Model car Quick Build Round 2 May 2nd finish

In reply to Claff :

I think your Chevelle is a superb rendition of a local circle track car. Many of them have crude hand painted liveries. Just need a little clay stuck to it. I think the Tamiya Honda will be the easiest to build quickly, but I have never seen the Lindberg '53 Ford. My memories of old Lindberg stuff are not very complementary. A lot could have changed in the 40 years since I last opened one! Check all of your supplies carefully, you may be surprised. I still have a functional bottle of Testors paint that says 8 cents on top. Their newer stuff all fails in 2 years for at least $1.19. Tamiya paints seem to last for decades, so I have been using more of them. And Tamiya's rattle can sprays are terrific if they have the color you need. High price = high quality.

In reply to Claff :

If your supplies are anything like mine when I opened my old box of supplies, they'll be pretty much useless and you'll maybe have a few colors you can still kinda work with, haha!

I have to be honest, the CRX is calling to me for some strange reason.

In reply to Aaron_King :

Heck yeah race car!

The most memorable visual cue of the SVO engine to me is the embossed valve cover. Thankfully, this kit comes with a decal to do the silver parts. I cut it into two pieces to make it easier to get it around the oil cap.

On the downside...the biplane wing isn't really shaped right. First of all, it's split between a separate piece that glues on, and also part of it is molded into the shape of the hatch. Which would be fine, I guess, except the molded-in part has a weird ridge that isn't quite right. As far as I can tell, the real thing never looked like this:

Much sanding and scraping and panel-scribing later, a more representative shape appears.

It's still going to be a pain to mask and paint the molded-in part, after painting the body, and before painting the window trim, and then glue the rest of it on. Or maybe I should glue it on and then mask and paint...that'll make it hard to do the window trim...sigh.

In reply to Claff :

Check the glue, mine is really old and still works. Some of the paints are a bit more dicey.

In reply to slowbird :

That's because the SVO kit is based on the Mustang GT Turbo kit, of which that is the correct shape of spoiler. The fox Mustang kits have a fascinating history of mold changes. I have a McLaren Mustang with Capri flares. Good work on the engine, looks perfect!

Decided to carve out a few hours and give this another go. Made some decent progress and put together a game plan for the rest of the build. With the limited time I'm going to go for the same used race car look as the Focus to make for a fun display setup. It will also allow for me to complete it with the few paint colors I have here.

I did put in a pretty large order of paints and supplies online today, so when I tackle the GTLM cars I'll be ready to go.

I haven't built a model in... 30 years? I'll try to pick up a kit tomorrow (Hobby Town is only doing curbside pickup). Paint, glue, etc is going to be tricky, though.

The MPC 73 Mustang arrived yesterday, a day ahead of schedule. The Ford modeling community advised it was better than the AMT kit. Well, the MPC one is pretty sad. True vintage 1973 molds which mean lots of flash, piss-poor detail and one of those glorious solid metal axles. At least there isn't one for the front that goes through the oil pan ala AMT.

In my fictional world SCCA revised the Trans-Am rules to allow engines up to 360 cubic inches which will explain the 351C in this kit. Camaros would run a 350 and Mopar a 360. The kit can be built as a 'Grand Am' race car which I'm not sure exactly what that was back then. Seems to be some sort of lightweight NA$CAR thing. Trans-Am was still door slammer so the roll cage needs to be modified and the stock dash gets used. The race version completely eliminates the (terrible) one piece interior tub which I won't cry over. Super lazy flaw of the kit:  two drivetrain choices with manual transmissions but automatic pedals molded into the tub.

Oh, and not just the oil pan and valve covers are chrome. You even get a chrome FAN for the radiator! Oh...the radiator...most unrealistic looking thing I've ever seen in a kit. Yep, you buy this kit for the body and that's it.

Yelo said:

I'm building a 2020 corona virus universal race car....

I'm surprise no body even try to guess what I'm building....

anyway, it as a beautiful race seat..

In reply to ddavidv :

The Grand Am series ran briefly in the late 60s-early 70s with Trans Am style cars.  They were allowed bigger engines for reliability but never really took off. Sometimes they would get mixed in with the Grand National cars when both series ended up with small fields.

Bobby Allison Mustang:

Yelo said:

Yelo said:

I'm building a 2020 corona virus universal race car....

I'm surprise no body even try to guess what I'm building....

anyway, it as a beautiful race seat..

A racing pirate ship?

Just started prepping the body for primer. 

In reply to ddavidv :

"Grand Am" was Grand American through the 70's, and was NASCAR's second highest tier, just below Grand National (now the Cup series). Grand Am ran pony cars on ovals, road courses, and super speedways. Think of it as modern Busch series racing but with cars that would run Trans Am. Most T/A trans ran in at least a few Grand Am races.

As for that kit, it is a 1973 mold, and it was one of those vintage kits that went for hundreds of dollars used, so bringing it back actually allowed people to use it. Mostly it's great for period racing parts, especially for Grand Am and T/A builds. I'm excited to see what you can do with it.

Yelo said:

Yelo said:

I'm building a 2020 corona virus universal race car....

I'm surprise no body even try to guess what I'm building....

anyway, it as a beautiful race seat..

Ooh, ooh, it's Grave Digger!

Ok, I'll pay along. I realize it's not a car, but I've been thinking about building one of these, if I were to get back into plastic modeling again. 

In reply to BenB (Forum Supporter) :

Hum! Picture was taken on my girlfriend work bench, pirateship is her's, as the Grave Digger witch was only  her second model in life...

RealMiniNoMore (Forum Supporter) said:

Ok, I'll pay along. I realize it's not a car, but I've been thinking about building one of these, if I were to get back into plastic modeling again. 

That was my other choice, it's sitting next to the one I chose!

We have a polished alloy Lotus Seven/Caterham chassis now, as well as some extra big parts box brakes to go with the parts box wheels and RE71s. The Pirellis went back to the parts box.

The Pirellis went back to the parts box when I found the RE71s on another set of wheels.

I have reached the point of adding decals to my build.  And have found out that sometimes decals that have been sitting in a box for up to 20 years do not always work as they should.  (Duh)

I had toyed with the thought of a number panel on the door of the car and after a bit of math figured out that for a 1:32 scale model the number panel would be a white rectangle 1/2 inch wide x 5/8 inch tall.  That seemed really small until I cut a 1/2 x 5/8 rectangle  and glued it on a car door to have a look.  That is the right size.  I am supposed to print numbers on that?    *sigh*  Back to play.

Ah ha moment.  Quick measuring, raiding supplies for 1/2 inch wide tape and I have this on a spare car.  First the taping off of the area.  I used 1/2 inch wide tape to make a reverse mask.  Stuck it on the car where I wanted it and taped around it.  Then pulled off the mask.

Shoot paint and remove tape and paper.  Ok, so that works.  Sort of.  lol  Just add numbers.

In reply to noddaz :

I have a product called "Micro Superfilm" that is a coating you brush on to an aged decal and let it dry before you soak it. Made by Krasel Industries. You can use it to make decals from existing print media as well.

TurnerX19 said:

In reply to noddaz :

I have a product called "Micro Superfilm" that is a coating you brush on to an aged decal and let it dry before you soak it. Made by Krasel Industries. You can use it to make decals from existing print media as well.

Thank you for that!

Yelo said:

Yelo said:

I'm building a 2020 corona virus universal race car....

I'm surprise no body even try to guess what I'm building....

anyway, it as a beautiful race seat..

I need that seat. Where do I get one?

Progress made. I unboxed the Model Stuff box that could have been filled with thousands of dead spiders for all I knew, but lucked out in that it was mostly actual model stuff. Gobs of sandpaper, some glue, lots of paint.

Out of optimism, I started going through the paint to see if any of it was salvageable. A surprising amount is. I think I had a stretch where every time I was in a hobby shop, I'd buy a couple bottles of paint without knowing whether I needed it or not. So out of all those little Testors bottles was six flat blacks, five yellows, etc etc. Obviously some were never opened and they all seem very usable. I was even nice enough to write down the dates I bought the paint on some of them:

This bottle of 24 year old paint looks, acts, and smells like it's new once I shook it up a bit. So that's a nice plus. I threw a bunch away but kept enough to get me through a simple kit. They could all use more shaking up; I might zip-tie a bunch to the lawn mower or tape them to the side of the air compressor for an afternoon.

There were three tubes of Testors glue. Two were completely unusable but one might be salvageable. There were also the two bottles of liquid glue pictured below. I don't think I ever used either very much so I don't know how they work compared to the tubes I'm more used to. Anyone have opinions on either?

Out of all the spray cans of model paint, most of them were never cracked open. I was actually pretty good at brushing on model paint and rarely even tried spraying. But I kept buying these in case I ever changed my mind; this may pay off in the coming week or so.

Finally, I decided to build the '68 El Camino for this venture. Both it and the '53 Ford I was also considering seem to be fairly simple kits, but I'm more familiar with the muscle car era than the early '50s. I think I can find more photos of real El Caminos for reference than I can '53 Fords.

With a couple weeks to get this done, working an hour or so after the wife goes to bed, this should go well.

Semi trucks:  though tricky to spray paint I've found doing the frame as an assembly prior to painting is way easier than scraping paint off and then gluing them together.

Paint:  I've got some pretty old paint myself. I go through it annually and toss out what is no longer good. Testors flat black has a tendency to go semi-gloss over time. I used to use Humbrol (man, I miss that stuff in those little tins). When I couldn't get that I used Floquil but they went t*ts up in the last two years. I'm hoping Tamiya flat will work after my last Floquil bottle dries up.

Testors glue gets really 'stringy' when it gets old and is too frustrating to bother with IMO. I'll promote my favorite new brand Faller again.

Testors is, frankly, a ripoff. You don't get much quantity, the paint isn't all that great and the spray nozzles on the cans are random in quality. If I'm not buying Tamiya I'm picking up Krylon or Rust-Oleum at the hardware store.

Every time I see a semi truck build I chuckle a little to myself. Back when I was a teenager I'd get a kit and slam the thing together in three days. Dad wanted to show me how to take your time and properly build a model, and got a GMC semi tractor to use as an example. Over the course of  a month or so he got most of the chassis and engine painted and built, but never touched the body or interior. For years and years I'd find the box on his dresser and check to see that yup, still no progress was being made. I bet it's still hiding in a closet somewhere, still half built. I need to find that and ask him if by "slow build" he really meant 35 years.