MarkJ Posted March 5, 2022 Author Share Posted March 5, 2022 Thanks, Ricky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 I'm fortunate to have an 'AMT '66 Comet which I bought as a built-up. Would you be interested in seeing photos of how AMT did the grille? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 5, 2022 Author Share Posted March 5, 2022 (edited) 18 minutes ago, afx said: I'm fortunate to have an 'AMT '66 Comet which I bought as a built-up. Would you be interested in seeing photos of how AMT did the grille? No, I'm through with the grille. I have seen the amt comet grille. It doesn't look anything like the car I'm doing had. Edited March 5, 2022 by MarkJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 22 minutes ago, MarkJ said: No, I'm through with the grille. I have seen the amt comet grille. It doesn't look anything like the car I'm doing had. Very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 5, 2022 Author Share Posted March 5, 2022 1 hour ago, afx said: Very good. I have one actual ref picture of the car I'm building from the front, and it is partially obscured by a pit crew member going from one side of the car to the other. If you blow up the picture, you can see that there has been some race damage to the grille and that some of the chrome had been removed from it prerace. Even the bar down the middle had a molding removed from it that would leave a valley with holes in it that I really did not want to model because I didn't know if that was prerace or happened after the front end damage, so I just came up with something that kind of looks like the grille might have looked like before the damage, but I'm not really sure. The main thing is that it does not look like a 67 comet grille. One thing it has over the amt grille is that air can flow through my grille which is no big deal. The amt grilles are one-piece castings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 5, 2022 Author Share Posted March 5, 2022 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Rivard Posted March 6, 2022 Share Posted March 6, 2022 Backward in time. 1967 is gone, welcome 1966. Beautiful fab work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 6, 2022 Author Share Posted March 6, 2022 Thanks, Pierre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 I did a little more checking on my ref pictures of the front of the car I am modeling and have come to the conclusion that it probably had bright grilles in the grille enclosures. I'm thinking stamped aluminum, so I will probably paint my grilles that way. I believe in the pictures the grilles were just grimy and I mistaked them for being painted black. I also noticed that I believe the front bumper was installed a few inches higher than the stock location should be. The car did suffer some front-end damage during the race, but I don't think the bumper was involved. it appears to have no damage other then it looks a little high. Maybe they wanted less frontal area on the car for aerodynamic reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 (edited) I added a pin and hole to the rear bumper area, to help locate the bumper to the new rear panel I had to model, so when I glue it after the painting is done, it will be in the right location, and at the right angle. This glue cures really fast. Edited March 8, 2022 by MarkJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Rivard Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 This is really nice reference to go by. I admire the way you model your components from these detailed reference pictures. Really good stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 8, 2022 Author Share Posted March 8, 2022 Thanks, Pierre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james220 Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Mark it was a common practice, of the Ford products any way, to drop the front fenders over the wheels to make the car more aerodynamic. If you look closely at pictures of the big Galaxies you will notice the lower head lights below the front bumper area. From your pic it looks like that carried over to the Mercurys, so called half chassis cars, built in 66. It is really noticeable in the Ford Galaxies from 66 and I'm sure if it worked why not try it on the new Mercurys too. Your undertaking with the Mercury would be a very hard task for my skills and patience. Keep up the good work and post all the pieces you can. Again great start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 9, 2022 Author Share Posted March 9, 2022 21 hours ago, james220 said: Mark it was a common practice, of the Ford products any way, to drop the front fenders over the wheels to make the car more aerodynamic. If you look closely at pictures of the big Galaxies you will notice the lower head lights below the front bumper area. From your pic it looks like that carried over to the Mercurys, so called half chassis cars, built in 66. It is really noticeable in the Ford Galaxies from 66 and I'm sure if it worked why not try it on the new Mercurys too. Your undertaking with the Mercury would be a very hard task for my skills and patience. Keep up the good work and post all the pieces you can. Again great start. Thanks, James. You have set me straight on how they did this now. They sloped the fenders down instead of reattaching the bumper in a higher location. Kind of like they did to the Ford Talladegas. I think I could model this by cutting the fenders at the front of the doors and then removing some material from the fenders and reattaching them to the doors. It would have to be a wedge shaped looking piece of material removed with a curve in it to match the curve of the front of the door. Might just have to give this a go of it. Stay tuned. I wont do it unless I know I won't destroy the model in the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 (edited) The nose drop must have been for the super speedway cars. This appears to be a short track car and there appears to be no nose drop. So you could build it either way. Edited March 9, 2022 by afx 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james220 Posted March 9, 2022 Share Posted March 9, 2022 Good pics JC. I seem to remember someone saying that Bud built two cars one was a shock tower car and one was the half chassis car. Looks like you may have picks of both. Both those picks look to be taken at Darlington. I know he won one of the Darlington races in 66 just not sure which one. Seems the shock tower car was not a success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 9, 2022 Author Share Posted March 9, 2022 The top photo J. C. posted is the Southern 500 car. The bottom photo has to be the Rebel 300 car because placement of the contingencies are completely different. the Southern 500 car does appear to me that the front is drooped a little. Mute point any way because this model mounts the Front bumper directly to the body and not a frame that is not even there on this kit. so I will just mount the bumper a little higher like I originally planned to. Plus the Rebel car had the fiberglass hood with scoops and the Southern 500 car had a standard Comet sheet metal hood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 11, 2022 Author Share Posted March 11, 2022 Now that the cats out of the bag. I was crazy to think I could keep the identity of this build a secret. It was probably the only 66 comet driven in 1966. Any who, I thought I would show you the body images I made to help with the decal creation and also to help cut out the wheel openings. You just tape them on the side of the model and use them as a pattern. It's surprising how close they get these model bodies to fit a 1/25 scale picture of a real car. it has to be a really good, centered profile shot which I was lucky to find both sides of the car. The pictures are of a museum car, but the guy says he used the real Bud Moore Comet to make it, and he has the serial numbers to prove it. I have the link to the article if anyone is interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre Rivard Posted March 11, 2022 Share Posted March 11, 2022 Neat way of doing it with the pictures of the real car as templates. We learn something new every day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted March 11, 2022 Share Posted March 11, 2022 I apologize Mark. I wasn't trying to expose your project was just trying to share information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 11, 2022 Author Share Posted March 11, 2022 18 minutes ago, afx said: I apologize Mark. I wasn't trying to expose your project was just trying to share information. No sweat J.C. Like I said it was dumb of me to think that nobody could figure out which car I was doing. It's actually good because now I can show the paint part of the wip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 11, 2022 Author Share Posted March 11, 2022 1 hour ago, Pierre Rivard said: Neat way of doing it with the pictures of the real car as templates. We learn something new every day! Thanks Pierre. I was lucky to get profile shots of the car. Usually, you just get a half front, half side view of most cars. And that's it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian McLaren Posted March 12, 2022 Share Posted March 12, 2022 Great work on this one so far, well done on the year change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 12, 2022 Author Share Posted March 12, 2022 1 hour ago, Ian McLaren said: Great work on this one so far, well done on the year change. Thanks, Ian. This is one of those holy grail builds I have always wanted to do, and I'm not getting any younger. So its now, or never. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkJ Posted March 13, 2022 Author Share Posted March 13, 2022 Finally got the hood flat. Added some styrene that I will sand flat to fill the voids. They are slanted so the front of the filler styrene is higher than the rear which is flush already. I will use putty for any small gaps between the hood and the styrene piece. the Southern 500 car had a stock comet metal hood. They found that there was no weight saving using the fiberglass hood with the scoops after it was reinforced so they just went to the metal hood. Plus, the fiberglass hood could have been broken into pieces that would have been hard to tape back together during a race. The car started off using the fiberglass hood shown in the picture above at the Rebel 300. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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