1974 Camaro

[MarkJ]

Thanks, David and Tim. If I can get past the grille, the rest shouldn't be that hard. Just time consuming. The interior is just basic stuff too. The wheels will be intricate like the grille. 

[MarkJ]

15 hours ago, Oldcarfan27 said:

And those brackets were HEAVY! I remember those aluminum bumpers weighed over 100 pounds with all that stuff on them.

Yes, Patrick.  The difference between the little nerf bars and hard  rubber surround around the grille on the 70-73 RS Camaro's and regular chrome bumper  Camaro's,  compared to the 74, is  astounding. The older ones were just for looks, not much when it came to being a bumper.

Edited June 20, 2021 by MarkJ

[MarkJ]

Starting on the grille. Traced the grille opening directly on the styrene sheet to be used. Will be putting a border around the base to install the grille bars to.

[espo]

Amazing how you have transformed the year model on this build. 

[TransAmMike]

Yer killing this Mark!!?

[MarkJ]

Thanks, David and Mike. I started on the fins, but will have to start over because my process was not making them equidistant from each other.  I think I have come up with a plan that will work better, that I will try today. If you look at the last picture you will see that the fins are not evenly spaced apart and I used too many fins. Won't be the first time I have had to do a redo on this project.I know the fins are too wide, too. But I did that on purpose so I would have something to grab with the tweezers to put them in place to glue. I was going to trim them down later.

Edited June 21, 2021 by MarkJ

[MarkJ]

I tried to salvage the grille, but it was too far gone. So i had to start over. I found a head on picture of the grille. So I made it 1/25 scale picture of it and am using it for a pattern to install the grille fins. I got all the vertical fins done, so now on to the horizontal ones. There's a whole lot more of them to do, but I think I have a good process now, to get it done. Won't be like a kit grille, but I think it will work . The real car did not have a chrome grille, so this should look better in some ways.

[bisc63]

Nice progress!

[David G.]

Great idea making the grille template!

Hope this one works out better for you.

David G.

[MarkJ]

Thanks Rusty and David. The only problem is, I have to make 98 little pieces of grille to do the horizontal part of it. I just needed 13 vertical fins. Needless to say this will be the  last grille I make,  unless its a fine mesh one that I have the material for. That would just be a one piece grille with a border around it.

Edited June 23, 2021 by MarkJ

[iamsuperdan]

Your conversion is going great so far!

Reading the last few posts about your grille made me think about how 3D printing will simplify a process like this. The tech is getting less expensive all the time, programs are getting easier and easier to use, and there are more files to utilize every day. Yes, there are those who will talk about the satisfaction of scratchbuilding the parts by hand, and there will always be a place for that. But for many others, 3D will be the way to go. 

 

Anyway, I dig it, and the grille is coming along nicely.

 

[MarkJ]

4 hours ago, iamsuperdan said:

Your conversion is going great so far!

Reading the last few posts about your grille made me think about how 3D printing will simplify a process like this. The tech is getting less expensive all the time, programs are getting easier and easier to use, and there are more files to utilize every day. Yes, there are those who will talk about the satisfaction of scratchbuilding the parts by hand, and there will always be a place for that. But for many others, 3D will be the way to go. 

 

Anyway, I dig it, and the grille is coming along nicely.

 

Thanks, Dan.  I appreciate your  take on the 3d stuff, but I'm  lucky to do the the computer things  I have been doing. I think 3d is way over my pay grade, but would be an awesome way to go for this type of project.  

[bisc63]

Instead of making all those grille pieces, why not just make continuous length pieces that are the width and contour of the grille, then mark the location of the vertical pieces on the backside of these. Mark the location of the horizontal elements on the vertical. Take a hobby saw that cuts a kerf the sane thickness as your plastic, and saw half way into the pieces; on the front of the vertical, and the back of the horizontal. Essentially, making half-lap joints that lock everything together. Just a thought...

[TransAmMike]

Wow Mark, your patience working on that grill is awesome.  I could and would never attempt that?

[John1955]

On 6/8/2021 at 1:05 PM, MarkJ said:

Here is the kit. I will need to change the front and rear to have it pass as a 74. I will also need to make new bumpers. I know I could have gotten  a 74 kit, maybe if I could have found one, and pay big bucks for it, and I know a 74 Camaro resin is available, but its more fun to do it this way. I  stole the engine out of this kit for a 65 Chevelle I built because it came with a big block and I needed a small block for the Chevelle. I bought a 70 Corvette kit to get a small block for this build. I will use the big block from the Chevelle kit for the 70 Corvette whenever I build it.

 

 

What you are doing is the wise choice. You're correct that finding a kit of the '74 would be difficult and extremely expensive. Also, a resin '74 body that is available as you said, but I've looked at it closely and it's simply not right somehow. When you finish yours, it will be much better, no doubt. 

[MarkJ]

14 hours ago, bisc63 said:

Instead of making all those grille pieces, why not just make continuous length pieces that are the width and contour of the grille, then mark the location of the vertical pieces on the backside of these. Mark the location of the horizontal elements on the vertical. Take a hobby saw that cuts a kerf the sane thickness as your plastic, and saw half way into the pieces; on the front of the vertical, and the back of the horizontal. Essentially, making half-lap joints that lock everything together. Just a thought...

Thanks , Rusty. I tried that but my 2 exacto saws, both cut, way too wide a kerf for the .010 inch thick plastic I'm using. Plus marking and cutting a piece of thin plastic that long accurately is way above my paygrade. But thank you for your input. it is most appreciated. 

[MarkJ]

12 hours ago, TransAmMike said:

Wow Mark, your patience working on that grill is awesome.  I could and would never attempt that?

Thanks, Mike. So far I have done 4 rows of horizontal fins, so I have 10 more to do . It is frustrating , painstaking work and will probably look terrible when finished. I might just cover over the grille with sheet plastic and make a decal to represent the grille. The real car had a fine mesh screen over the grille but my mesh material is so tight you can't see the fins behind it like you could on the real car.

[MarkJ]

11 hours ago, John1955 said:

What you are doing is the wise choice. You're correct that finding a kit of the '74 would be difficult and extremely expensive. Also, a resin '74 body that is available as you said, but I've looked at it closely and it's simply not right somehow. When you finish yours, it will be much better, no doubt. 

Thanks, John. I noticed on twitter that Clay Kemp is building a 74 Robert Gee Camaro using the resin body. The body comes with the grille opening shut and just smoothed over, so I wonder how he will address it.

[MarkJ]

As you can see its not looking real promising. I'm going to go ahead and finish this and see what kind of fine tuning i can do. After that I might just have to rethink the whole grille process. Maybe a fine mesh grille screen which would not be correct would allow me to at least finish the build. 

[1972coronet]

My eyes and fingers hurt just looking at that !  Too bad it's not working out for you ; but , at least you can't say that you didn't try .

I'm sure that you've perused resin as an alternative , but never-the-less :

1974 camaro in Automotive Models and Kits | eBay

[Can-Con]

hoppersbazaar on E-bay has a couple resin 2nd gen Camaro grills. 

[MarkJ]

I have decide to give the grille another try. Maybe 3rd time will be the charm. Knowing my luck, the resin grille will be 1/24 scale and not fit this model. 

[Can-Con]

12 minutes ago, MarkJ said:

I have decide to give the grille another try. Maybe 3rd time will be the charm. Knowing my luck, the resin grille will be 1/24 scale and not fit this model. 

They're copies of the AMT and MPC kit parts so they're 1/25. 

But the price does seem a touch high.

[MarkJ]

53 minutes ago, Can-Con said:

They're copies of the AMT and MPC kit parts so they're 1/25. 

But the price does seem a touch high.

Looking at the 2 they offer, one seems longer then the other. Might just be an optical illusion. Price isn't bad but 

i don't buy online. 

[Oldcarfan27]

I admire your tenacity on the grille. 

I personally would've tried finding a flat custom grille with a similar pattern or a photo etched sheet to use.