AAAAARRRRGGGHHH! I can't take it any more!
I hadn't planned to build a Revell '69 Nova any time soon but you guys are killin' me! So many great-looking ones posted here AND in the mag (what, three or four feature articles on them so far?) It's killing me I don't have one on my shelf--and have never gotten the old AMT '72 together, either. And most shamefully, I actually owned and drove a '69 Nova for almost 20 years! (1985-2005 or so.)
So the mood to build one of these little beasts has taken me. I'll be using the one I started fooling with a couple months ago to see if I could make the body more accurate. If you missed that thread, you can see it here:
http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/p/106696/997198.aspx#997198
So basically, there, I did three things:
1. Modified the body to use the AMT '72 Nova rear panel and bumper, for a much more accurate shape than the chopped-off look of the Revell kit.
2. Rounded the upper edges of the wheel openings for a more accurate look.
3. Softened the crease running down the body side midlines somewhat, again for a more accurate look. If I'd realized earlier that the kit decals include the front fender Nova scripts, I'd have sanded them off and rounded this crease down even more, but oh well, next time.
In addition to the earlier mods, I did two more things:
4. Shaved off the "gills" on the front fenders. I just don't like 'em, and not all '69 Novas had 'em (mine didn't).
5. Scribed in the panel lines between the front fenders and the rocker panels.
My particular body had a small sink mark on the left side of the roof, and some sort of glitch (mold misalignment or something) at the upper front edge of the right door. I fixed both of these with Sikkens body putty, and rescribed the door and trunk lines deeper.
On to primer (Walmart Color Place gray, right from the rattlecan), which shows a couple problems. One, there's a molding line on the top of the left front fender that I completely missed in the bare white plastic. I usually get them all, but this one was so subtle I missed it. So that had to be fixed. Two, usually before any painting I run black paint into all the door and trunk lines and I'd forgotten to do that this time, so now I had to do it over the primer. I'm gonna be painting the thing a dark color (Fathom Green) so it's not a huge problem but might have been if I were going with a light color. I ran Tamiya Flat Black into the door and trunk lines and wiped the excess off with rubbing alcohol, which luckily had NO effect on the Walmart primer. I managed to get some of the black into the body seam at the top of the left rocker panel behind the door, which is NOT correct--this is NOT an open seam, but a welded one, and shouldn't appear "open" (I recently saw a built Nova where the builder had flowed black into this seam--no, no, no). Again, the dark final paint will hide this but I'd have had to scrub it out or re-prime if I were going with a light color.
The plan, for now anyway, is to do an SS396, though the kit I'm working with is an SS350. I plan to swap in a big-block from a Yenko Camaro. Will use stock exhaust manifolds if I can find a spare set, if not I'll just use the Yenko kit's headers. If the Yenko engine gives me any installation problems I can always fall back to the Nova kit engine and do an SS350. My build probably won't be 100% factory correct, prolly more like a "semi-phantom," but closer to factory-fresh than "day two." We'll see where it goes from here.
Michael Duane Bliss Kurt Thomas Busch Kyle Thomas Busch Jeffrey Tyler Burton Richard Allen Craven
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