Ace-Garageguy Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 (edited) I fell in love with these massive road-crusher wagons, and started working on a way to model something like them. I'm also kinda thinking about going for a phantom 2-door with a Nomad-flavor raked rear gate. I snagged the best '57 Century promo I could find, here compared to an AMT '58 body shell. The bumpers of the promo are styrene and have no warp or shrinkage, but the acetate body shrinkage is very obvious. Still pretty straight though. Body masked, prepped for molding one side in f'glass, holes clayed, coated with PVA mold release. RH mold layup Popped off... ...and everything cleaned up, first mold trimmed. The plan, for now, is to copy individual panels and build them up on a cut-down '58 clone, adjusting dimensions as necessary. It's pretty obvious the '58 Century is very similar to the '57 under the skin, so I believe I'll only be doing what GM did, just backwards...and smaller. The '58 chassis is typical AMT period blobular, so a clone of it will get hacked into a more detailed representation. The LH side is warped worse, so I'm going to be doing individual panels. Edited December 21, 2022 by Ace-Garageguy ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOBLNG Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 That is a beautiful wagon! Those older vehicles had so much more character than anything today.😎 I’ve never seen these tricks you’re using here so I’ll follow along.🙂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullybeef Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 I dig this idea, wagons from that era are so cool. Can’t wait to see some more work aka mock-up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted December 20, 2022 Share Posted December 20, 2022 Very interesting. I will be watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted December 26, 2022 Author Share Posted December 26, 2022 On 12/18/2022 at 9:15 PM, NOBLNG said: That is a beautiful wagon! Those older vehicles had so much more character than anything today.😎 I’ve never seen these tricks you’re using here so I’ll follow along.🙂 On 12/19/2022 at 4:47 PM, Bullybeef said: I dig this idea, wagons from that era are so cool. Can’t wait to see some more work aka mock-up. On 12/19/2022 at 8:55 PM, cobraman said: Very interesting. I will be watching. Thanks for the interest and comments, gennelmen. As I said, this will be a long term project, learning as I go, but based on successful techniques I've developed over the years. For anyone interested, here are two threads that go into said techniques in some detail. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragline Posted December 26, 2022 Share Posted December 26, 2022 Extraordinary amount of work. Your passion for this vehicle is obvious with such labor. I will be watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 5, 2023 Author Share Posted January 5, 2023 On 12/26/2022 at 5:35 PM, Dragline said: Extraordinary amount of work. Your passion for this vehicle is obvious with such labor. I will be watching. Thanks for your interest. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeakDoc Posted January 5, 2023 Share Posted January 5, 2023 Lots of cool stuff going on with this build. Following this for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 5, 2023 Author Share Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 5 hours ago, BeakDoc said: Lots of cool stuff going on with this build. Following this for sure. Welcome aboard. For what it's worth, the original plan was to find a Modelhaus '57 Buick to start with. They're out there, but usually cost several hundred dollars at least. The mold for the Modelhaus '57 was obviously taken from an acetate promo, and careful analysis of every photo of one I could find online shows the acetate original had already started the warping, shrinking process when the Modelhaus molds were pulled. A critical eye will see that there's a whooptee in the front fender, and it looks like the width is a tick narrow relative to the bumpers as well. These issues are consistent with the slightly more severe warping of my own acetate promo. With the price and rarity of the Modelhaus kit, which would still require substantial correction prior to making new molds, I elected to start with the best original acetate model I could find. EDIT: This just in...it looks like Modelhaus already did a 2-door phantom, but I'd bet the chances of finding one are akin to finding snowballs in Cuba. Edited January 5, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy TYPO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chepp Posted January 5, 2023 Share Posted January 5, 2023 This is a great idea and you're making a wonderful start on it. I think that the '57 body design is the best of the '50s Buicks for sleekness and making a two-door hardtop wagon is the best of all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 5, 2023 Author Share Posted January 5, 2023 Never say never. I just found this on eBay for $375. Still has the whooptee in the front fender and slightly sunken hood center from being based on a somewhat warped acetate promo. Probably would save a helluva lot of work though... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted January 5, 2023 Share Posted January 5, 2023 Nice ! Expensive but nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 5, 2023 Author Share Posted January 5, 2023 1 hour ago, cobraman said: Nice ! Expensive but nice. Yeah, but I think I'm going to pass this time. Last big-ticket kit I bought was a Modelhaus '57 Mercury Monterey to do the Mermaid. Scratching that would have been too much. But already I have a semi-decent acetate promo of the '57 Buick as a starting point. And that almost 400 bucks is about 10% of what I need for a real quick-change for the '32. Decisions, decisions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
espo Posted January 6, 2023 Share Posted January 6, 2023 Only you can decide how much your time and frustration is worth as opposed to the resin kit that's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 6, 2023 Author Share Posted January 6, 2023 2 hours ago, espo said: Only you can decide how much your time and frustration is worth as opposed to the resin kit that's done. Yup, and even though the kit above is "done", it's also not exactly what I had in mind, and will take somewhat heavy corrections as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chepp Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 You could buy it, make molds of the relevant parts of it that are useful to you then sell it, probably for the same or more than you paid. From an intellectual property standpoint this wouldn't be quite "kosher" but it would seem to be OK: 1) Since you would be buying this from someone other than the original producer (who got paid for his work by the original purchaser) you are not harming the original producer. 2) By paying a relatively high price for it you are supporting the value of this item in the marketplace. 3) By only copying parts of the original and not the entire body you are not diminishing the original producer's work nor are you making a "cheap copy" to sell and thus profit from the original producer's skill without compensating him. 4) By re-selling it later you are again supporting the value of this item in the marketplace even though it's the same item selling for a relatively high price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 8, 2023 Author Share Posted January 8, 2023 1 hour ago, chepp said: You could buy it, make molds of the relevant parts of it that are useful to you then sell it, probably for the same or more than you paid. From an intellectual property standpoint this wouldn't be quite "kosher" but it would seem to be OK...etc. Yes, I've considered all of that. There's also the fact that Modelhaus is no longer in business making resin kits, and as nobody has stepped up to buy their tooling or take over production and sales, nobody would be adversely affected from the intellectual property standpoint. Bottom line is that the Modelhaus body shell has issues, having been pulled from a warped promo, so I'd need to make a mold and cast a copy to CORRECT first, and and then hack THAT up into what I want, so as not to destroy the Modelhaus body. Either way it's a lot of work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrObsessive Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 (edited) Chalk up another reason to get into 3D printing Bill.........I happen to have files of that very car. The '57 Buick Caballero wagon............ 😁 Edited January 8, 2023 by MrObsessive Added pics 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maindrian Pace Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 Ouch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oldriginal86 Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 Hide that please! I wanted to see how Ace made the fiberglass body for the wagon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 9, 2023 Author Share Posted January 9, 2023 46 minutes ago, Oldriginal86 said: Hide that please! I wanted to see how Ace made the fiberglass body for the wagon. Fear not. I'm a glutton for punishment...and I don't have 3D printing capability yet anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CabDriver Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 2 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said: yet Operative word there 😂 Always enjoy your threads Bill - always educational and inspiring 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullybeef Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 22 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said: Either way it's a lot of work. But aren’t all your builds that way? That is one of the main reasons I follow your builds, to learn new( or old) ways to building a model. Keep up the work in ‘23 and hope you sneak in a pic or two of your 1:1 32 build along the way. cheers Bil 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spex84 Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 21 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said: Fear not. I'm a glutton for punishment That's the spirit 😁 I'm hoping to see this Buick project carried through! As for the 3D printed version: it's cool too. It's all about spending time doing what moves you. If one guy builds 10 3D printed models and enjoys 500 hours of modeling, and another guy carves a single model from scratch out of a block of wood and treasures all 500 hours of it, then either way I'd say those are hours well spent. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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