Ramfins59 Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 I picked up this resin kit last November from a guy named Roger Bartholomew from CA on EBAY. While it is an unusual 50's car to find a model of, the kit was sort of a bear to get together due to less than perfect casting. The body and interior were OK but final assembly was difficult due to; 1)- Poor fit of the dashboard to the cowl after installing the vacu-formed glass. It required a lot of sanding and trial fitting. 2)- The thickness of the bottom of the resin interior bucket and the thickness of the top side of the chassis prevented the chassis from seating properly with the interior in the body. Both required A LOT of grinding with a Dremel and repeated trial and error fitting to get everything to go together properly. I was originally so frustrated with the ill-fitting parts that the unassembled car sat in a box on my shelf for about 8 months. Today I was determined to "beat it into submission" and finally won the battle. The kit did not come with wheels and tires. I wound up using tires from my parts stash along with '53 Ford hubcaps which closely matched Googled reference pictures of '54 Dodge's hubcaps. The wheels are mounted on brass rods run through the chassis's molded in mounting points. The bumpers and grille came chrome plated. The deck for the continental spare was molded to the body and I added a chrome tire cover and panels from Modelhaus. The car is painted with Duplicolor Gray Primer with a clearcoat and the trim is BMF. I imagined that a '54 Dodge would be a rather plain-Jane car which might have been owned by an older person. The chrome tire cover was used to give the car just a touch of bling. I installed clear headlight lenses, a mirror, and a wire antenna. The taillights are Tamiya clear Red paint. The interior consisted of the bucket with rear seat molded in, separate front seat, dashboard and steering wheel. I painted the dash body color and detailed it with gauges, chrome silver paint and BMF. The steering wheel is painted Black with a chrome horn ring from a used up ballpoint pen. The carpet is flocked Black and the seats and door panels are flocked Gray with Flat Black panels. The convertible boot cover is painted flat Black with PE bits for snaps and really wouldn't sit down right on the tulip panel of the car.. Overall it's really not a bad looking car and makes an unusual but cool addition to my '50's car collection. The fact that it only cost me $26 makes the building troubles all the more bearable. Thanks for looking in on this. As usual all comments are welcomed.
StevenGuthmiller Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Pretty cool Richard! The only criticism I would make is that there is an obvious wheel base issue as evidenced by photo #2. Other than that, it's nice! Steve
philo426 Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Nice job!that dove gray was a Factory color for sure!
slusher Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Sweet build Rich. Love the seats and crisp foil work. Real nice touch on clearing the primer for the color.
TooOld Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 It was obviously a lot of work but well worth the effort for a very cool model ! Great job Rich !
Ace-Garageguy Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 That's a real eye-catcher, for sure, a really unusual car I don't recall ever seeing in full scale. I'd always wondered what that primer would look like as a glossy color too. Nice choice, looks great, as does the rest of the car.
Ramfins59 Posted October 31, 2014 Author Posted October 31, 2014 Thank you all very, very much for all of your kind and encouraging comments. Steve, I can't fix that wheelbase issue as everything is epoxied together. Believe it or not it doesn't look as severe on the passenger side. I am really bothered by that convertible boot and today will try to fix that.
bbowser Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Another nice piece from your bench Rich! I'm guessing there weren't many Dodges with continental kits back in the day, but it looks good anyway!
Porscheman Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Excellent build as always Rich. I hate when you think your getting that perfect resin and then it arrives. I useally get totally frustrated and give them to you.
StevenGuthmiller Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Thank you all very, very much for all of your kind and encouraging comments. Steve, I can't fix that wheelbase issue as everything is epoxied together. Believe it or not it doesn't look as severe on the passenger side. I am really bothered by that convertible boot and today will try to fix that. That's the problem with these resin kits. You're pretty much guaranteed to have fit issues. But I guess that's the nature of the beast. Steve
Ramfins59 Posted October 31, 2014 Author Posted October 31, 2014 Thanks again guys. Bruce, this lit was supposed to be the 1954 Pace Car and came with the Connie kit. I decided to build it more or less stock. Al, that's funny right there..!! I still haven't done anything with those 2 resin cars that you gave to me last year. Steve, you're right. There's ALWAYS some sort of fitment issue with resin kits. While Modelhaus' kits usually have the least amount of fit problems, I have had issues with interiors fitting properly especially after the glass is installed. I've had to either narrow the sides on some by sanding them down, or widen them with sheet plastic on others. I've also had to sand down the dashboards where they meet the cowl / windshield sometimes.
Harry P. Posted October 31, 2014 Posted October 31, 2014 Nice work, Rich. But as you know, that floating convertible top boot just doesn't cut it. I'm sure you'll work out a fix. Nice model of a car that we rarely see built.
Ramfins59 Posted November 1, 2014 Author Posted November 1, 2014 Thanks Harry, yeah I'll be fixing that convertible boot. I didn't get to it today because I was prepping the next resin kit on the bench...... a Modelhaus '58 Mercury Parklane convertible kit that I picked up at NNL East back in April. The parts are taking a Westleys bath for a day or so. I think the boot should be "an easy fix" by trimming the front bottom edge behind the rear seat and the bottom of the arms that would cover the top bows. Hopefully it will be that "easy".
FASTBACK340 Posted November 1, 2014 Posted November 1, 2014 The clear over the grey primer really nails the vintage finish for the paint. Really neat build Rich!
Ramfins59 Posted November 1, 2014 Author Posted November 1, 2014 Thanks a lot John. I'd been wanting to try clearing over Gray primer for awhile and I'm glad it worked out well.
Foxer Posted November 1, 2014 Posted November 1, 2014 Beautiful job! .. looks like a sows ear turned into a beautiful Easter Ham! ))
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