Zoom Zoom

Same here. Wasted way too much $$$ on car payments/insurance decades ago. Haven't financed a car in over 20 years. My financed nearly-new '90 SHO was in the shop so many times it broke me of the habit, even though warranty covered everything and I got free loaner cars. Now I like to buy a good quality inexpensive used car for cash and keep it a long time. When I bought my Protege5 the previous owner handed me all the service receipts from Jim Ellis. Those records plus my records made it's recent sale easy, plus it looked more like a 5 year old car from being garage kept and being a southern car only it had zero rust. My depreciation over 149 months worked out to $18.79/mo. Spent a bit more than that on maintenance and a few repairs, but fuel was by far the most expensive thing it consumed, about $78/mo.

Recently bought my sister's 2012 Lexus RX 350. Is it exciting to look at or drive? Nope, not in the least. That's kind of the point at this point in my life! It has been regularly and overly maintained at her Lexus dealer. She was surprised back in 2023 when she started thinking of replacing the RX that I told her I wanted it. It's a quiet, comfortable and incredibly well made, and so far after 166k miles the only thing outside of regular maintenance that it's required was a new pair of tailgate struts. It needs some cosmetics but literally drives like a new car. My mechanic (Mazda, Toyota/Lexus only) told me how good these things are, and he's already looked it over when it got an oil change. He kept my former Protege5 in good shape, he daily drives a white P5 like mine. I don't doubt I can be reasonably sure I can get another 100,000+ miles on the Lexus, she got well over 300k on her early-production '99 RX 300 and it was considerably more needy along the way than this RX 350 has been. I was a bit concerned that the Protege5 might run into parts unavailability due to age, even though it was still a perfectly reliable (and fun-to-drive) car at 23 years old. Might have kept it if it had a manual transmission... The Lexus is one of those cars that's ubiquitous for a reason, they are incredibly well made and engineered to last. I've done 3 long road trips so far (it was a 510 mile trip to get it home) and it just eats the miles and without fatigue. I've never previously owned such a common vehicle. I see 25 year old OG RX 300's on a daily basis, on Sunday I was behind one that still looked like a new car. I'm a bit surprised how much I really like this Lexus, it's just so quietly competent and feels like it'll last forever. Time will tell on that. Since it's a common car I don't want to try to tell it apart from another in a parking lot, so far I've added an Atomic City sticker in back given to me by my old friend Jack Higgins and a "Beware of Harrier" tag in front, since this thing was available in Japan as a Toyota Harrier. I have the Aoshima Harrier kit to play with, though I don't plan to build it stock since it's a RHD Harrier, so I can have some "what-if" fun with the build, though my track record of building my 1:1 cars is poor, only finishing my black '88 Mustang LX 5.0 sedan before any resin was even available. I need to build my Tamiya Lexus LS400 that just got reissued, and I've got the ZoomOn champagne glasses for the hood that Lexus advertised on a 100k mile example at 140 MPH on the dyno 😎 I'd love to own a real one, but will stick w/ building models / going to car shows to scratch the 1:1 itch. Too much traffic everywhere regardless. Now I know why SUV's/CUV's are so popular...I can see down the road much better and I have suspension that smooths out all the bumps and craters on the unkempt roads that are everywhere. Moved south 49 years ago to billiard-smooth roads. That sadly is no longer the case...especially in SC & TN where I travel to/through with regularity. Below are photos I used to (easily) sell my Protege5 recently on Marketplace. Owned it 12 years (previous owner meticulously maintained it), put 101k miles on it, sold it at 170k, everything worked and it was stupid fun to drive around town, and a decent highway cruiser since the driver's seat was 8-way adjustable. Still a good-looker, hard to watch it drive off w/the new owner. I added NC1 16" Miata wheels to it, really looked sharp.

Looking forward to seeing this, I built one when it was a fairly new issue. I built/painted mine as if I was an individual configuring the car when new for my own grand touring adventures. Harold told me that the Hasegawa 250 Testa Rossa optional wheels/tires were perfectly suited to the TDF model, glad I hoarded a few sets of them when they were available, though today's 3D printed wheel/tire options can work well. It's a pretty simple kit and goes together quite well. IIRC it's a copy of an extinct resin kit from Japan.

Does that shop carry the Tamiya LP jar paints? That's my issue, LP's that I've been discussing are generally hard to find at hobby shops for a variety of reasons, one of which is shelf space because other paint lines proliferated due to huge interest in Gundam, gaming, R/C, etc. that draw much younger crowds and they spend more $ than car modelers. They all have the TS sprays.

It depends where you are located. They are easily found online. Even though I live near a major city the only hobby shops I know of that carry it are a couple hours away (both out of state) and the only one in-state is only open weekdays. Two of those sources do have online stores.

The LP's are amazing. I got to test them for a magazine article about 5 years ago prior to becoming available in the US. I was instantly hooked...and then they were greatly delayed due to pandemic. I assume if you'd tried them before acrylics you'd never look back. They cure pretty fast, they apply smoothly, you get better results much faster. You could have done your masking, painted the blue, put the body aside while you cleaned your airbrush and work/spray area, done a fingertip test on the masked area to see if it's dry enough, removed the masking and put the body in the dehydrator for 6 hours, and be working again on it the next day. Especially if you'd applied the white first over the entire body as a base coat, and masked that area before applying the blue, therefore only doing the masking task once.

It's good paint to work with, with caveats. The flat colors dry faster. Tamiya developed a mild lacquer thinner for builders who wanted the acrylic paint to spray like enamels/lacquers, it was first aimed at aircraft/armor builders who use mostly matte finishes, but it works equally well to reduce the gloss acrylics and have it flow out on a model body like enamels/lacquers. Meanwhile many have found that Mr. Hobby Mr. Color Thinner/Mr. Leveling Thinner work as well (very similar to the Tamiya thinner), and I've even tried hardware store lacquer thinner to thin Tamiya acrylics and it worked well (at least for flat colors), and is good to clean out the airbrush, but using Tamiya/Mr. Hobby lacquer thinners make the paint spray smoother than hardware store lacquer thinner that tends to have a lot of acetone in it. Tamiya also makes a new range of lacquer jar paints (Tamiya LP line) for modelers, they're not as common as the acrylic colors that have been available for decades but for car modelers they are ideal for airbrush users, as good/better than their TS line of rattle can paints for those who don't airbrush. Get some of this and try it out, if you liked spraying w/the acrylic thinner you should like this better, and it'll dry faster. If you still find it too slow to cure, consider getting some jars of their LP lacquers. Great paint for beginners and experienced builders.

I might do a bit of work on several concurrently after I finish a project, but try to focus on one build at a time to keep from being too distracted. What did you thin the Tamiya acrylic paint with? I assume you applied it with an airbrush? Tamiya gloss acrylics are famously SLOW to fully cure. It might take months, perhaps even longer than old-school enamels.

It's not an official R2 video. The presenter is an extraordinarily talented younger builder and is well known in the YT community and to all of those he's met at shows. He's had quite a few life challenges, his Mom has enabled him to go to various shows around the country which has gained him a ton of new friends and respect for his amazing work on his own models. I'm sure if Round2 had some sort of description cards displayed with the new products he'd have included that information. I'm also sure that some of the older YT presenters will be sharing similar videos as the week progresses. The two buttons I use frequently for YT viewing on my smart TV are "mute" and "back" 😂

Those rear fender openings were simple to fix. I've never had the Heller roadster but I do have a couple of the racing coupes. I never figured out the best way to deal with filling the seams from upper to lower body. The Gunze roadster was simple, as the interior stuff can go in after seam filling/painting. Revell coupes are already hitting Ollie's. Fit one of them w/3D printed wheels/tires and don't look at it from a direct side view and call it a day LOL.

Yet Gunze captured the shape of the body, especially the subtle arc on the hood/fender unit from the headlights back to the cowl area better than Revell, and that part fits better than Revell's does to the main body. I'm not a fan of all that metal either, but Revell kits are cheap and the ideal build would use parts from both and a set of finely 3D printed wheels w/proper tires that are available from several sources. The Gunze rear fender openings need a little trimming and the interior can be installed from outside so the body can be glued together to remove the seams fore and aft of the door openings. I built the Gunze curbside kit and it looks great...I have the full-detail one for "someday".

Don't know, I don't have a dog in this hunt, no interest in that one. Maybe a '73 conversion for Revell's snap kit MC or some Cosworth Vega stuff.

https://canuck3d.ca/product/?cd3--009

When using a new/$$ product it pays dividends to not get three steps ahead before you find a failure. Think ahead. What are your plans for base color and accent? Test the process out on a spare part before jumping into painting an entire project and finding out something didn't work. There's a learning curve to these new chrome paints. They do what they do. There are work-arounds that can be achieved. You didn't give yourself or the chrome paint a decent chance for success. I spend a lot of time before/during a build doing research on the subject and potential new materials/techniques to try. The extra time is worth it. Sometimes you have to slow down and smell the roses vs. plowing straight through them...

Still working for me, I think...posting shared link from Fotki: