'51 Chevy Hardtop 60's Style Custom Street Rod

[Bernard Kron]

60’s Style ’51 Chevrolet Hardtop Customized Street Rod

Based on the AMT ’51 Chevrolet Hardtop kit with the following changes:

Bodywork: Nosed, decked, and shaved. The stock grille is modified by removing the upper trim piece. The edge of the hood and fender corners have been molded as a result. The rear wheel openings have been radiused Archer 3D resin transfer louvers on the hood. Revell '49 Merc front bumper.
Chassis: Front lowered using kit lowering kingpins. Rear raised using kit shackles.
Motor: Revell Parts Pak Chevy Small Block with ramhorn exhausts from my parts box. Side pipe exhausts fabricated from aluminum tubing.
Wheels and tires: Kit front wheels, rear deep dish steelies from Modelhaus. Modelhaus chrome spiders. Modelhaus T-120 from tires and Modelhaus T-140 rear slicks.
Interior: Stock kit interior with rear seat deleted, AMT ’49 Ford bucket seats in the front. Finished in Testors Acryl Gunmetal and British Crimson.
Paint: DupliColor Gunmetal Metallic and Testors Revving Red Metallic.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Bernard Kron

[Bernard Kron]

Here are some additional detail shots:

Edited July 29, 2017 by Bernard Kron

[rmvw guy]

Nice looking hot rod, I like the style!

[Harry P.]

Nice work, Bernard! Love the hood louvers. And I like how you itemize all the work you did, without that we wouldn't know the effort that you put into this model.

Tell me more about the louvers. Are they actually 3D? Are they rub ons, like dry-transfer lettering?

[rustybill1960]

A true crusier Bernard!

I really like your exhaust pipes!

Thank You for sharing

Later
Russ

[Erik Smith]

Very cool. I too like the list of mods and the building notes. Great work.

[Danno]

Very nice!!!

[Ron35369]

Great job Bernard! You do nice work. I really love those chrome wheel spiders! Where did you get them? I'm desperate to find some.

[vintagercr]

Bernard, nice build! Where did you get the louvers?

[vintagedragfan]

very cool Bernard!! old skool rules!!

[ChevyCoupe41]

Very good looking Chevy! I like this kind of old school street machines alot and you did great job with this one.

[Bernard Kron]

... I really love those chrome wheel spiders! Where did you get them? I'm desperate to find some.

Thanx!

As referred to above, the spiders are Modelhaus items. They are part # W-180 listed under Wheels/wheel backs as described here: http://www.modelhaus.com/index.php?c=0&p=67801

[Bernard Kron]

...Tell me more about the louvers. Are they actually 3D? Are they rub ons, like dry-transfer lettering?

Thanx Harry. They are water slide decals. They are made by Archer Fine Transfers under their 3D Surface Details line. They really are 3D, rising above the body surface. They are part of an extensive lines of rivets, weld beads, casting symbols, ttread plates, and much more, aimed at the railroading, military and aircraft modeling markets. Unfortunately this means that many of them are far too small for even the smaller automotive scales. The technology used is resin printing on a waterslide substrate.

I use item # AR88037 O-scale 6" Wide Louvers (see http://www.archertransfers.com/AR88037.html ) which equates to approximately 3" louvers in 1/24 or 1/25 scales. They have two limitations based on my experience. Firstly, they are relatively shallow, on par with some of the louvers Monogram used to cast into the surface of some of its 1/24th scale models (i.e. the '32 Ford Roadster and the '37 Ford Tudor Sedan). This means that if you paint over them you can risk filling them with paint. Secondly, they are only cast in black. Combined with their shallowness, this means they can "disappear" somewhat when using them with dark colors.

I have developed various techniques to get the best results I can from them. First of all, I never paint multiple coats over them. Generally I just apply them at the end of my build, as I did here, and use decal solvent to melt them down into the paint substrate. They respond very well to this and it's the approach Archer themselves recommend. Alternately, I will apply a light dusting of color coat and then clear in some cases where the black color of the louvers is just too strong.

Here are a couple of additional examples on a '29 Ford Roadster I did a couple of years back:

Over Testors Metalizer Aluminum Plate with a light finish dusting:

Over Duplicolor lacquer with a light color coat and two coats of Duplicolor Clear:

I've been in touch with Archer suggesting to them that there would be an enormous market in the vehicle modeling sector if they made larger scale louvers, rivets, etc. that sat taller above the surface. They replied that they were aware of this but that unfortunately the limitations of the printing technology currently prohobits it. In the meantime I "pick my battles" with them and it permits me to do things relatively easily that I might not be able to do otherwise. (I need to get back to Archer and suggest a white or silver color for darker surfaces...).

Incidently, Curt Raitz did a gorgeous 1/24th scale Bugatti "Tank" a couple of years back using Archer rivets to great effect:

[Albie D]

This is very cool. The '29 Roadster is pretty sweet as well.

[slusher]

Awsume old school build, you nailed it. excellent work....

[Pete L.]

Nice work...I especially enjoy the "in progress" pics of the Chevy !!!

[geetee66]

I love the way this car looks. Some really nice details.

Thanks for giving details about the bodywork, etc.

Your photos are good, but I think you should get a soft make-up brush or paintbrush and dust off the body before you take your pics. Your excellent photos are showing up large hairs...shame to see them on such a fine build.

[Bernard Kron]

Broken Photobucket links repaired. For now I'm only updating completed model pics. Updating w.i.p. links is just too huge a task! I'll update them on request...