That's a very nice choice, D.! Charming, I shall say!

Looking forward to your build on the 'Vette.

P.S.: I am not aware which manufacturer does "pennant blue". To be my case, I would probably mix my own from metallic blue and silver.

Gabriel

Oooh Aaah, that's a great color, look forward to seeing how you pull this off.

Hi Damian - wow! Great save on that trunk lid-edge - really quite a clean recovery! Looking good with paint too! Looking forward to seeing this down the road.

Cheers
Nick

A little inspiration from yesterday's Keeneland Concours d'Elegance held at the Lexington, Kentucky Racecourse
(Corvette: The first was the best!)






"Dust cover" on the intake

Mike, that is a stunning example of the classic, although it seems to have picked up a couple of extra cylinders along the journey! Many thanks for sharing the images!

Cheers, D

No extra cylinders but he does have the later 1955, higher output 265 cu. in. engine installed in the earlier chassis.

CORRECTION: Shown above is the 1955 Corvette with the stock V8 engine.

Ok, I was thinking of the inline 6-cylinder "Blue Flame" engine from the 53 and 54 models. This body with a nice little 8-pot is just a beautiful thing!

Cheers, D

Mike,
Now that's one impressive classic Vette. I've never saw a air cleaner cover till now. Talk about going 1st class.

Joel

Thanks Joel. The owner came running up to take it off for the photo. I said not necessary I thought it was cool.

Michael,
The more I thought about it, the concept that the air cleaner cover was handmade and not something you could just go out and buy. Like I said, I've never seen one before. The same goes for the rubber mat in the truck. That looks like a custom made one from Weathertech.


Joel

The '53 got a couple of shots of clear gloss tonight, and while that was curing I tinkered a bit with some of the small parts to get ready for the final assembly.



The interior got a light dusting of Dullcote to drop the gloss level down, and a thin filter of black enamel will hopefully pull the carpet down even further. I had to fit a couple of thin shims to the top of the gauges on the IP to get a neat fit under the dashboard, they will need a bit of cleaning up once they are fully dried. The tail lights and turn signals got clear red and clear orange respectively, as well as a drop of silver on the back to give them some shine. The whitewall inserts are styrene, and I painted them Tamiya acrylic Flat White with a drop of Buff to pull the brightness down. I still need to paint the outer ring of the chrome hubcaps red.

Cheers, D

Awesome job so far!! Your interior looks to be more details than mine but mine comes in more pieces. That's weird.

Can't wait to see some of those details!

Thanks Charlie. The interior tub, firewall and front inner guards was all one piece. I have glued on the inner door cards and the gear shifter, and hand painted the pedals and foot mat.

Cheers, D

Joel, I rechecked my records - that is a 1955 Corvette with the stock V-8 engine. Still it makes my heart pound! That's what car shows are all about right?


Below is one more nice offering, this time from the 2018 Keeneland Concours in Lexington, KY.

Michael,
I checked too, and it's certainly a 1955 Vette with the stock block V8.

Joel

Looks great Damian.

Zero paint ZP-1107 Cobra viking blue might work.

Thanks Jesper, I just checked out that colour and it looks to be a close match. I might order a bottle and do some test panels alongside a couple of other options that I want to try out.

I’ve had a couple of crazy weeks with work, no bench time at all 😒

Cheers, D

D,
You're going to love the Zero paints, which are the equal to Gravity paints. For me both share the top slot on my paint company go to chart. Pre-thinned so you just load your AB and do your thing.

A working flow rate of 14-16 psi, and just build up light coats with about 5 min in between coats, and you'll end up with a very smooth surface.

But you need to paint in a spray booth and wear a good respirator as these paints are true auto lacquers.

Joel

D,
Somehow I missed your update on the interior, my apologies.

I'm certainly impressed to how it looks. You nailed the correct ratio for the leather seats as they look great. How are you going to handle the carpet and the rest of the interior so it has a duller/Matt finish to it?

Joel

I dragged out the '54 tonight and checked out the plastic and made a small start.

The back end has exactly the same issue as the other kit, so it does look like a sloppy engineering job on the moulds.



I made a start on the front end, and it looks like they threw in the sway bar from a completely different car! I got one end lined up with the mounting bracket sitting in place on the chassis, and there is now way that the other end can locate properly. Once the fixed end is cured, I will cut it in the middle, fix the other end in place, and rejoin the two parts. Fun fun fun!




Cheers, D

D,
Egads, that front sway bar is so far out of wack, it's not even funny Whenever I see issues this bad I wonder if anyone ever saw this in QC, and if they did, did AMT really care one way or the other about fixing it? Seems to me that back in those days fixing those type of issues must have been a lot harder then today with computer programs doing nearly all the work of re-adjustment and correction. Still, as you said, it looks like they just copied it from an existing Vette kit and assumed that it would be close enough.

As for the trunk issue, soft molding was pretty common, but the over hang of the trunk lid is another issue that should have been caught and corrected. I'm guessing to get it right that the mold would have to have been filled there and recut as the trunk lid shape would have been cockeyed to the other side.

In both cases I'm wondering if the Bean counters (management suits) were counting budget dollars needed for the corrections, and just said leave those issues as is.

In any case I'm looking forward to your corrections.

Joel

poor mold quality strikes again!

As you say, though, glue one end, cut, re-attach!

I have the same impression on the AMT kits. It looks like they make a lot of in-house kit bashing just to saturate the market with "new" models. I try to stay away of "level 2" AMTs, because the "ease to assembly" is a disguise for "lack of detail"

Gabriel

Gabriel,
Well said, very well said.

Joel

After sanding out some unwanted guests and touching up the white pearl, the '53 got a good drop of gloss last night, ready for the assembly to begin now!




Cheers, D