Jim N

Very well done. You did a great job on the body molding.

That is really outstanding work! I love the color.

Very well done.

If you have an Ace Hardware close to you, they have a color that I believe is called School Bus Yellow, which is virtually the same as the GM color. I have painted a couple of Kodak cars using the MCW paint, which is supposed to be the GM color. The School Bus Yellow is virtually the same.

Very, very nice.

I have read most of this thread and will say this. This technology is coming and it will do amazing things. Whether a model kit is one of them, time will tell. The only problem I see with this idea is that it transfers all of the risk to the buyer. Right now if two of us buy a kit, we both get the same thing and the quality is the same. With 3D printing, the quality of the model may come down to who has the best printer and possibly the supplies. Given the printers out there for printing of text and graphics, a person can spend $30 up to thousands. The print quality is different as is the capabilities. If one is printing a school report, it largely does not matter what kind of printer the person uses. If the person is doing high end work, the printer matters. If this is where we go with 3D printed models, the concept may be in trouble. If I can only afford a low end printer and the printed model is low end, there is no point. I may be able to turn it into something nice, but if I am in a contest with a person of the same skill set who has the high end equipment the result will likely be very different. It would be like taking a person who built a kit box stock and put him in the same class as one who machines his own kit. As I stated at the beginning of this post, the technology is coming and it will do amazing things. We will have to see how or if it applies to model kits.

If I may offer a suggestion, the only thing you can do is make the builders prove they built the model. Make them bring the box, the instructions, etc. The judges are a different matter. You can have bad judges no matter how hard you screen them.

Very cool!

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I will look at this some more.

Having seen the car at the track, it is a neon green. http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki A couple after she came out on the losing end of tangling with one of the Burger King cars http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki http://www.fotki.com'>Hosted on Fotki

I posted this kit a few months ago and it received a tepid response and several members made suggestions for improvements. The suggestions fell into two categories. The first was with the wheels. I tried something different with them by painting them all black and some thought this was too much. The others were a bit scattered but I came away with the impression that there was too much green. I am going through a bit of a lull in building now and pulled this one off of the shelf and give it a critical look to see if to see if I wanted to change it up a bit or leave it alone and chalk it up to differences in taste. I decided to change it up slowly, so that if I didnt like something or I went too far, I could go back. I started with the wheels first and painted the spokes aluminum to give them some separation from the tire, so that it didnt look like one black blob in the wheel well. When I finished this, I looked at the rest of the car. I didnt have decals to add as some suggested, so I tried painting the hood semi gloss black, like Chrysler did with some of their muscle cars back in the day. I think the result is much better. Below are a couple of pictures from the first attempt and then below those are the revisions. Thanks for looking and the comments on the first build. Couple of pictures of first build. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Revised build Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Thanks for looking.

Nicely done!

Looks good. I built that one several years ago and it turns into a nice looking model. The number of decals presents a challenge!

Thanks for the comments. This may be a difficult kit to find because I think Starter is no longer in business. They were or are a French company that specialized in 1/43 scale resin kits. They made a number of NASCAR kits as well. I did an internet search prior to typing this and had a very difficult time finding any information about them. I had this one for well over 10 years before I finally built it.

Looks very nice!

Looks nice.

Very well done!

I had this one for quite some time and just completed it. It is a Starter 1/43 scale Dodge Magnum. I painted it AMC Big Bad Blue since it seemed to be a close match to Petty Blue. The neon decals were a big challenge as they cracked and tore when either pulling the decal out of the water or putting them on the body. I had to use a lot of decal setting solution as well. It was a fun quick build. Thanks for looking.

Good job with a difficult paint scheme. Bruce - With a masking job like that, I make a copy of the decal sheet and cut out the "decals" from the copy set them on the car and then make some markings with a pencil and then I can set the tape. I hope this helps.

Nicely done!

90% rubbing alcohol works pretty well as does Castrol Super Clean in the purple bottle.

I have one of these in my collection. I hope it turns out as well as yours. Great job!

Thanks for the comments. I appreciate it.

If anyone is interested in my opinion, a lot of the time where you end up is due to where you started. What I mean by this is that if one company is basing its kit on a drawing that may or may not be accurate, this company will likely end up in a different place than a company that has the final car and is taking measurements from it. One other thing to keep in mind is that we are all fallible human beings and mistakes can happen. Once a measurement is wrong in one place, it can ripple throughout the whole process. There have been a number of references to the military builders and how they demand everything to be accurate; whereas, the car guys are not that serious about accuracy. If you think about it, the reason the military builders have to be concerned about accuracy is that there is only one correct way to build their kits. One cannot paint a tank a candy apple color or swap out an engine in a Sherman for one that was in a Panzer. This is a bit of a silly example, but I do think there is some relevance. Car guys don’t think twice before doing something like this, and further, it has been done in the 1:1 world. One other thing about military modelers is that they usually build only one of their kits. I have not seen many military modelers that have multiple F-15’s on their shelves. They have one or perhaps two if there is certain significance with a fighter squadron. Or they may have different scales of the same model, but I have never seen half dozen different renditions of the same plane. On the other hand I have seen multiple versions of the same car on builders’ shelves. The other piece to this is price. I don’t think I am that different from others, but price does matter. I don’t think that makes me cheap, but like everyone else, I have a certain amount of money I can spend on what is a hobby. Once prices get above a certain threshold, I have to think long and hard as to whether I want to spend that amount of money. There has to be a Tamiya kit out there that really grabs my attention to think about spending $50.00 for a model. I fully expect the $50.00 kit to be better engineered, scaled more accurately and should construct better than one at $25.00. However, many of us can make that $25.00 model look real nice. This is long winded, and for those who read all of it without being bored or going to sleep – thanks.

Thanks for the comments. The nose I completed myself. I fill it with putty and then sand to shape. I cannot remember who I bought the decals from, but they were very thin and it took two sheets to prevent the bleed through.