Completed!
I finished the minor detail work, added the plates, made a custom hood pin, and yes the hinges are in. Currently, it's sitting in a case, because i'd be damned if this house isn't the dustiest house i've ever lived in.
Before it went to the case, I took it outside to get some photos.
Looking to see what 2024 brings. Now if i can only find a suitable wall mounted shelf with glass doors.
This month has been slow for building anything. Between work, the holidays, I was wanting to get something built for the upcoming model show. I tried to build a show worthy car, at least in my mind. I need a break from it, so now I am writing this post. I originally picked up a Nova SS Pro Stocker car for it, but everyone wished me "best of luck" with it and I see why. I'll post about that when I get around to building it. So I went to Hobby Lobby and it was a toss up between this one or the '70 Buick GSX, this one won out.
I found an article online in regards to the way I wanted to build it. The only difference between this one as my build is I went with the manual transmission with the W27 rear end.
The kit itself was well done. Very little to no flashing, parts cut and trimmed from the spru tree's easily. Being winter, I was very nervous that the cold weather would affect the paint and clear coat. So far I have been very lucky.
I was sprayed in the same Createx Pearl Lime Green that I did the Bonneville in. The interior is done with Testors Flat White for the headliner, Flat Black for the sun visors and Createx Opaque White for the seats and panels.
After priming and painting the body, I let that set for about three days. I slowly worked on getting the interior and motor built. With the Chattanooga Modelcon 2024 coming next week, I needed to hurry, but work smartly. In the end, I feel i stayed within the "safe" zone, since I was building or trying to build for show.
There were a few minor issues along the way, but nothing that hasn't been able to be fixed with a few exceptions. Seems i got fingerprints on the glass. And no matter what I used to clean them, the oil from my skin just smeared. I got it cleaned the best I could, it will have to do. Having issues blacking out the grill. The Tamiya panel liner wasn't getting dark enough, even with a few coats and an hour to dry between each one. I went over it with a very thinned out flat black. After about 2 days of drying, it looked ok, however there were a few spots of chrome coming through. Added a bit more liner to it, and it just looks a little "blah."
The rear fender mounted well enough, but there is a small gap in one side. Though it prefit fine, not sure why it's giving me the business now. Overall, it looks good. The instructions aren't clear on the hood hinges however. I am debating to put them on, but I believe they should be there. I can always prop the hood open is need be.
Still have some minor details to do and decals to add, but for the most part, it's about 85-90% done.I tried to paint in as many little details as I could. I used different color paints on the chassis to give it a bit of dimension. So there is a flat black frame with a gun metal gray subframe and a body matching floor pan. The shocks were painted to matched the motor color in blue and silver.
There's a lot of little details that I wanted to get in, just incase of things like the windows or a misaligned body panel made its way in, that maybe it wouldn't cost as many points in judging.
Here are current photos of its progress. Once it's fully complete, I'll post them.
Like most AMT kits, the mold lines on this were bad. The clean up process was bad, as there was a lot of grease and grease stains on the plastic. I had grabbed some of the Createx Graphite Charcoal Metallic, as I wanted to do this in silver and black. I did the typical soak and scrub with water and dawn. Sanded it down to get rid of the body lines and sanded out the light fitments.
After it was primed and painted in silver, it sat for about a week. I kept looking at it and looking, and it didn't grab my attention. To me, it was too much silver and nothing to break it up. I decided to test the candy blood red I have over the silver on the test spoon and that was that. Lucy was born.
What I didn't see what that the charcoal color had pooled a bit on the hood sides. Looking at all the silver in the different lights, everything looked ok. I wet sanded it to get rid of the minor imperfections. I laid down the first coat of blood red and that's when I saw the body lines by the rear window. They didn't show anymore before or after the primer, nor did they show after the silver. But the red brought them out.
Not much to do but keep going. The only issue during building was the air cleaner refused to sit flush on the carb. A little sanding and cutting and it acted like a 2 year old. But in the end, the nail glue did it's job. After the trim was done, it was cleared with the Testors Wet Clear. I was hoping for no major reaction and I was satisfied.
The rest of it went together fine, however I noticed something after putting the body on. Though the dash is set where it should be, sits flush and all, with the body on, it looks like it's titled back toward the motor, making the steering wheel sit high. The interior is just a simple black and gray with silver trim. Trying to keep it close to an original as possible.
Removing the body and trying to adjust it didn't work. I think it's the way the hood is designed as the hood sits high up the windshield. I never really looked at the Chevelles at shows, it's kinda like, seen one, you've seen them all.
There were a few glitches in the end, the Micro Sol didn't seem to mesh with the Createx and ate away at a small spot of red. I should be able to fix that before I polish it up. There's still a few things to tweak and touch up before it gets polished, but she is one fine look lady.
I bought this van at the same time I bought the Plymouth coupe and the Chevy wagon. All I wanted from this kit was the vending machine, but figured the build would be just more practice. Still haven't gotten the vending machine together, but I will here shortly.
I had no idea what I wanted to do with this thing. I didn't want a Coke vehicle, at least not right now. I scoured the Google for days, looking for ideas, but all good vans came down to custom graphics. Didn't matter if it was in the 70's or 80's, the graphics is what made these.
I did get an idea of creating a tribute to Ozzy. A groupie following him around from city to city on his US trip of the Ultimate Sin tour.I even started testing graphics, but they just wouldn't turn out. Just as they didn't on this final build.
After about a week and a half, I finally decided what I was going to do. Though I have a can of yellow paint, I wanted to airbrush this. I have the black that I used on the Nova wagon, and I like that paint. So I went to HL and picked up a bottle of the Createx Opaque Yellow. Guess it wasn't just on the Nova that the black laid thin, even with 3-4 coats. The black, over gray primer scratched so easy, that there was a lot of touch ups to be done before finishing.
The kit itself was relatively easy to build. The hardest part about it all, was masking off the dog house on the interior. This time around, I assembled as much as I could of the chassis and suspension that was going to be all black. Primed it as one piece and painted it as one.
All in all, there are paint mistakes due to masking. Still haven't gotten the hang of it. I really wasn't keen on the yellow and black paint as I was the Createx green I used on the bonneville. And it seems i'm going through too much thinner and paint trying to get the proper mixes. But i have found that a 1-1 mix at 35-40 PSI works with just about all of the Createx paints.
Doing my own decals is still a struggle. Though everything was done at 1200 DPI, they splotch when printing. I did order a set for the green 37 Ford and a race kit I will be doing, but I don't want to have to keep forking over money for decals if I can do my own, so it's a process I need to iron out. Regardless, at a distance, this looks good. Up close, i've done better. I used the Tamiya Gloss Clear on this instead of the Createx. I like the sheen of the Tamiya better. Running out of that too, as it's a 1-1 mix and takes a lot for multiple coats. On the bright side, it's cheaper than the Createx. But I know I can mix the two without any drastic issues.
I tried a few new things with this one. Since I was using yellow and didn't want to risk staining it with the Tamiya panel accent, I used the panel accent over the primer. It actually helped get the black line settled under the yellow paint. Just did a little sanding before paint to remove the stain marks.
The helmet decals are a bit too big. The first print, they were too small, actually smaller than a dime. These ones could have been about a 1/8th of an inch shorter to fit better.
The tires and rims were spares from another kit. I really love these tires. Soft rubber with really good raised letters for painting. The rims are a bit to small for the tires however, though they are glued to the rim back plates, I think I should have glued the tires to the rims. Same for the back plates. Now the back plates are sunken in, you just can't see them.
It was a very simple, stock build. I was getting frustrated with coming up with ideas on what to do, that I didn't get into any customizations. But I do need to step out of the comfort zone and start building instead of just assembling.
