44 replies to this topic

[Draggon]

I'd like to join with this. Got it awhile back from a friend over at TRaK. Its been stripped so far and I've done some of the body work.

[CorvairJim]

Well Charlie, you said you wanted to see a first-year Corvair in this, so here's my progress on mine so far, along with a couple of shots of what I had to work with. It turns out that I'm having to "Borrow" a few bits and pieces from a used-up promo that I had lying around with a broken body to make this thing happen. Later on, when I'm equipped to do some resin casting, I'll make some replacements. From what I've heard around the hobby, there's a ready market for Corvair odds and ends. This model is a replica of a car I once owned, and later on became my older daughter's first car. She was the only person in her high school class to have a car 20 years older than she was! I made her a replica of the car about 10 years ago, so I thought it was time I had one of my own. I tried something different on this one that worked out pretty well, for the most part: I cut the sides off the interior bucket with a razor saw to make it easier to paint the 4-color door panels. Here are some pictures of how it looks so far:

[CorvairJim]

Setback City! I had let the color coats on my '60 Corvair set up for a couple of weeks and shot the clearcoat this evening... and for the first time, the clear reacted with the color coat. Maybe it's because I generally use autpmptive touch-up spray cans instead of the Testor's I used on this one, but the Dupli-Color Ermine White roof still looks great while the Testor's Model Master Turquoise is, well, completely trashed. It looks like it was shot with crackle finish paint! Back to square one - Into the Simple Green "dunk tank" with it. I just hope it doesn't screw up the body repairs I had to do on it!



(4/28, 5:20 PM - In an addendum to last night's post above, when I looked at it earlier today it didn't look as bad as it did at first. It's still bad, but I want to try to wet sand and polish out the damaged areas before I do anything drastic with it like completely stripping it and starting over on what was otherwise a pretty decent paint job.)

Edited by CorvairJim, 28 April 2011 - 11:19 AM.

[charlie8575]

Sorry I didn't attend to this sooner- other things have my attention lately. I'll update to reflect your participations.

Glenn- great add with the Ranchero- thank you.

Jim- I LOVE that Corvair! I think what you had happen was the Model Master enamel react with the Dupli-Color lacquer topcoat. I'd suggest using either the Tamiya bottled clearcoat (NOT the spray-you'll have the same trouble,) and airbrush it on, or use, dare I say it, plain old Testors Glosscote.

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

Hi, everyone!

Sorry about my lack of attention- things have been kinda loony for me and some other modeling and non-modeling projects have been occupying my time.

I pushed back the due date to January 1, 2012, and if we need to again, it can be readjusted.

Looking forward to some progress pictures.

Charlie Larkin

[CorvairJim]

Sorry I didn't attend to this sooner- other things have my attention lately. I'll update to reflect your participations.

Glenn- great add with the Ranchero- thank you.

Jim- I LOVE that Corvair! I think what you had happen was the Model Master enamel react with the Dupli-Color lacquer topcoat. I'd suggest using either the Tamiya bottled clearcoat (NOT the spray-you'll have the same trouble,) and airbrush it on, or use, dare I say it, plain old Testors Glosscote.

Charlie Larkin

Thanks for the compliment, Charlie. Coming from you, I take it as high praise indeed!

I think it was the cross-brand/cross-type paint interaction too. I know better than to put a lacquer topcoat over an enamel base. A rookie mistake if I ever made one. Since I've never gotten around to investing in an airbrush and money is too tight at the moment to even consider it now, I'll have to go with the Glosscote. I've worked with it before. It's not my favorite stuff, but I generally don't get too much orange peel if I heat it before I spray the final wet coats until it's almost hot enough to burst the spray can!

With the new, later deadline, I may just have to (re)build a couple more early Corvairs for this thing. Since the kits were all curbsides, there isn't all that much detail that I have to attend to other than the body and interior... unless I go slightly crazy and decide to cut the engine lid open and slip an engine into one of 'em, that is! I have a '64 Monza Spyder that some kid "Convertible-ized" back in the day that I've been planning to build as a replica of a friend's 1:1 car for a couple of years. Now may be the time. I might even post a couple of pictures of the actual car for comparison purposes

Edited by CorvairJim, 28 April 2011 - 08:02 PM.

[Danno]

I'll throw myself under the bus ...


Show me "in" with a '62 Studebaker Lark.

[charlie8575]

I'll throw myself under the bus ...


Show me "in" with a '62 Studebaker Lark.

That's great, Dan. I have a '62 Lark too, that needs a little freshening. If I can get my F-85 done, I may get on board with that, too.

Charlie Larkin

[CorvairJim]

Well, I managed to salvage the paint job on my Corvair with the help of my trusty polishing kit. I had to modify the taillight holes to accept the taillights from a repop '69 Corvair kit (the lights from the '60 were MIA, and the 69's look pretty darn close!), but in doing so I chipped the plastic and scuffed up the paint around one of them. Oh well, I'll just touch it up and call it good. I build for myself, not for contests... Anyhow, pictures are on the way in a day or two. The chrome on the model is DEFINITELY not show quality. I don't have an airbrush to do Alclad work and I don't have the moey to send the chrome out to be replated, so I just foiled the bumpers and headlights and touched up the hubcaps with silver paint. (Now if there's anyone out there willing to help out a poor, starving model builder with this aspect of my model, let me know! I'll gladly strip 'em and ship 'em! )

I've decided to do a quick semi-restoration on another early Corvair that's been on my shelf for well over a decade now patiently awaiting it's turn on my work table. It's a 1964 Monza Spyder coupe that someone "Convertible-ized" way on back in the day. A friend of mine has a white '64 Monza convertible so this model will be a semi-replica of his car - It'll still be a Spyder with all the Spyder emlems and the Spyder's exclusive multi-gauge instrument panel instead of my taking it down a level to regular Monza trim. Also, his car has an automatic transaxle while mine will retain it's 4-speed. I disassembled it last night and set it to soaking in Simple Green. The kid that built it originally painted it red (pretty well!) with a brush, and the chassis was gloss black brush paint too, all on unsanded, unprimed plastic, so by this evening it should be down to the bright yellow plastic it was molded in. With any luck, I should have this one finished within a week.

[charlie8575]

Sounds like some nice progress Jim.

I'll look forward to some pictures when you have an opportunity to get them up.

Charlie Larkin

[Nick Winter]

Charlie has let me enter a 1966 Pontiac Acadian Canso SD. I will be using the AMT '66 Nova SS kit and left overs from the Model Car Garage '69 Nova/Acadian PE set.

Nick

I will start soon as I clear my bench off a bit.

[charlie8575]

Although not strictly first-generation, Nick approached me with what I thought was such a cool project, that I thought to not let him in wouldn't be right.

Nick- we'll look forward to seeing this when you get to it.

Charlie Larkin

[CorvairJim]

Here's my SMP 1960 Corvair 700-Series 4-door sedan annual kit restoration. At this point, I'm ready to call it done... For the moment. As I mentioned above, the chrome is weak but I don't have an airbrush to re-do it with Alclad or the money to send it out to be replated so I'll just have to make do with it as-is. There are a couple of areas where my BMF work is weak (particularly around the rear air exhaust grille), but I really don't feel like futzing around with it any more at the moment! Some time in the future, after I get the necessary chrome work done, I'll be ading tire valves to it too - I just realized while looking at these photos that I forgot to add them! This rebuild was a blast to do: I usually enjoy doing restorations/restomods on old glue bombs like this one was better than building a new kit anyhow, and it being a replica of a car I used to own just made it that much better.

(One area where I particularly liked the result was the license plate. I found a seller on eBay who makes computer-generated scale license plates and sells them at a bargain price. I bought several 5-year sets of Pennsylvania (my home state) and California plates from him and was so pleased with them that I special-ordered some more from him with specific number combinations from cars I used to own and am planning to replicate in scale some time in the future. If you're intetested, I'll see if I can dig up his website info so you can contact him yourself. Tell him Corvair Jim sent you!)

So, on to the pictures:

[CorvairJim]

While I'm at it, here's the progress so far on my '64 Corvair Monza Spyder convertible rebuild. This will be a semi-replica of a friend's 1:1 car (His is a "regular" Monza, not a Spyder) The custom wheels on the right side of the first two pictures are from a 1966-69 AMTCorvair annual kit. They're almost exactly what my friend has on his car, except that the model wheels are a 5-lug pattern while the 1:1 rims are 4-lug. Close enough for government work! The interior is done at this point. The carpet is flocked, and I added 3-D door handles and a parking brake handle that's nearly invisible under the dash in this all-balck interior! I changed out the very out-of-scale shift lever for one I made from a straight pin.

Some kid way on back had converted this coupe to a convertible, and I realized that I had to correct the windshied frame detail after these shots were taken. I managed to do it without screwing up the paint. That came later when I applied the clearcoat, which gave the white color coat a neon yellow cast. It wasn't bleed through of the color of the plastic, since it varied in intensity depending on the angle of the light. It was really a shame, since it went on so smoothly that I wasn't even going to have to polish it out! Oh well, back into the Simple Green bath it went! Worst part was the I had completely foiled it before I cleared it, to use the clear to seal the chrome. All that work down the drain.

[highway]

There are a couple of areas where my BMF work is weak (particularly around the rear air exhaust grille), but I really don't feel like futzing around with it any more at the moment!
So, on to the pictures:

Jim, what do you use to burnish the BMF down with? I use a Q-tip to burnish BMF, and that also helps you get into tight areas like the areas where you have some of the wrinkles in the window frames. By using the Q-tip and using firm but not hard (you don't want to be rough, it will tear the foil) pressure, it will lay the foil down smooth and eliminate wrinkling. I've also found through the years going from one edge to the other, like from the drivers side corner of the window to the passenger side corner also helps eliminate the wrinkles, espacially on curved areas like the top of the back window. I hope that helps.

[CorvairJim]

My favorite BMF burnishing tool is generally my fingetip with a soft cloth wrapped around it. I've tried Q-Tips but I find my method gives me a better 'feel' of what's going on. I go around my foil work in three phases: The first pass is just gentle pressure to tack it down as smothly as possible. Next, I go over it with more pressure to get it to lay down in all the details. Then a final pass to make sure it isn't going anywhere.You're right about the tight areas, though - I ought to go back to the Q-Tips for them. A good part of the problem with this one is that the adhesive on my current sheet of BMF isn't working too well, and the aluminum I used for the air exhaust grille under the back bumper is, well, just garbage. It won't cut clanly, even with a freshly honed blade and it's adhesive is weak... until it lands where I don't want it to - then it holds just fine!

[charlie8575]

Jim, that '60 looks great. I've tried the kitchen-foil method too. I found the Micro-Scale foil adhesive worked pretty well, and I'd use a fresh blade, as opposed to a re-sharpened one. It does seem to make a difference.

I'll look forward to watching that '64 come along, too.

Charlie Larkin

[CorvairJim]

Jim, that '60 looks great. I've tried the kitchen-foil method too. I found the Micro-Scale foil adhesive worked pretty well, and I'd use a fresh blade, as opposed to a re-sharpened one. It does seem to make a difference.

I'll look forward to watching that '64 come along, too.

Charlie Larkin

Thanks for the compliment and the tips, Charlie. I'll try them out on my next foil job. The Micro-Scale adhesive: Is that for use with BMF or with regular kitchen foil - or either?

My Simple Green bath has barely touched the paint after over a week. Unfortunately, the first time I went to scrub the body after immersion in the Simple Green, I managed to snap the windshield frame where it meets the passenger-side post. I guess I just did too good a job prepping the model for paint! I'm going to pick up a can of Easy-Off to see if that'll do the trick. If that doesn't work I guess the next stap is brake fluid, but I don't want to go to that expense if I can avoid it - money is super-tight around here!

Edited by CorvairJim, 09 June 2011 - 07:44 AM.

[charlie8575]

Thanks for the compliment and the tips, Charlie. I'll try them out on my next foil job. The Micro-Scale adhesive: Is that for use with BMF or with regular kitchen foil - or either?

The Micro-Scale adhesive is for use with non-adhesive foil only.

Charlie ALrkin

[falcon wagon]

Early compacts I have a few built.