Snake45

Very cool, thanks for sharing it! Few years back, I made some quickie brakes out of some random washers I dug out of my Dad's workshop junk drawer, and some scrap red plastic. They're okay for the junky model I used them on.

Good eye! Yes, the steering wheel was upside down and I put it right. The green plastic isn't super-glittery, though it looks that way in the side pic. Happens sometimes in flash photography. And it's quite opaque--no danger of any color showing through on the headliner, even black. (I've learned about dealing with this problem on my polish projects.)

They've got it molded with "wrap-arounds" on the ends that go into the roof, and they shouldn't. Best thing to do it cut these off, glue and putty them into the roof where they belong, then drive on. Second best thing to do is just paint 'em.

Picked this one up at the local toy show a couple months ago. It's the Revell snapper. I already did one of these and painted it silver, but have been wanting to do one molded in that lovely metallic dark green. It seemed to be complete and in good shape, but I didn't look at it close enough. Turned out to have quite a few problems. Most obvious problem was the poorly applied stripe stickers. Tried to save/fix 'em, couldn't, peeled 'em off without much regret. So it's a stripe-delete car. Next, the top was quite scratched up. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but some kinds of plastic will polish out nicely and some kinds won't, and this turned out to be one of the latter. Tried all my Snake-Fu polishing tricks and got it fairly nice, but not quite as shiny as the rest of the car. Oh well. I also sanded and polished out the molding lines on the C-pillars. The glass was all scratched, too, but that polished out pretty much okay. Didn't notice when I bought it that it was missing the left taillight. Actually it was missing the right taillight—OB had incorrectly tried to install the left light on the right side (they're “handed”). Gave some thought to using the lenses from an AMT '70 Chevelle I'm parting out, but decided it would be easier to just scratchbuild a lens out of .030” styrene. This only took about a half hour, and I painted it Testor Stop Light Red. OB had replaced the kit rear tires with some AMT slicks, a change I actually didn't hate. But turns out he didn't use the kit rear wheels. All four wheels are of the same general type (Magnum 500s), but they're from at least two and maybe three different kits. Sorting out the wheel problems took a couple of mornings' work, not even counting detail-painting them. The headlights had been installed with what seems to be hot glue. I tried and failed to remove and fix or replace them. Ended up just picking some hot glue blobs off around the edges with an Xacto point. They're the weak point of the finished model, but, ah shucks oh well. Did some detailing of the (molded in tan) interior with black paint and Silver Sharpie, and painted the headliner tan with craft acrylic. Everything else was standard Snake-Fu—window trim and grille detailing, side marker lights, and so forth. Oh, I had to detail-paint the center bar of the grille with Model Master British Green. When finished, I took it to the next toy show and showed it to the vendor I bought it from. He went absolutely NUTS over it, and offered me a fistful of money for it (but not enough to cover the 10-12 hours work I had in it, IMHO). Was kinda pleased he liked it so much, though. Thanks for looking and, as always, comments welcome.

You're off to a great start! Love the color and you're getting a good finish. Don't forget to hit the ends of the back window with some of that maroon. Revell's '68 and '69 Corvettes are some of their very best kits of the modern era, even though they're now somewhere around 30 years old or more. Well, except for that weird rear window on the coupe thing, but that's easily fixed/dealt with. Drive on!

Very satisfying watching the bully Robin Roberts grenade his tranny in the first two minutes last night. (Does that make me a bad person? ) Karma is real! I've never liked Chuck, but I've never pulled for him harder than I did in his first race last night. It was amazing how he planned it all down to the last detail, and everything happened exactly as he planned. And the Swansong kid still didn't learn his lesson. (Still shooting his arrogant mouth off.) Also good to see Erik K blow up and be unable to make the final against Ryan Martin. More karma? I'm liking Bobby Ducote better all the time. He always talks like his car's on its last legs, but he seems to send it downrange just about every time. Also finding it just about impossible not to like Scott Taylor. Seems like an all-around good guy. Lizzy Musi's car is on a mission, but it looks like she has a bad crash next week. (Didn't like the talk of "a devastating loss to the NOLA team.") I hope she's okay, at least.

Do some net research on the "salt technique" used for weathering by military modelers. Looks like something that might work for this. (I've never done it so can't comment on it personally.)

Been decades since I saw it, but I seem to recall that the high point was watching a TBM Avenger drop a load of manure on Paul Williams in the first five minutes. Is that about right?

Very, VERY nice! One of Revell's very best kits of the last couple decades and you did it proud. Well done and model on!

In a couple months, you might be able to sell it on eBay and turn a profit!

Here's what the 1/24 one looks like built.

My county needed school bus drivers a few years ago, at a point where I was unemployed, so I checked into it. They have a policy that if you've EVER had a DWI, you can't drive their bus. I had a DWI in 1981, only two speeding tickets since, but I quit drinking in 1984 (that's 37 years ago) and haven't had a drop since. No bus for me. I wonder if they're still so particular today? Not that I'm interested in coming out of retirement to do it today, y'unnerstand.

There it is. Rich people don't bother me at all as long as they're not trying to tell ME how to live MY life.

I just google-imaged "don nicholson '65 comet" and got dozens of pics (most in color), maybe hundreds. Some are models and some are the restored car, but there are still LOTS of good reference pics there.

Thanks Steve, I'll keep that in mind.

No, it is the LACK of money that is the root of all evil.

Beautiful! Black's not easy to pull off but you sure did it. VERY well done and model on!

It's happened to me for weeks, months, sometimes years at a time. The desire to model has always come back to me eventually, however. Hang in. Sooner or later something will respark your interest.

Caesar, if you've pre-darkened all those panel lines with a black Sharpie or something of the kind, I'd recommend you get some rubbing alcohol and wipe that all off. It turns out that Sharpie ink will, over the course of time, migrate up through whatever paint is put over it and appear on the surface. I know, it sounds weird/impossible, but I've seen several very nice models (not mine) that were eventually ruined by this.

One of my favorite accounts of the whole Dillinger/Floyd mess is the novel G-Man by Stephen Hunter. Yes, it's fiction, altered a bit to accommodate the presence of Hunter's hero, Bob Lee Swagger's, grandfather, but Hunter is a meticulous researcher and I suspect that the novel has as much truth in it as possible while still telling the story. It's a ripping good yarn!

Not a huge fan of that two-toning, but otherwise, very sharp! You should be proud of bringing this one back from the dead, too. Well done and model on!

Had to go to the local hardware store for a couple cans of that lovely Touch N Tone flat black. Was also gonna grab another can of their primer gray, but they didn't have any. But they DID have Touch N Tone Satin Black, which I'd never seen before. I'm always on the lookout for satin blacks, so I grabbed a couple cans of that, too. Can always use it on interiors and chassis, if nothing else. On the way back, had to come right past the auto parts store, so stopped in to see what touchup paints they had. Got a can of Duplicor "Dark Garnet Red" (kind of a maroon) and a nice medium blue. Lordy, lordy, the Duplicolor is up to almost $13 a can now, but they're big cans and each one should do at least two to three models, or more.

Yes, they have the same "dimensions," but they are not identical. Each has the trim for its particular year and model.

Remember "Don't sit so close to the TV! You're gonna ruin your eyes!"? Well, guess where everybody's been sitting for about the last 20 years? About 15 inches from a TV screen of one sort or another.

Just saw the new Dune movie on HBO/MAX. It is visually spectacular--among the best such things I've ever seen. Turns out it's just Part One. Looks like there will be a whole series of them, like Star Wars.