69 Chevelle Convertible--Body Work, Part II

Still working on an AMT 1:25 69 Chevelle convertible.  From last time: this is something I built when I was a kid (well that's how I remember it anyway).  The amount of work to fix the obvious "mistakes' in the tooling is more involved than I thought!

You can see the box-stock body on the left.  My work, so far, is on the right.  Ah! The rocker panels! AMT ker-blew it on this one. To get a "meaner" 69 look,  I cut the rocker panels off the body and re-glued them at a more abrupt angle, so they are about 10 degrees from perpendicular; the stock AMT tooling is a rounded 30 degrees and looks, to my eyes, too "feminine". Using square styrene strip and dabbing on a lot of glue has gone into trying to fix this (so far!).

The fender flares are done, well almost, they stick out much further than the box-stock flares, a subtle change that (I think) adds a bit more realism.  

The putty went on the doors this morning and putty presents pain!  Painful but necessary: the bottom of the doors should fade gracefully into an abrupt "jump" to the rocker panels; it's one of the things about the 1:1 '69 I really like.  

Putty presents problems as well as pain: sanding this smooth without damaging the fender flares, how will I do that? 

Never stop thinking about trim! HaHa! I haven't test fitted the rear taillight/bumper assembly.  To my eyes the stock bumper assembly looks so totally hella butt wrong compared to the 1:1 car that I have no idea what I will do; I may have to cut the rear bumper apart and scratch build the taillight housings.  

  

OK to make things interesting I am trying a different putty for this project.  I have never seen "Tamiya white putty" before, only "Basic" and "light sensitive".  So here's what I used on the doors. Compared to "Basic" the putty is a bit more viscous and is indeed white.  I like trying new things....

I test fit the front grille/bumper, and to my amazement, it fits pretty well, for an old AMT kit.  But again, it's just plain wrong.  The headlights are too small,  to my eyes, the grille isn't tall or wide enough, and the assembly lacks the characteristic "grille ears" of the 69 Chevelle; again one of my favorite things about the 1:1 '69 Chevelle that AMT just plain left off.  I am thinking I may have to de-chrome the bumper/grille, cut it up, and scratch build what's missing or needs resizing.  This is an extremely visible part of the build. Can't wait!