Merc lead sled

[jeffinvt]

I built this kit box stock a while back, and never liked looking at. After seeing some re-chopped builds I decided it was the roof I could not stomach. I chopped the roof out back, and added some mild custom flare with 55 pontiac bumpers and headlights from AMT custom parts pack. Not sure of color yet, I've bought about ten colors for it so far...

Still experimenting with other grille options, we'll see what happens there.

Edited November 12, 2008 by jeffinvt

[jeffinvt]

Liottle update to the ever evolving build. Added fadeaway fenders, extended the front quaters and headlights, and dded lowering blocks to the front suspension, c-notched the rear to get the stance.

[Terror]

I like how you smoothed the body line down at the door,very nice.Chop looks good to.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Terror

[LDO]

I don't have that kit yet. Can you show a side view of the stock kit? What is wrong with the chop as it is in the box?

[Bernard Kron]

Jeff:

Glad to see you bring this one over to see MCM board. Such a nice custom you've got there. You should post some more of the pics and the links to your how-to's. I'm sure everyone would appreciate it.

Edited November 9, 2008 by gbk1

[HotRodaSaurus]

Great to see that fadeaway added

[jeffinvt]

Thanks a bunch guys, this has been my most modified kit to date. I'm really having fun experimenting with this whole lead sled thing, usually build more along the hot rod line. The possibilities with these customs are endless, I keep coming up with more I want to do. Here is a pic of a stock Revell merc next to the project, I kept the chop subtle but corrected what I thought was the high spot above the B pillar. If you look at the shape of the rear side window you will see the change. The nice thing about re-chopping this is that there is no need to re-engineer the front or back glass as I have not touched the frames of them.

In this second pic you can see the front roll pan I did to get the front to look complete. It amazes me that Revell left this area the way they did... Here is the front view of the roll pan, which was the custom front end out of the AMT 50 Ford vert with the duel canted headlight buckets removed and cut to fit.

Still alot to do on the pan to get it looking right, but it's already better than nothing.

Thanks again for the positive feedback, I'll keep this build updated from here on out.

Jeff

[Zoom Zoom]

I don't have that kit yet. Can you show a side view of the stock kit? What is wrong with the chop as it is in the box?

There's nothing inherently wrong w/the Revell '49 styling, every chopped Mercury is a custom and I learned this weekend that the particular 1:1 Merc they patterned the kit after has this exact top chop. If they did the chop another way, then people might complain about that too. There's no way to make a kit perfect in everyone's eyes, especially a custom subject. I'm happy that in this case Jeff is putting his money where his mouth is and showing us how to improve the model, because there are enough model critics out there posting their thoughts on forums like this that think it's their job to point out every flaw in a model as if they're all deal-killers, yet we somehow never happen to see anything finished coming from their workbench...things that make you go "hmmmmmm...."

I'm as guilty as anyone of griping about this or that on a model, and yet more often than not when actually finishing the model having all those flaws just sort of fade into obscurity because the model was so much fun to build and looks so good finished! It's teaching an old dog like me to not be quite so critical out of the gate when getting a new model, because as I'm getting older having fun is a more important than nitpicking over this detail or that. If the subject matter and price is right, I can generally deal with some inaccuracies, and offer constructive criticism where it might do some good, rather than just blowing off steam.

[jeffinvt]

Bob, despite what my sub title on this build says I agree with you 100%. I built this kit box stock , other than a rear drop, and loved it...for a while. The Kit is perfect, great parts fit, and the ability for a newb like me to get their feet wet in the chopping dept. Revell hit a home run with this in my opinion, But how many of us can really ever leave good enough alone. It's more fun to build, than to assemble. Thanks for your comments.

jeff

[jeffinvt]

Here is some shots of the ongoing body work, the roll pan is starting to take shape and only a little more work is needed to finish the headlight/fender mod. Now I need to see if the rear would benefit from a roll pan as well, it may be a waste of time as the rear is just about scraping anyway...