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Bill Lawton '64 Thunderbolt


bogger44

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Finished this up earlier this week.  Box stock other than plug wires and a slightly raised suspension.  Body is Tamiya TS-11 Maroon & TS-21 Gold.  Interior is a mix of TS-75 Champagne Gold & Krylon Short Cuts Antique Bronze.  The 30-plus year old decals were a real pain and wanted to curl badly, but with loads of Micro Sol they finally settled down for the most part.  I then buried 'em in Model Master Ultra Gloss Clearcote to protect them.  These are great kits, second one I've done and have 3 more to tackle.  Thanks for looking and any comments or questions.

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Very nice and clean build on your Thunderbolt!! I wish my decals came out as nice as yours did. 
 

They really are fun cars to build. I’ve built about 16 so far. Now that I’m totally out of decals, I’m pretty sure I’m finished with building them. 
 

Can’t wait to see your others when they are done. 

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Thanks again everyone!

On 3/9/2021 at 12:00 PM, Nitrobarry said:

GREAT work! I`ve got both the Gas Ronda and the Bill Lawton kits. Got some inspiration now!

Build 'em Barry, you'll enjoy them!  The other one I've built is Ronda's too.

On 3/9/2021 at 1:37 PM, Brutalform said:

Tony, btw... would you mind sharing how you raised the front suspension? The T Bolt front suspension is a bit touchy. Yours sits perfect. 

No problem Tom.  You are right the front suspension is a bit tedious and I'd say it's really the only relatively sore point in the kit.  Well, the headers are a little tricky too, for me anyways.  I probably should have worded raising the suspension a little differently, as the main assembly is left stock, I just trimmed off the mounting pins from the spindles and moved them down a bit lower. When reattaching them I pinned them on with a small chunk of metal rod for strength.  Here's a couple pics to show how much I moved them down compared to the OOB setup on a beater chassis I have.  On another note I did add some small blocks to the rear leaf spring mounts to pick up the back end a little, but they didn't add much height.  I did this same process when I build Gas Ronda's car, too.

I am pretty happy with how the decals turned out, but believe me there are a couple warts here and there lol.  I know you've built the Bob Ford cars, do you remember where you got the decals from?  I wouldn't mind adding one of those to my expanding fleet of 'bolts if they are still available.

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Thanks for the info. I was thinking about trying to raise the fronts in several of my builds, but decided not to because of the way the front end is designed. I have broken several of the tie rods on some of mine in the past, leaving me to either scrounge another, or try to fix the broken one. We both have pretty much the same idea on the way to get it done, though.
About the decals.. I’m almost positive I had a set from Fred Cady lying around. I do remember that the decals for both cars are from one card. I even remember that I mistakenly used the wrong door decals on the wrong cars. The “INC” on the decals is slightly different for each car. I haven’t seen these anywhere in a while. Top End Decals (Jack Smith) does have the Ken Vogt set for $8. His decals are some of the best I’ve ever used. You might want to check with him. I have a price list of his if you would like to check it out? 

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I might even buy a set for myself, and rebuild the yellow car all over again. There are so many things on that build that I was not happy with, that I just might disassemble, and at the very least, re paint and re decal the body. That car was definitely a pain in the neck for some reason.....????.....???

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Thanks for the decal info Tom.  Sorry about the troubles you had with the yellow car, hopefully if you do decide to re-do it the second go around will go better.  I think the next one I'll probably build is the Hubert Platt car.

Bob, thanks as well for the heads up on the spelling error of Healey.  I didn't even realize that.

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