GUY, on the other hand, is smart, articulate, diagnoses things correctly, and thinks through repairs. Anybody can learn a thing or two from him. Even ol' know-it-all me. In this episode, he shows how to fix a car that could no longer be operated legally otherwise, as the correct ORIGINAL repair part IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. AND NOTE: Prior to this vehicle being repaired correctly and inexpensively here, it had been in TWO other shops where it was diagnosed WRONG in the typical readout-whatever-the-onboard-computer-says, then-throw-parts-at-it-and-pray method that's favored by the vast majority of "professional automotive technicians" out there today.