'66 Barracuda Fireball 500 Glue Bomb Rescue

[Snake45]

This fairly cleanly built Fireball 500 caught my eye at the local toy show last month. I've often said that if I can improve a glue bomb into looking like something I might have built in 1968, I'm happy. This one was pretty much already there, but I saw a few improvements that could be made. The most obvious eyesores on the model were, of course, the glue boogers on the wraparound windscreens.

 

I have an unbuilt Fireball 500 in the Snakepit that I plan to build into a custom of my own design, so I didn't feel bad about robbing parts out of it.

After disassembly, first thing I did was file the underside of the interior tub and the topside of the chassis transmission tunnel so the body would properly sit down over the frame. This lowered the front end and made a big difference in the look of the whole thing.

It might not show up too well in the Before pics, but the USA banner decal on the left quarter is too long. If correctly applied behind the (missing) gas filler cap, as the OP did, it crosses the depressed crease line in the fender and then comes up on the flush part again, if you follow what I'm saying, and it looks terrible. I scraped the rear quarter or so of the decal off, cut the red and white portion from a new decal to a shorter length, and applied it right over the old one. Looks much better now. I also sliced the door decals through the door lines and snuggled them down into the gap with Solvaset.

The paint needed a little red touchup with a brush here and there. The overall finish wasn't horrible, but had a LOT of pebbling and orange peel. In the Before pics, you can see a lot of white “specks” on the red. SOME of these are actual tiny paint specks, but mainly these are reflections from the high spots of the pebbling/orange peel. Next step was to even out and gloss up the paint with Rustoleum High Lustre Clear Lacquer. Since I had no idea what the original paint was (probably Testor enamel, but who knows?), I used the same careful routine as on my recent Projekt Junknova—two light mist coats to seal the underlying paint from the lacquer, then four wet coats. When dry, this was polished out with my standard Wright's Silver Cream.

The model had originally been built without the radiator wall with its Ciebe headlights behind the grille; I added these from the unbuilt kit. I tried to re-use the original windscreens, but the glue boogers were just too bad and I had to pirate them from the new kit. I painted the body areas under the windscreens with semigloss black, and hit the bottom edge of the windscreens with a black Permanent Sharpie. Glued on with Tacky Glue (white glue), the edge just vanishes for a 100% improvement in appearance. All that was left was to sand the tire treads and paint the Radir wheel spokes with flat aluminum. (The real one might have full-chrome Radirs, but IMHO these look too toylike on a model.) I forgot to attach the new outside mirror and gas filler cap before taking the pics.

I'm pretty pleased with the finished product. I have maybe 10-12 hours in it, much of that in the paint rubout. Not as good as I could do “from scratch,” but then I only have about one fourth as much work in it. Looks good on my shelf, especially next to my restored original Monkeemobile. Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome.

[larman]

Nice rescue! The improvements you made make a big difference!

[BIGTRUCK]

With the cost of a kit it makes good sense to get some of your modeling fix by saving a kit. Looks good from all angles.?

[michelle]

nice work on the resteration

[Tom Geiger]

Looks good from Pennsylvania!  I’m still working on my Valiant speedster conversion. I went clear thru areas of the floor to get it to sit on the chassis!

How did your chassis line up with the rocker panels?  My body is much wider than the chassis

[Hmann68]

Very nice work as usual! Looks bright and clean ??

[Spottedlaurel]

Nice work - sympathetically done, nothing too radical, but those little tweaks and improvements have been effective.

[Snake45]

22 hours ago, larman said:

Nice rescue! The improvements you made make a big difference!

 

22 hours ago, BIGTRUCK said:

With the cost of a kit it makes good sense to get some of your modeling fix by saving a kit. Looks good from all angles.?

 

20 hours ago, michelle said:

nice work on the resteration

 

12 hours ago, Hmann68 said:

Very nice work as usual! Looks bright and clean ??

 

9 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Nice work - sympathetically done, nothing too radical, but those little tweaks and improvements have been effective.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! Model on! 

[Snake45]

20 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

How did your chassis line up with the rocker panels?  My body is much wider than the chassis

Not a problem on mine, the body and chassis are about the same width at the rockers. 

[gseeds]

Awesome save Snake !!

[slusher]

Another super nice model from the Snake Pit."...

[skymnky721]

Looks great!

[Steve H]

Snake, you’re a saviour! You really are the king of rescues. I’ve always had the thought of leaving my old (not so great) builds as is to show how my skills have improved. There are several on the shelf that you have me thinking I should strip, and bring new life to...

Well done

[lordairgtar]

XLNT job. Admire your Snake-fu abilities. In the words of every cheesy Kung Fu movie..." You possess great skills, sensei"

 

[Kromolly]

Really nice save there.  Looks much better and it's something you can display and enjoy.  You're right, the corrected ride height made a huge difference.

[ewetwo]

Looks great!

 

[Snake45]

On 3/11/2021 at 1:35 PM, gseeds said:

Awesome save Snake !!

 

On 3/12/2021 at 1:16 AM, slusher said:

Another super nice model from the Snake Pit."...

 

18 hours ago, skymnky721 said:

Looks great!

 

2 hours ago, lordairgtar said:

XLNT job. Admire your Snake-fu abilities. In the words of every cheesy Kung Fu movie..." You possess great skills, sensei"

 

 

2 hours ago, Kromolly said:

Really nice save there.  Looks much better and it's something you can display and enjoy.  You're right, the corrected ride height made a huge difference.

 

1 hour ago, ewetwo said:

Looks great!

 

Thanks all for the kind words. I really appreciate them! Model on, everyone! 

[Snake45]

16 hours ago, Steve H said:

Snake, you’re a saviour! You really are the king of rescues. I’ve always had the thought of leaving my old (not so great) builds as is to show how my skills have improved. There are several on the shelf that you have me thinking I should strip, and bring new life to...

Well done

Thanks! I'd advise thinking carefully before re-doing any of your old work. I have at least two of my old original builds that I stripped the paint off of, and now wish I hadn't. There area few more that I was going to strip, and now I'm VERY glad I didn't. On the other hand, I don't mind tearing my old stuff down and making little improvements such as touching up paint or trim, replacing broken or damaged parts, and so forth. I've done several of these and have several more to re-do when the mood strikes me. 

Generally, if a kit is still in production/available, or I can get a reasonably priced replacement from eBay, I'd rather build up a new one and leave my old one alone and display them as "then and now," as you say, to show the improvement of my skills. I don't have such qualms about stripping down someone else's work, but even then, very often I'll try to preserve as much of the original builder's work and "vision" as possible or I can stand, and respect the model for what it is, a time capsule of another age. Every model is sort of a law unto itself, and I enjoy it all. Have fun and model on!