Ace-Garageguy

Actually, both AMT (on their truly ancient '32 Ford kits) and Revell did their homework reasonably well. When they measured things like length, wheel-well radius, and width, they got the same numbers. Remarkable. What this means is that the AMT bodies will also swap on to the Revell frames and vise-versa...with some work. AMT kinda dropped the ball on the cowl height for some reason, but with the above-mentioned work, the Victoria and Phaeton bodies from AMT (neither of these are available from Revell) will be compatible with Revell underpinnings.

I agree. The thing on that Fiat comp coupe is exactly what it'll be.

The frame I'm using is the tubular unit from the Revell Henry J. It's under a couple other Revell race cars, fits the body well, but is set up for entirely different suspension than what I want. I spent most of my life building full scale cars, so I try to get the engineering and period details right. The rear axle in place is to help locate new spring hangers and springs, which will be scratchbuilt. Lower axle is GM, probably a Chevy truck unit from a Willys gasser glue bomb. It's getting its housing widened ('cause the axle ends were buggered) and new spring pads scratchbuilt as well. All the crossmembers will be reworked to carry the engine and suspension correctly.. The shot below is several dropped tube front axles with varying amounts of drop. I'll do test mockups with each until I get the same stance as in the original mockup at the top, will locate the new front crossmember and spring perch, also to be scratchbuilt. Just like building full scale. Bottom axle is '37 Ford V8 60 that's getting pose-able steering for another build. I take a lot of time to get the stance and overall proportions I want in the beginning, then build backwards to get the final look I'm after. The shot below shows the chassis upside-down, with progress on the scratch-built leaf springs, crossmembers, push-bar, bracketry, etc. All that's left of the Henry J frame is the rails and engine mounts, and the mounts are going away. With the rear spring leaves tacked in, the spring perches for the axle can get put in the right place, and pinion angle gets ballparked.... Photo below shows the rear axle with new spring mounts...and front of frame is pinched to get width same as grille / hood, new front crossmember and adjustable suicide-style front spring mount. This is a dual purpose dry-lakes and drag car, so the ability to make major adjustments to ride height and angle-of-attack is necessary. Rear height adjusts with shackles. Below, suspension is tacked in place to check stance again. Engine mounts are in, setback of engine requires stock firewall removed, new one to be scratch built. DeSoto hemi just barely clears extremely pinched frame rails, starter housing is only real problem, and just misses right rail. LaSalle transmission from Revell Miss Deal Studebaker is just visible behind engine.

The body is from either of these AMT kits...

I've always wondered...if the site has to use ads to help support it financially (which I block), why aren't they specifically targeted to modelers (which I wouldn't block)? I understand it's harder to develop a targeted advertising market setup on a website, but I wouldn't mind seeing new-release info and product listings HERE directly from the manufacturers (instead of through the back-channels that disseminate the same info anyway).

If you were building a real car, because the Camaro is a unibody, a full chassis swap isn't a very realistic option. Typically, a real car built in this genre would get front suspension swapped out with something tubular to replace the stamped control arms, and big disc brakes. Upgraded rear suspension could be as simple as a Ford 9" with more sophisticated locating (a Panhard bar, some kind of traction bars to limit spring windup, and a big anti-roll bar) all the way to a complete IRS and transaxle swap from something like a late-model Corvette.

This man has some very valid points.

I found a larger version of your inspiration photo to make it easier to examine exactly what would be involved. I'd say that modifying the kit valence is certainly do-able, and would save needing to source another part (or whole kit), but that the '67 valance as shown would be an easier place to start to get the basic shape. It would be very helpful to see a shot of the kit body with the valence mocked-up in the right position, without the bumper in place.

I'd probably try one more coat of metalizer. If that didn't do it, rather than getting a really thick layer of material on the model, I'd most likely sand or strip it down to bare plastic.

As the survival of the magazine most likely depends on advertising revenue, I'd tend to think that if selling were allowed here, it should have at least a minimal fee attached. While I'm well aware that most aftermarket suppliers are cottage industries and simply can't afford much, it seems only fair that, to get world-wide exposure on a dedicated car-modeling site, some kind of reasonable fee would be...reasonable.

This is one of those areas where different people have had differing experiences. I've had some primers and paints pull-away from edges on small metal parts (aluminum and other metals as well) both scale and real. In my experience, shooting a coat of self-etch seems to be good insurance against this happening. You have plenty of extra metal to experiment with left over as the frets the parts come on, so experimentation prior to committing to finishing an important part is always recommended.

Thanks for everyone's interest and comments. I agree about the "big" wheels. The plan from the start was to strip them, and do the rims as polished alloy (with Testors buffing aluminum metalizer) and the centers as cast magnesium, with a Dow7 coating. All in all, a royal PITA, but it should be worth it. The tough part is that neither the fake Dow coating nor the metalizer like to be masked, so doing a 2-tone wheel takes a little magic. The problem is that it's already a little too wide for my taste with the stub-axles butting up against the backs of the outer wheel halves. I can shorten the stub axles, but the problem there is that the spindles, as supplied in the kit, are too tall to go inside the rims as they would on a real car. I may shorten the height of the spindles and make it look right, or I may just narrow the crossmember and say bad-word it.

I never recommend anything unless I've tested it extensively and know 100% it will work. I use 70% isopropyl for a final cleaning after every sanding step, prior to primering or painting. I started using it on real high-end work where "fish eyes" were not an option. It has served me well for many years, and causes absolutely no problems if allowed to dry thoroughly...which only takes a couple of minutes. It is one of the very few "cleaners" allowed to touch a surface during structural composite repair work on aircraft. It is also the only ace-number-one-primo guaranteed way to insure against fisheyes that I've ever found. The Sharpie ink has additional solvents that are more aggressive, and iso sometimes will not remove all traces...simply because Sharpie ink will often penetrate into the plastic. However, I have never had any bleed-back of Sharpie ink if I've cleaned as much as possible off the surface with iso.

Sharpie markers, as noted, come in several tip sizes and colors. They use a "permanent" alcohol-based ink and can be useful for a variety of modeling tasks. HOWEVER...if they're used to mark something and the ink isn't removed from the surface with isopropyl alcohol prior to primering or painting, the ink can leach up through the finish.

Me too. Funny...I wasn't really after one of these, but when it came up, I did a little research on what I could do with it (I remembered they'd been extensively raced as stock-cars) and convinced myself to buy it. I had a Cycolac (ABS) bodied Merc as one of the cars in my old AMT Turnpike eons ago, and it was always my favorite.

This one is probably going to stay box-stock. Because the Marauder has been re-popped fairly recently and is readily available, I'll most likely not hack this one up.

Overall, dimensionally the frames and bodies of all the Revell '32 Fords are the same. Bodies will swap from kit to kit with no problem whatsoever. The Rat Roaster kit was compromised somewhat from how the real car was built in order to use the existing tubular front axle tooling from the other kits too (the real Rat Roaster used an I-beam axle). The only difference in the RR kit front suspension from the earlier kits is the use of "hairpin" style radius rods instead of 4-links (both 4-link and hairpins came in the 5-window coupe kit). The rear suspension in the RR kit is also identical to earlier issues, making all the wheels from the various versions interchangeable as well. As all of the kits used dimensionally identical frame tooling, with engine mounts molded in the same place, all the engines swap around with no problem too. This mockup is based on the RR kit, with components from multiple other sources.

Just a thought...for scripts, grilles, light surrounds, etc. you can also polish some PE to a chrome-like shine.

That was the one that got my attention. It's such a totally competent, clean, well-balanced and original design...and a ONE MAN DESIGN...it really makes you wonder how most of the real-car manufacturers, with huge styling staffs and budgets, continue putting out geegaw-laden and superfluous-styling-gimmick-encrusted crapp, year after year after year. I assume he's an industrial designer, and I hope a very well paid one. (Sorry...I couldn't find any other pix of the car online, and this one doesn't do it justice.)

I'll sneak in and stay just long enough to have a quick look at all the beautiful models that will surely be there, and then to buy a bunch of stuff I won't get to for the next five years.

I just discovered this guy's work in a vintage model car mag. He's a real wizard, and if you're not familiar with his models, they're certainly worth a look. https://public.fotki.com/Rikster/model_cars/model_cars_from_others/models_by_juha_airio-1/

The old AMT '36 Fords are among my favorite kits. Nice to see you saving one instead of tossing it. Getting the ill-fitting tops on these to fit correctly, and filling the seams, can be a real bugger...but worth it.

Thanks for reminding me. That one is about top-of-the-list now.

For a long time it was this old Aurora double kit. I had a bad yen for it when it was released in the dim recesses of time...the box art is still some of the most compelling to me... but forgot it even existed until about 2005. I finally got a clean unmolested one a few years back, and was kinda disappointed with some of the scaling mistakes that were made by the manufacturer. It's still on the shelf, and I'm still trying to decide what to do with it. Right now, rather than correcting the proportions, I'm leaning towards just doing both models box-stock, as cleanly as possible, with very minimal detailing, probably limited to plug wires.

X2. Definitely. I followed the stock-cars back in those days...when they were still closely related to "stock", and before they'd become nothing but fast, loud rolling billboards for beer and laundry detergent.