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RedRoo
Kerry COX (RedRoo)
AU

Tommy Ivo's "Showboat" by Revell in

Comments

1 8 April 2015, 07:06
Holger Kranich
Oh a ride back to the modeling youth? I´m in Buddy!
8 April 2015, 07:14
Kerry COX
Lots of ignition wiring and fuel lines, oil lines, throttle linkages yet to come. 🙂
8 April 2015, 08:50
Holger Kranich
Is it a rebox?
8 April 2015, 08:58
Kerry COX
Holger, G'day mate, It is a 'rebox', but all the contents are exactly as it was in 1963 when first issued, and the dies have not been updated at all, and this is a "limited Run". 🙂
8 April 2015, 11:15
Holger Kranich
So this build becomes a travel in time! Have fun with your short run kit!😄
8 April 2015, 11:23
Holger Kranich
Look at that gear!!! Thats extremely insane! All made of paper Boeing 777!
8 April 2015, 11:40
Curtis Caden
Well I'm glad you are going to fix that Chineses rush job on that figure. Had me worried, ya know! I love to see someone so excited about a new model and you have barely got it out of the box. Of course I would have had all the parts washed in Dawn before getting them posted! LOL I think this will be a great model and look forward to checking out your future posts! Mazel Tov!
8 April 2015, 11:58
Kerry COX
Oh NO............Did the big little boy come through THAT strongly mate ????

It is strange how we all go back to "Where it all began" for all of us.

I never completed the first one, as the army got in the way back then, and all my cousins destroyed what there was left.

I am looking forward to this with great excitement. 🙂
8 April 2015, 12:10
Curtis Caden
Kerry, you are quite the funny guy. You make me smile! My first dragsters were the ones I could get for 50 cents with my tooth ferry money at the corner drug store! I keep thinking I will build dragsters again, but w
8 April 2015, 16:30
Curtis Caden
I found a model like yours -
Monster Machines- Tommy Ivo Showboat & Challenger I
(1/25) (fs) This Revell Combo Kit includes two complete models as described below. Released in 1987 by Revell, Inc, Des Planes, IL. This kit is factory sealed.
Features
Model Details and Features of Tommy Ivo Showboat:
Drag Racing Exhibition Car
FOUR Fuel Injected Buick Engines
Individual Gearboxes
Simulated Rubber Drag Slicks
Simulated aluminum-finish plated parts
Custom Designed tubular Drag Chassis
Model Details and Features of Challenger I:
Land Speed Record Car with speeds in excess of 400 m.p.h.
FOUR supercharged Pontiac Engines
Removable body panels show chassis engine and interior
FOUR LaSalle gearboxes, eight exhausts
Special, low-profile treadless Goodyear tires
Tubular Chassis
$64.90 at modelroundup.com/product-p/rmx-7501.htm
8 April 2015, 16:33
Thomas Mayer
Mate, you amaze me whenever I see a post of you anywhere! Now, here, you are doing such a nice Oldie! 🙂
8 April 2015, 17:07
Christian Meyerhoff
Hi Kerry! I follow this one with interest. You will make the most out of this oldie for sure !
8 April 2015, 17:27
Kerry COX
Wow, All my mates with beer and popcorn at the same table. 🙂
I couldn't ask for more. !!(🙂)
Curtis, I do remember the "Bag Kits" for 50c and yards of glue and no paint, the best days ever. LOL 🙂
The "Challenger" looks like Sir Donald Campbell's "Bluebird" that he set the land speed record with on Lake Eyre here in Australia back in the 50's !
Thomas, mate🙂, I am so happy to know your looking in too my friend.🙂
Christian, your encouraging optimism is well noted too mate, and I will just try and do as good a job as I can with 'what I got'. :-/
8 April 2015, 21:51
Christian Bruer
Nostalgic project🙂
One of my ship mates build all the scale 1/600 Airfix kits he has build in his youth again. He try to make the best out of it with some PE and today's paints, tools techniques etc. His slogan, give old kits a chance! I like it!
9 April 2015, 15:21
George Bacon
Looks like a great project 👍. I'm in!
10 April 2015, 12:45
Kerry COX
It is interesting from my view also, mostly because I can remember building it when I was young, but I wonder if I completed it :-/
10 April 2015, 13:04
Thomas Mayer
Mate, you really should think about wearing some gloves when airbrushing... Imagine you go shopping with all the red on your hands...
10 April 2015, 18:26
Kerry COX
Thomas, Good morning, but all is good as I use "Barrier Cream" before I paint and I wash as soon as I have painted and it all washes away mate, and I wear a mask to filter the air too. But thanks for your concerns Thomas.
No 'blood' on my hands. !! LOL🙂
10 April 2015, 19:17
Steve -
Wow Kerry Just caught up with this build. Nice, real nice .👍 Good job of re-crafting the old Revell into a semblance of order.
So ,OK, NOW what? inquiring minds want to know 😉 have you been making progress without showing us more pictures?😮 😄😄
Popcorn an' beer is in stock an' ready for your next update👍
13 April 2015, 04:12
Kerry COX
Steve, thanks for that mate. 🙂Each step so far has been a 'Try it and if it works, post it" sort of build.

I am constantly between the images of the actual car in Google images and working out a way of replicating all I see without turning it into a mess.

I really want to do all the fuel lines, oil lines, throttle linkages, wiring and anything else I feel will bring it to life so to speak.

I am having to be quite inventive in the things I want to do and it really is a tedious process, but still heaps of fun.:-0

For it's day, it was an engineering marvel.
13 April 2015, 06:27
Kerry COX
Just finished some fitting of miniature bolt heads from RB Motion in the USA. rbmotion.com/index.php?route=common/home
20 March 2018, 11:59
Bart Goesaert
Very nice work in this golden (sorry, chrome...) oldy... you're tilting this one to the next level again (by skipping a few in between...)
20 March 2018, 13:43
Kerry COX
I have always wanted to get this model 'just right', as being as old as it is, the flash and seam lines always made it a challenge. And also, the detail of the machinery was not all that flash too.
The chrome was crap, and alclad is now the better option, as it takes a lot of cleaning up of all the poor moulding to really make it something worthwhile to continue on with and the detail was not that great from the box to begin with.
20 March 2018, 20:20
Spanjaard
looking really good. i would have done one thing differently, instead of working on those 32 "ram tubes" in plastic, there is some (cheap) metal pieces, to be used at the end of cables (sorry i can not describe better), that may have been perfect. with even the "trumpet"end. and they are hollow, and thinner than the plastic.
25 April 2018, 08:53
Bart Goesaert
some things like this? [img1]
 
25 April 2018, 10:39
Spanjaard
indeed, you can find them in different sizes, maybe one will be just right
25 April 2018, 10:46
Kerry COX
I actually ordered some from RB Motion. A company in the USA that makes all the auto accessories , and the ones I got were just too big, even though the size promoted were what I wanted, but the plastic ones, they are a whole lot better than what they were like. But thanks for the tip and recommendation. 🙂 👍
25 April 2018, 11:53
John Thomas
Hey Kerry, I built this kit back in the day and even saw "TV" Tommy Ivo race. I was a big Drag Race Fan in the late 60's and early 70's. I went to many races and saw all of the great drivers and I was even part of a race team in the mid 80's for a short time.
26 April 2018, 12:56
Kerry COX
John. I envy you mate. 🙂
I am a rev head from when my brother bought home a BSA 350 single, I was 10 and I have never been far from a bike since.
I currently have a BMW R1150R bike I cant stop throwing my leg over. 🙂 👍
This build I did when I was a wee boy, and always wanted to "Do it justice", and I hope it turns out OK. 🙂 👍
26 April 2018, 13:37
Bart Goesaert
In your hands? I think it will be more then OK...
26 April 2018, 13:54
Kerry COX
Hey Bart. 👍 🙂
Thanks for your vote of confidence in me. 🙂
That means a lot. 👍
26 April 2018, 20:45
Chris Parsons
I've worked on cross ram double 4 barrel hemis, my own 440 six pack dodge, and early corvette crossfire injection systems and thought I knew some nasty systems.... but 4 Buick mechanical injection systems driving both ends of the car? .... that's just nasty!
26 April 2018, 23:18
Kerry COX
Apparently, Tommy was never allowed to "Compete" with the 'Showboat', having to content himself with "Demonstration runs". Poor bugger. It was a real asphalt destroyer. 🙂 🙂 🙂
27 April 2018, 00:16
Peter Hardy
A W E S O M E ! I dips me lid to the work put in so far Kez! Work of passion.
27 April 2018, 10:16
Kerry COX
I have managed to try three times before on this kit but with no luck. Mainly because it a really old kit from the 50's. 🙁
The dies were crap then, and there has been no 'updating or retooling' like some other kits I know, so I do my best to bring it up to some sort of a presentable quality that I could compete with. 👍
Peter, your words of encouragement mean a lot and they keep my interest up. Thanks my good friend.
Kez. 🙂 👍
27 April 2018, 12:35
Kerry COX
James. 🙂 Thank you my friend. 👍
There is a LOT of plastic on my workshop floor. 😉
It would be fantastic if the dies of this kit were blueprinted to bring it up to a better result and standard.
But I have had a lot of enjoyment getting the beast to this stage, having seen all the problems arise from the first two and having a better idea of the problems and remedies.
'Keep on truckin'. hahahaha
Cheers. 👍
27 April 2018, 20:43
Kerry COX
That is for sure James. repetition sucks some times. But I am not complaining. 👍
27 April 2018, 21:29

Album info

In 1963, I was 16 and the American dragster industry was beginning to make inroads into the scale modelling world, and the one that grabbed everyone's imagination was the 4 engined monstrosity that TV personality of the day, Tomy Ivo, had made.

I bought one and as I was not mechanically minded, it was a most complicated model to build, (and still is) and 'tube glue' was the ONLY glue around then and there was heaps of 'oversupply' when any gluing was attempted.

This is the 'reissue' of that exact same kit, using original dies, but with different coloured plastic, being white, as it was originally red.

As with the tool making of that era, the engraving was a little off, and the plates didn't align exactly and as a result, there is a LOT of 'flash' and huge 'seam lines'.

So, now that I have all these modern adhesives and alclad chrome paints, I think I can do a reasonable job on it this time around. !!

Wanna come for a ride? LOL

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