Snake45 Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Bought this one at the local toy show I think in 2017. It looked great from three feet away, and still not too bad at two. (I strongly suspect it was built by the same OB who built the '70 Monte Carlo I rescued last year.) The paint wasn't perfect, with a few dust boogers, but seemed to be solid and fixable. Its biggest problem was the roof. It had just been brush-painted flat black, and the foil trim wasn't applied very well, having that “wrinkled gum wrapper” look. It followed me home. I didn't notice at the time that it was missing both door handles and one windshield wiper. I DID notice it was missing the two left-hand taillight lenses, but thought I could make those fairly easily. It turned out the decals weren't applied all that well either (the stripe was crooked and didn't meet the lower edge of the body) so I removed them by scraping them off with a fingenail, then color-sanded out the dust boogers and polished the paint. It took me a couple of evenings to remove the foil “chrome,” picking at it with toothpicks and Xacto knife. When it was all off, I saw that the molded trim strip was in sad shape due to orange peel of the body paint, and then unevenness of the hand-brushed black, and then some adhesive residue, so I spent another couple evenings carefully scraping and sanding it all as smooth as I could get it. Then I had to sand the brush-painted black “vinyl” smooth. I masked off the body and shot the roof with one coat of Walmart Black Primer and about three coats of Krylon Satin Black, holding the can a foot or more away so the paint landed in a grainy pattern and didn't flow out. This worked pretty well and I was pleased with the results. Before I took the masking tape off the body, I laid more razor-cut strips of tape along the top edge of the trim strip, which made it MUCH easier to “chrome” the trim with my beloved Silver Sharpie. I'm pretty sure I spent more time JUST on the roof of this one—stripping, tweaking, and refinishing—as I've spent on several ENTIRE other glue bomb rescue projects. Next problem was the missing taillight lenses. You'd think all four of these would be the same, but surprise, they're all different—left and right, top and bottom. And one of the two I had on the right side was for the left, so what I had to make would be an obvious mismatch. Rather than make four news ones, I lazied out and just popped out the two I had and filled all four bezels with about four thick, flowed coats of Testor Clear Red Acryl. This looked so good that if I didn't tell you, you might not pick up on it. The eye-popping red-orange paint (I used Testor Italian Red for touchup) isn't close to any factory '68 Dodge color, and I didn't have a spare set of stock '68 Dodge wheels, so a factory stock build was out. I elected to go for a mid to late '70s High School Rod or low-buck street rat look. The nice Cragars cried out for bigger tires on the rear, so I tweaked a pair of common AMT hollow vinyl L60s to fit the Revell wheels. Which of course wouldn't fit into the stock wheels wells with jacking up the assend a little, which fit perfectly into the '70s street rat theme. I should have brought “the look” home with some extended spring shackles, but once again lazied out and just massaged the rear springs into deep arches till I got everything where I needed it to be. (I might revisit this at some point.) As usual, I did nothing else to the engine, chassis, or interior--what you see is what I started with. I finished this one up in early September, but didn't photograph or post it because I was planning to order and install door handles from Fireball before I shot it. I still need to do that. But I went ahead and shot the pics for my “2018 in Review” thread, so here it is. As with all my rescues, it's not perfect, but it fills the '68 Dart slot on my shelf until I can get around to building a good one. It is what it is—a little better than what I started with. Like many of my other Glue Bomb Rescues, it would fit right into my mythical late-'70s/early '80s car club, The Retrobates. Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOBLNG Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 That looks a ton better. The top really did come out nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAMBENNA Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 nice job, looks great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Great save and nice roof! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewetwo Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 A wonderful rescue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Geiger Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Looks great from 1,000 miles away here in NJ! The tail light trick worked well. I have some of the Fireball door handles. Delicate little pieces no doubt exactly to scale. If you are going to glue them on they’re perfect. I like to drill out and pin mine on, and they are just too small for that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake45 Posted January 20, 2019 Author Share Posted January 20, 2019 21 hours ago, NOBLNG said: That looks a ton better. The top really did come out nice. Thanks! I've only done a few vinyl tops, but I was pretty happy with how this one came out. I'll be using this paint and technique again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake45 Posted January 20, 2019 Author Share Posted January 20, 2019 16 hours ago, Tom Geiger said: Looks great from 1,000 miles away here in NJ! The tail light trick worked well. I have some of the Fireball door handles. Delicate little pieces no doubt exactly to scale. If you are going to glue them on they’re perfect. I like to drill out and pin mine on, and they are just too small for that! Thanks, Tom! I consider that high praise coming from another Glue Bomb Hero! Thanks also for the heads-up on the Fireball door handles. I need to get that order in sometime soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hmann68 Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 I love old Mopars on Cragars! Nice resto, and your vinyl roof came out great, I’ll be using that method sometime! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deuces Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 Nice job Snake... That reminds me of the body that I painted red and did the black top for it 10 or so years ago... I never did finish the model. Still need to wet sand the body yet.. I'll have to go dig it up and post a picture of it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ybsluos Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 Very nice save Snake! To use your great words...model on!-Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slusher Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 Looks great Snake.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustang1989 Posted March 7, 2022 Share Posted March 7, 2022 That turned out pretty dang good Rich. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewetwo Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Nice save Snake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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