Ace-Garageguy

Having this new kit on the shelf and having already done some work on the firewall to improve its appearance as well as coming to the realization that it's the right width for a stock '32 hood got me to thinking... This is the mod I ended up doing to the firewall, for anyone who hasn't been following the review thread. Since the cowl is the right width, more or less, to take a stock-width '32 hood (it's WAY too wide to take a '30 hood), I thought I'd see what I could come up with using a stock-length '32 hood and a chopped '32 grille shell, as well as a more radical channel job than you get with the kit. The results so far. The wheelbase is stretched beyond the kit, and a suicide perch would be fabricated out in front of the radiator. Both ends of the new '30 kit "channeled" frame will need to be zeed to get this stance, but it's easy to do the way Revell designed it. Even though the mockup here is a LOT lower than the Revell version, it would still have sufficient ground clearance to be actually drivable.

Thanks for your interest and for pulling this one out of the cobwebs too. The resin engine I was going to use is apparently a copy of the one you mention, which I finally got my hands on. It's crisper than the resin version I have, and of course...no pinholes. There's nothing else other than that really delaying getting this one up again.

Thanks for dredging this one up. I need to learn to do BMF (!) to do the color separation in the coves justice. I have a very specific idea as to how I want this thing to look, and the chrome around the coves is absolutely necessary.

I saw a similar table full of $20 Pocher kits in a K-mart sometime in probably the late '70s. I knew they were top-line expensive kits back then, and figured what the big K had were bogus knockoffs or something labeled to "look like" the name brand. I'll never know, but at the same store, on the same day, I bought a hand-signed print of a Porsche 356, one of an issue of only 250. I paid $25 for it. It's been appraised recently for considerably more.

I believe you'll find the 273 is a little "LA" "wedge" engine, and looks rather different from the earlier "A" series "poly" engines, particularly the valve covers.

Or if you like a nice yellow-brown tint, just put your plastic windows in the house with a really heavy smoker for about 30 years. Works great!

No bloody idea. Parts of it look like a lot of different things, but I have no idea what it actually is.

I'll be watching for that one. Looks like a really sweet body shell.

Excellent. Those little hand-cast kits with a LOT of parts took a LOT of work to master, casting metal is a different art entirely, and they're made mostly in Europe, one at a time. That gets expensive, and considering the minuscule market (relative to plastic mass-produced kits) to even be able to afford to eat, the makers have to charge a comparatively large price per-unit. You want cheap? Buy Chinese-made toys, everything molded in one lump.

...that could be made here for maybe twice or even triple the cost and STILL give plenty of room for markup profit...but NOOOOOOO!!!!

I assume by "Skeleton Sidewalls" you mean the bare structure-style inner body panels in the coupe kit. As Jantrix says, nope. Couple problems. One, the doors in the '28-'29 roadster are of a different length than the '30-'31 coupe doors. Two, the roadster and coupe use entirely different internal skin designs and look nothing alike in reality. '28-'29 roadster doors inner skins... '30-31 coupe...

Well...not on the road exactly, but these are in the shop...

My daily driver. One of the most basic and just plain fun things I've ever owned. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts.

Or only two parts...

Finished half of my monthly paperwork. Only about another 5 hours to go. EDIT: Finished by 8:00. Whoopee.

I agree wholeheartedly. Some of the most fun I've had since I've been back in this has been to save and rework models that I've acquired as really nasty gluebombs...very very cheap...or as stuff that looked like trash. It's kinda like pets. There are SO many of them out there needing good homes, it sometimes just makes more sense to buy somebody else's gave-ups or throw-aways...especially if you're going to build hot rods or customs anyway...than to spring for the bucks to get clean-one-owners or virgins.

That's roughly six miles. Do that every day, and when you're an old fossil, you won't be a fossil...but an older guy in good shape.

If you watch the Overhaulin' shows concerning the actual truck, you'll see it had been converted to independent front suspension at some time in the past using junkyard parts. After the wheelbase was stretched to accommodate the reworked front fenders and new aftermarket IFS swapped in, it's unlikely there's any rational way to get stock guts from the new kit...assuming the new kit uses newly-tooled guts that match the 1:1. Though the original Revell '56 pickup has a had a bad rap over the years, it's really not a bad kit if you give it a little care, don't rush, and think about what you're doing. This one was built by Dan Tier's wife, and was only her second model...ever. Looks pretty good to me. http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/107394-56-ford-pickup-custom-my-wifes-2nd-build/

Heck fellas...I bought my real Porsche 911 for only $3500 just a few years back, my daily-driver truck for $100 (saved it from the crusher) and I'm currently looking at a (slightly) broken '82 Corvette coupe I think I can get for $1000. It's getting kinda hard to justify spending big money on models.

Really is a cute little bugger. Interesting Ferrari connection too. Who'd a thunk.

Yup. I've grown tired of going to shows and seeing nothing but over-restored cars that NEVER looked like they do now. To me, nothing beats the appeal of an old machine that LOOKS like an old machine that was actually USED. A lot of race cars, even Ferraris and their ilk, were very rough around the edges. Speed and reliability were the name of the game, and impressing spectators with pristine paint and finish was rarely a primary goal for those building and preparing cars...though some took appearance much more seriously than others.

You're going the extra mile, as usual, to improve or replace the kit parts to give the model a very realistic feel. As always, inspiring. The actual truth about the spring gaiters used on a variety of cars is as you mentioned; the spring leaves were lubricated so they'd slide over each other more easily, giving a more predictable action. Dry leaves can bind and be jerky, and even in these relatively primitive cars, predictable handling was very important to race drivers. The grease between the spring leaves was, obviously, a magnet for dust and grit...and could also be washed out by water...so gaiters were employed both to protect the lubricant from road debris and to keep it dry. Well, relatively dry. We recently had a '41 Packard in the shop, and when it was on the lift, I was surprised to note that it retained its original gaiters. Jaguar used gaiters on its rear-leafspring cars at least as late as '57 (that I know for certain), and possibly later. They were provided with laces to make the periodic maintenance of cleaning and greasing the springs a little easier.

On a baguette? Sandwich Americain. Sometimes smashed, not necessarily always.

Very nice. I'm coming up on trying to do something similar on a track-nose dry-lakes car. What did you use to mask those finely curved lines?

I thought that was when you could no longer see a particular kind of church elders...