'63 Fairlane Sport Coupe

[espo]

You mentioned the windshield wipers and it sounded like you were unsure what you were going to do. I remember seeing any of these on the street back in the day and a few guys would have just the drivers wiper as it was required to license the vehicle, and used a small flat chrome cap to cover the hole for the passenger side wiper. Ford was in the thick of Drag Racing at the time and one guy told me it was an option from Ford, but I have my doubts on that. Most of these street cars had the 271 hp 289 cu engine and in even stock form these light weight little cars were very fast. I also like how you have built all of the inner structure in the trunk and trunk lid as well as the hood.    

[mrm]

This will be great. I love the hood scoop with its openings. The trunk detail also looks great.

[Plowboy]

2 hours ago, Modlbldr said:

Beautiful work you are doing on this one. All of the extra trunk and engine bay work is amazingly clean. I love the shape of the body. Are you leaving the 260 v8 emblem on the front fender?

Later-

Thanx Tom! Yeah, I'm going to leave the emblems. I may put a 427 decal over them. Depends on how they look after paint.

[Plowboy]

2 hours ago, espo said:

You mentioned the windshield wipers and it sounded like you were unsure what you were going to do. I remember seeing any of these on the street back in the day and a few guys would have just the drivers wiper as it was required to license the vehicle, and used a small flat chrome cap to cover the hole for the passenger side wiper. Ford was in the thick of Drag Racing at the time and one guy told me it was an option from Ford, but I have my doubts on that. Most of these street cars had the 271 hp 289 cu engine and in even stock form these light weight little cars were very fast. I also like how you have built all of the inner structure in the trunk and trunk lid as well as the hood.    

I'm not at this time. I like to have options whenever possible. The wipers may fit perfect. They may not. If they don't, I can just add a couple of stubs in their place and make it look like they've been removed. 

[Speedfreak]

Very, very cool project! The hood scoop will blend right in with paint. 

Have you decided on the interior color yet?

[Plowboy]

8 hours ago, Speedfreak said:

Very, very cool project! The hood scoop will blend right in with paint. 

Have you decided on the interior color yet?

Thanx! I'm planning on red at the moment. It depends on how dark the color comes out on the body. If it's dark enough, I may change to a champagne color since I've never done that color on an interior. I actually got all of the primer on yesterday and the chassis along with a few parts painted. I did a light coat on the chassis and the Gunmetal isn't nearly as dark as I thought it would be. Hopefully, three coats will be a lot darker. Once I have the body painted, I can decide on the interior color.

[Plowboy]

If you ever want to give the old nerves a test, grab the grille and tail light panel of a fifty six year old model and start hacking on them! I didn't like how the trim from the hood and trunk were molded to the grille and tail light panel. Looking at the grille, I saw there was no way to separate the pieces without destroying the grille. I first made a new piece of trim with .020 styrene using the hood as a template. With that done, I carefully cut, filed and sanded the trim away from the grille. Much better! Also, the first light coat of primer showed that I still needed to work on the teardrop scoop. 

 

The tail light panel was a little easier. But, nerve wracking just the same. I couldn't just make a new piece for it. I had to have the piece from the panel. I first used my scriber to get the line established.  Then, I used a razor saw to get it deeper and finally cut it free with a photo etch saw blade. I still need to fill in the gap between the tail light panel and the rear of the body. A strip of .040 should take care of it.

Here's a photo of the chassis in paint. Not nearly as dark as I thought it would be. But, it is just one super light coat. I wanted it to be between painted solid and just overspray. 

Top side with splatter. The big green dot marks where something will go I guess. Maybe the battery or a Nitrous bottle.

[ChrisBcritter]

A man after my own heart! Love how you fixed the hood and trunk edge moldings - a royal pain but a big improvement.

Are you going to tighten up the gaps on those front fender spears as well?

[SfanGoch]

You could have used a stainless scriber, like these from UMM-USA (the scribers in the upper right and left are perfect for this)

to remove the hood and trunk trim. These scribers have a .003" kerf, meaning only the minimum amount of plastic is removed. I've had to remove the hood trim from the grille of a Johan '68 Fury Police Car and it came off smooth as silk.

[Plowboy]

1 hour ago, ChrisBcritter said:

A man after my own heart! Love how you fixed the hood and trunk edge moldings - a royal pain but a big improvement.

Are you going to tighten up the gaps on those front fender spears as well?

Thanx! Yeah, I'm going to glue them back on, fill around them and foil when I'm done.

[Plowboy]

45 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

You could have used a stainless scriber, like these from UMM-USA (the scribers in the upper right and left are perfect for this)

to remove the hood and trunk trim. These scribers have a .003" kerf, meaning only the minimum amount of plastic is removed. I've had to remove the hood trim from the grille of a Johan '68 Fury Police Car and it came off smooth as silk.

I have a scribing tool that cuts thinner than photo etch that I made from a dental pick. On thick styrene like this, it wants to bind once it gets to a certain depth. That's why I finished with a razor saw and photo etch blade. No scribing tool would have cut the hood trim off neatly without mangling the grille in the process.  

[SfanGoch]

Like I said, I used the HQT Tools stainless scriber (top left in the previously posted pic) on the '68 Fury grille/bumper, which is just as thick as the AMT part,

to remove the hood trim. Multiple light passes with the scriber completely detached the hood trim in about six minutes. There was no issue with the scriber tip "binding" or getting stuck when nearing the end of the scribing operation. A modified dental pick is no substitute for a purpose-made scriber, no matter how well you think you modified it. A seven buck investment in one of these sets will save you a lot of agita in the future.

[misterNNL]

You mentioned earlier that the bumper chrome was shot. I have had great luck with those handy dandy Molotow chrome markers for that type of thing. This is a excellent project. I'm glad you took the extra time to take these nice sharp photos so we can all follow your progress.

[Plowboy]

22 hours ago, misterNNL said:

You mentioned earlier that the bumper chrome was shot. I have had great luck with those handy dandy Molotow chrome markers for that type of thing. This is a excellent project. I'm glad you took the extra time to take these nice sharp photos so we can all follow your progress.

Thanx Tom! I'm pretty set on the bumpers having a painted or aluminum look. I'll probably use the Molotow pen on the grille and tail light panel. But, I don't know how well the Molotow will take to having a blackwash go over it. If my ideas don't pan out, I'll have them replated.

[misterNNL]

15 minutes ago, Plowboy said:

Thanx Tom! I'm pretty set on the bumpers having a painted or aluminum look. I'll probably use the Molotow pen on the grille and tail light panel. But, I don't know how well the Molotow will take to having a blackwash go over it. If my ideas don't pan out, I'll have them replated.

I would try a test on an old piece of stripped bumper by applying the Molotow then adding the wash after that was dry.

[Speedfreak]

Will be following along!

[Plowboy]

I now have the chassis completed and the body is ready for final primer and paint. I'm hoping the body comes out quite a bit darker. I only have a few parts left to paint besides the body. Then it will just be assembly and details.

[James2]

Outstanding modeling here...

[Plowboy]

I got quite a bit of primer and paint work done. The body is in final primer and the headliner is in paint. All of the interior is painted. Just has to be detailed. I also got the undersides of the hood and trunk in paint. I'm a little disappointed in the shade of it. Hopefully, the clear will darken it a bit more. Right now, it doesn’t look much darker than the Light Gun Metal that I have on another model. But, the clear did darken it when I painted it.

I know I said the interior couldn't be red. But, with the Gun Metal looking the way it is, I didn't think a blue or champagne would look right. Either way the body color goes, the red will go with it.

As soon as I get the core support and rain gutters in the trunk in paint, I can then spray the rest of the body. Hopefully, I'll get that today and maybe get the body sanded and prepped. I also need to get going on the engine. I have it painted and partially assembled. But, I have all of the detail work to do. 

[larman]

Tremendous work! Great stance , love the careful work getting the interior upgraded and  the trunk and chassis detail!

[dino246gt]

I love what you've done to this cool model already, can't wait to see more, it's fantastic and it's all stuff we can use for any number of vintage kits! Cool!

 

[Plowboy]

Thanx Larry and Dennis! Hopefully, I can get a couple of coats of paint on today. Then I can really have a good visual of what it's going to look like. It's sanded and ready to go. I'm going to foil some of the scripts before paint. That'll only take a few minutes. I'm thinking I'll also mask off the side trim to avoid any loss of detail. 

Dennis, if you like this model, check out my '61 Comet in the Under Glass section. I did it the same way. Only it's a sleeper. I also have a real nice '62 Fairlane that I'm going to convert. Don't know when I'll get to it though.   

[Plowboy]

Today I got the color coats sprayed on despite the rain. It actually came out more glossy than I expected. 

[Plowboy]

Once the paint was dry and unmasked, I couldn't wait to do a mockup on the chassis. I think once I paint the recess on the chrome strip and get the foil on, the color will really come to life.

All I like having the interior done is the dash and shifter. I scratch built a shifter. I couldn't find anything else that I liked.

 

[Dave Darby]

Actually, the AMT 63 Hardtop is kind of a hybrid. It's a quicky rework of the 62 2 door sedan kit. AMT removed the door posts and reworked the tops of the windshield and backlight areas. To be completely accurate, you would need the roof from a 64 kit, which benefits from an all new body tool.

While the Revell Thunderbolt stuff drops into the 64 Comet kit nicely, the Fairlane used a completely different underframe and suspension. It was the only game in town at one point, but today I'd use the Moebius 65 Comet underpinnings.