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1966 Buick Riviera by CDW - FINISHED - AMT - 1:25 Scale


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45 minutes ago, CDW said:

.... Quite a strong performer, too.

Yep, if you were wise enough to order it with the 455ci big block....

Current Build: F-86F-30 Sabre by Egilman - Kinetic - 1/32nd scale

In the Garage: East Bound & Down, Building a Smokey & the Bandit Kenworth Rig in 1/25th scale

Completed: M8A1 HST  1930 Packard Boattail Speedster  M1A1 75mm Pack Howitzer  F-4J Phantom II Bell H-13's P-51B/C

Temporary Suspension: USS Gwin DD-433  F-104C Starfighter "Blue Jay Four" 1/32nd Scale

Terminated Build: F-104C Starfighter

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"Relish Today, Ketchup Tomorrow"

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They produced some righteous engines back in the day....

 

For example take the 427 out of the 4k lbs sedan, put it in a 2200 lb roadster.... Wait, a guy named Shelby did exactly that didn't he....

 

A six-pack then an eight-pack, Dual Quads, crossover manifolds....

 

The Wildcat, the Rocket, the Lightning....  They had some great names as well...

Current Build: F-86F-30 Sabre by Egilman - Kinetic - 1/32nd scale

In the Garage: East Bound & Down, Building a Smokey & the Bandit Kenworth Rig in 1/25th scale

Completed: M8A1 HST  1930 Packard Boattail Speedster  M1A1 75mm Pack Howitzer  F-4J Phantom II Bell H-13's P-51B/C

Temporary Suspension: USS Gwin DD-433  F-104C Starfighter "Blue Jay Four" 1/32nd Scale

Terminated Build: F-104C Starfighter

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Quote:

"Relish Today, Ketchup Tomorrow"

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10 hours ago, Egilman said:

They produced some righteous engines back in the day....

 

For example take the 427 out of the 4k lbs sedan, put it in a 2200 lb roadster.... Wait, a guy named Shelby did exactly that didn't he....

 

When Buick came out with the 455, it was a first...first thin wall engine block technology. A major leap forward as it lowered the weight of the engine to around 200 pounds lighter than the Chevy 454, and only 25 pounds more than the small block Chevy 350 engine! Gobs of torque, over 500 ft pounds and over 400 horsepower straight from the showroom floor. As an old street rod enthusiast, you just can't beat torque for a fun, stop light to stop in a light street rod. The 455 had an almost perfect combination of bore to stroke and being so light, The stock cylinder heads were awesome, too. Its demise was the Fed's requirement for low octane fuel, the engine didn't stay in production very long. I bought a complete engine from a junk yard and stuffed it in my 1969 Chevelle. It was an easy fit as the block was no larger than the Chevy 396 which Chevelle ran in the SS models. 

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The basic kit engine, all painted out in basic factory colors. Next, will detail it out a bit. As is true with most model kit engines in this scale, no provisions are made for power steering pump or alternator brackets, so will need to scratch build those details in later steps.

This was the last year Buick produced the nailhead V-8 engine, this one being a 425 cubic inch displacement, high performance version known as the 465 Wildcat, the 465 making reference to the 465 foot pounds of torque the engine produced. It was guaranteed to smoke the tires and jump from stop light to stop light with vigor. Fuel economy literally sucked the high-octane gas right out of your gas tank at an appalling average rate of 10 miles per gallon. Those dual 4 barrel carburetors made for a thirsty engine. 

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Wow, they're about perfect tires. Very nice, especially for their kits.

Ken

Started: MS Bounty Longboat,

On Hold:  Heinkel USS Choctaw paper

Down the road: Shipyard HMC Alert 1/96 paper, Mamoli Constitution Cross, MS USN Picket Boat #1

Scratchbuild: Echo Cross Section

 

Member Nautical Research Guild

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Yep 560-15's, the original corvettte tire, it's surprising that they got the tread pattern right....

 

FIRESTONE Deluxe Champion Bias Ply 560-15

 

Different versions had different tread patterns... That is the all weather pattern.... They came in both whitewall and blackwall.... Whitewalls could be ordered from 1" thick to 5" thick ring

....

Edited by Egilman

Current Build: F-86F-30 Sabre by Egilman - Kinetic - 1/32nd scale

In the Garage: East Bound & Down, Building a Smokey & the Bandit Kenworth Rig in 1/25th scale

Completed: M8A1 HST  1930 Packard Boattail Speedster  M1A1 75mm Pack Howitzer  F-4J Phantom II Bell H-13's P-51B/C

Temporary Suspension: USS Gwin DD-433  F-104C Starfighter "Blue Jay Four" 1/32nd Scale

Terminated Build: F-104C Starfighter

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Quote:

"Relish Today, Ketchup Tomorrow"

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I'm going to do a short pause on completing this kit while I wait for photo etch "Buick" and "Riviera GS" scripts to arrive. The set from Model Car Garage should arrive in a week or so.

 

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Meanwhile, I'm still contemplating the body/interior colors I may use, but initially decided on red body, black interior, following factory stock color combinations. I'm undecided on whether to do a white vinyl top. 

 

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Got to admit, that black body finish speaks to me as well. The black body with black vinyl looks Boss!

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Some great   progress   -  loving the  details,   I love  watching some of the car   programs  on Freeview   like   Counting Cars,  Wheeler  Dealers,   and Wayne  Carini   shows.

 

OC.

Current builds  


28mm  Battle of Waterloo   attack on La Haye Saint   Diorama.

1/700  HMS Hood   Flyhawk   with  PE, Resin  and Wood Decking.

 

 

 

Completed works.

 

Dragon 1/700 HMS Edinburgh type 42 batch 3 Destroyer plastic.

HMS Warspite Academy 1/350 plastic kit and wem parts.

HMS Trafalgar Airfix 1/350 submarine  plastic.

Black Pearl  1/72  Revell   with  pirate crew.

Revell  1/48  Mosquito  B IV

Eduard  1/48  Spitfire IX

ICM    1/48   Seafire Mk.III   Special Conversion

1/48  Kinetic  Sea Harrier  FRS1

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Looking at the photos of the Riviera engine bay I posted reminded me of one more thing I can do now while waiting for my photo etch; building and adding mounting brackets for the power steering pump and alternator.

 

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I'll start with the power steering pump bracket, where styrene strip stock was used to fashion a mounting bracket that supports the pump. Because of the pump position relative to the engine block, I needed to add offsets to the engine block to correctly position the bracket.

 

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With the PS pump bracket done, moved on to the alternator bracket.

 

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With both brackets built and cemented in place, it's time now to cut away those out-of-scale, gnarly looking belts and replace them with something that is a better scale representation. In later steps, will round and smooth out the pulleys then add some scratch-made belts. In the meantime, will give the brackets some time to dry before painting them and installing the pump, alternator and pulleys.

 

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After reshaping the pulleys, painting the brackets and mounting the pump and alternator, I cut 1mm strips of masking tape to serve as the belts.

 

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For little to no cost, the painted belts are much more convincing that the plastic blobs that previously simulated the belts. And better yet, the pump and alternator are not hanging out there in mid air, with no support attachments.

 

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It would look much better if I replaced the fan with a photo etched one. I'll search my spares as I think I may have one somewhere.

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Time to move on to body work. I want the finished and painted body to have plenty of time to cure before all the handling that will take place later when assembling the model.

 

There's a small sink mark on the driver's side top front fender that needs to be filled (marked with a pencil). Also, will remove the molded on windshield wipers and later replace with a proper 3D aftermarket set.

 

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Next there are the molded scripts to be removed and later replaced with the photo etched ones from the set I ordered. Again, the scripts are marked in pencil.

 

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24 minutes ago, CDW said:

Drank high octane gasoline like it was going out of style

At about 19 cents a gallon as I recall. (10 cents if you were filling up at an Army motor pool.)

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1 hour ago, Jack12477 said:

At about 19 cents a gallon as I recall. (10 cents if you were filling up at an Army motor pool.)

A true story...in the early 70's had just bought my first Harley Davidson motorcycle. My brother and I took out bikes out for a ride that night and my bike stopped running as we were travelling down a dark, country highway. I kicked and kicked, then kicked some more trying to restart it but no luck. Nothing. My brother asked, did you run out of gas? I said that was impossible as I had just put 50 cents worth of gas in it the day before (50 cents would buy 2 gallons of gasoline at the time.) I had no idea that Harley's got such poor fuel economy. I could have kicked all night and it would not have started, my gas tank was bone dry. But can you imagine that nowadays? Impossible...I just put 50 cents worth of gas in it? 😅

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Once the stock, molded-on windshield wipers have been cut and sanded away, some of the windshield trim is lost. It can be replaced with styrene strip stock and some careful trimming/sanding. 

 

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The hood does not fit as well as I would like and will try to achieve a better fit by manipulating the portion of the body in the windshield wiper area and/or the hood itself. There are some curves molded into each of those parts, but the curves don't exactly match, causing the fit to be less than desirable. A corner of the rear portion of the hood does not lay flush with the body. 

 

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To replace the molded-on wipers, I have a set of photo etch wipers from Aber, a company out of Poland. From the same company, I have a set of generic hood hinges of various types. Perhaps I may use one of the sets of hinges on my model. One of the shortcomings of the kit is that it comes with no hood hinges out of the box. The hood just lies in place until it's removed to display the engine. Another option I'm considering is installing micro-size magnets to hold the hood in a closed position. This may also help the hood to body fit.

 

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Great start on a great subject Craig!  Love the Riviera!

 

How did you end up attaching the PE name badges?  I have a couple of car kits with the MCG aftermarket, and couldn't quite figure out how to glue the badges on without glue smearing.  Did you end up using CA or white glue?

Mike

 

Current Wooden builds:  Amati/Victory Pegasus  MS Charles W. Morgan  Euromodel La Renommèe  

 

Plastic builds:    SB2U-1 Vindicator 1/48  Five Star Yaeyama 1/700  Pit Road Asashio and Akashi 1/700 diorama  Walrus 1/48 and Albatross 1/700  Special Hobby Buffalo 1/32  Eduard Sikorsky JRS-1 1/72  IJN Notoro 1/700  Akitsu Maru 1/700

 

Completed builds :  Caldercraft Brig Badger   Amati Hannah - Ship in Bottle  Pit Road Hatsuzakura 1/700   Hasegawa Shimakaze 1:350

F4B-4 and P-6E 1/72  Accurate Miniatures F3F-1/F3F-2 1/48  Tamiya F4F-4 Wildcat built as FM-1 1/48  Special Hobby Buffalo 1/48

Citroen 2CV 1/24 - Airfix and Tamiya  Entex Morgan 3-wheeler 1/16

 

Terminated build:  HMS Lyme (based on Corel Unicorn)  

 

On the shelf:  Euromodel Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde; Caldercraft Victory; too many plastic ship, plane and car kits

 

Future potential scratch builds:  HMS Lyme (from NMM plans); Le Gros Ventre (from Ancre monographs), Dutch ship from Ab Hoving book, HMS Sussex from McCardle book, Philadelphia gunboat (Smithsonian plans)

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32 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Great start on a great subject Craig!  Love the Riviera!

 

How did you end up attaching the PE name badges?  I have a couple of car kits with the MCG aftermarket, and couldn't quite figure out how to glue the badges on without glue smearing.  Did you end up using CA or white glue?

Mike

 

I won't attach the scripts and badges until the very end of the project and then I will likely use an acrylic clear floor polish as glue, such as "Future" or whatever it's called today. An alternative could be a gloss clear acrylic paint as well. Again, I won't do any of that until after the model has been fully painted and assembled.

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That makes sense - a better approach than CA for sure!

Mike

 

Current Wooden builds:  Amati/Victory Pegasus  MS Charles W. Morgan  Euromodel La Renommèe  

 

Plastic builds:    SB2U-1 Vindicator 1/48  Five Star Yaeyama 1/700  Pit Road Asashio and Akashi 1/700 diorama  Walrus 1/48 and Albatross 1/700  Special Hobby Buffalo 1/32  Eduard Sikorsky JRS-1 1/72  IJN Notoro 1/700  Akitsu Maru 1/700

 

Completed builds :  Caldercraft Brig Badger   Amati Hannah - Ship in Bottle  Pit Road Hatsuzakura 1/700   Hasegawa Shimakaze 1:350

F4B-4 and P-6E 1/72  Accurate Miniatures F3F-1/F3F-2 1/48  Tamiya F4F-4 Wildcat built as FM-1 1/48  Special Hobby Buffalo 1/48

Citroen 2CV 1/24 - Airfix and Tamiya  Entex Morgan 3-wheeler 1/16

 

Terminated build:  HMS Lyme (based on Corel Unicorn)  

 

On the shelf:  Euromodel Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde; Caldercraft Victory; too many plastic ship, plane and car kits

 

Future potential scratch builds:  HMS Lyme (from NMM plans); Le Gros Ventre (from Ancre monographs), Dutch ship from Ab Hoving book, HMS Sussex from McCardle book, Philadelphia gunboat (Smithsonian plans)

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