Post by Tory on May 19, 2013 15:23:23 GMT -6
A few years back my good buddy Dave Young sent me a '62 Comet kit that someone had started to convert to a Ranchero type pickup. Most of the heavy lifting was done and the body work needed only to be refined and have a bed added.
While I loved the concept, I usually need a reason to build something. So the poor Comet sat on the kit pile with no hope of ever getting finished in the foreseeable future.
Then my model car club announced a El Camino contest that included Rancheros and customs. So I finally had my inspiration to complete the conversion. I began by creating a vacuum form pattern for the bed. I cut the top of the rear wheel wells from the one piece chassis to use with the vacuum formed bed. This was grafted to the body and blended in. The rear was a custom piece that was included in the original AMT 3 in 1 kit. However a taillight was missing, so I scratched two new ones. The interior had been shortened but was lacking a rear deck. I used a spare bed vacuum form to get the tuck and roll texture and mounted it to the top of the interior tub. The wheels and tires came from a Monogram '57 Chevy kit and just fit in the wheel wells. They still turn freely and the model rolls smoothly. The paintwork is Ford Orange Crush Pearl (still using some leftover paint from my son's Grand Prix) with Ford Dark Gray Metallic for the roof. The cove is House of Colors Snow White Pearl.
The surfboards were digitally modeled and output on a 3-D printer. After some extensive clean up they were painted to match the body. The flames are decals from the Rod Almighty kit my buddy Charles Heyer and I produced a few years back. They match the Orange Crush Pearl paint perfectly.
The entire model was clear coated with two part urethane clear, and when dry the chrome trim was masked and painted with Alclad Chrome. The interior was painted flat white with Orange Crush Pearl trim. The carpet is flat black acrylic. Only the dashboard and tops of the door panels were clear coated as they were metal on the original car.
A surfboard support was fashioned from K&S 1/16 aluminum tubing and the bungee was made from black elastic sowing thread.
It took 1st place at the contest this past Friday night, against some pretty tough competition that included a gorgeous '59 Ford Rancher custom and a '67 El Camino gasser.
Hope you like it!
Tory
While I loved the concept, I usually need a reason to build something. So the poor Comet sat on the kit pile with no hope of ever getting finished in the foreseeable future.
Then my model car club announced a El Camino contest that included Rancheros and customs. So I finally had my inspiration to complete the conversion. I began by creating a vacuum form pattern for the bed. I cut the top of the rear wheel wells from the one piece chassis to use with the vacuum formed bed. This was grafted to the body and blended in. The rear was a custom piece that was included in the original AMT 3 in 1 kit. However a taillight was missing, so I scratched two new ones. The interior had been shortened but was lacking a rear deck. I used a spare bed vacuum form to get the tuck and roll texture and mounted it to the top of the interior tub. The wheels and tires came from a Monogram '57 Chevy kit and just fit in the wheel wells. They still turn freely and the model rolls smoothly. The paintwork is Ford Orange Crush Pearl (still using some leftover paint from my son's Grand Prix) with Ford Dark Gray Metallic for the roof. The cove is House of Colors Snow White Pearl.
The surfboards were digitally modeled and output on a 3-D printer. After some extensive clean up they were painted to match the body. The flames are decals from the Rod Almighty kit my buddy Charles Heyer and I produced a few years back. They match the Orange Crush Pearl paint perfectly.
The entire model was clear coated with two part urethane clear, and when dry the chrome trim was masked and painted with Alclad Chrome. The interior was painted flat white with Orange Crush Pearl trim. The carpet is flat black acrylic. Only the dashboard and tops of the door panels were clear coated as they were metal on the original car.
A surfboard support was fashioned from K&S 1/16 aluminum tubing and the bungee was made from black elastic sowing thread.
It took 1st place at the contest this past Friday night, against some pretty tough competition that included a gorgeous '59 Ford Rancher custom and a '67 El Camino gasser.
Hope you like it!
Tory
