bigbluesd

Interior looks great, is the shot of the wheels Alclad on the left and just aluminum paint on the right? They look different...

DONE! Under glass thread here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=84445 More issues during assembly... when I put the body on the tubes running exhaust out the windows got in the way of the windows themselves and several pieces got forcibly removed in the process. Part of the reason was that the body needed to be pushed forwards a hair but by the time I realized it I had already superglued it into place. Used Testor's clear parts cement for gauge glass and the big one never unfogged, maybe it just needs time. And got to the last step of the instruction sheet and realized i had a distributor hanging out on the bench that was never referenced in the instructions. Too late to put it in. Bah. Anyways, good enough to go on the second shelf of the scale model china cabinet, it's nice and dark down there!

Fought me all the way but the finished product ain't too bad considering (if you can overlook the old decals that the adhesive clumped up under and the fact that when I got done with all steps of the instructions I realized there was a distributor on my bench that was referenced nowhere and too late to put it on. DOH!). Good enough for shelf duty at least. I built this mainly as a way to practice new techniques and improve my skills, so it's not nearly as polished as I like most of my cars to be. I hacked up the front suspension to turn the wheels , got a little carried away with the angle on the passenger side but at least it's appropriately turning left! Build thread is here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=82856

Just curious if you guys have any tips for this? I always dread putting on the wheels because I inevitably break all kinds of stuff when I'm trying to snap the wheels onto the car.tried putting one on my current project this morning and the suspension came lose at every glue joint. I'm thinking I might sand down the piece that the wheel snaps onto tonight and see if it helps, had to reglue everything first.

Thanks, that is good to hear. I do have a tendency to be hypercritical of my own stuff so it's good to know that somebody else feels that way as well. Looking at the Under Glass section will ruin your perception of your own work, everything there looks absolutely perfect!

Decals on the body... I was going to coat them in Future but there is one that lays partially over a window so my options were to either Future everything BUT that decal (making it the only one that sticks out) or go ahead with the installation of windows and not Future it again. Since I want this thing off my bench I elected to not Future it again. The window decal (or windows for that matter) hasn't been installed yet, that's part of tomorrow's work list. Decals went on pretty well except that the adhesive gobbed up into tiny balls when I slid them off the paper so there are hundreds of little bumps underneath the decals. It's only really noticeable on the roof though. I guess if that's my only problem with a 20+ year old decal sheet I shouldn't complain.

For your clear coats with Future, do you mist it on or spray several wet coats?

Made a little bit of progress, I have been using this one partially as a test bed for learning new techniques because it's not a model I am overly excited about. Due to this I have spurts of "I'm over this" followed by "holy cow that worked really well, I'm excited again". The clear parts of this kit were scratched up in the box so I sanded them down with some 4000 and then 12000 (I don't have anything in between, waiting for some polishing cloths to come from Hong Kong in the mail) and dipped them in Future. Not perfect but a heck of a lot better. I put a coat of Future over the paint and it glossed a little bit... I was rushed though and didn't do any homework on the best way to apply Future by the airbrush. The end result was that I did one heavy application instead of mist coats, etc. There were a couple of spots where it is glossier than others but I figure I can put another coat on after decals and it will solve that issue. A couple of areas where it pooled as well but nothing too terrible. I'm overall satisfied. I also did my first attempt at using Allclad and it worked out really well. I used it on the exhaust pipes as well as the headers and airbrushed it over a coat of Testor's gloss black. I'm very pleased with the results. On a side note, I FOUND MY MISSING HEADER! Incredibly grateful for that because I had a hard time finding solder that was the right size. Everything was either 0.6mm or 1.0mm. The headers are about 0.8mm. I did find a spare two feet of 10 gauge Romex that I had left over and the conductors were just the right size, but quickly realized copper is just too #$&^ hard to bend without destroying the surface with my pliers. The engine is put together, I will say that this is the best motor I've done yet thanks to using the airbrush as well as the Alclad headers. I also did a black wash using thinned acrylic black, I am having a problem with the washes... when I go to wipe or blot off the excess everything tends to come with it and I'm left with very little visible shadow. I was tempted to entertain the notion to try heat staining the pipes but I am so pleased with the outcome that I'm afraid to ruin this one. I'll try it on my next project. One thing that really bugs me about kits is that the wheels are always straight as an arrow, so whenever possible I always attempt to turn the front wheels a little bit. I accomplished this with my new razor saw and some cement. (Wheels not attached, just put in place to check alignment in the second photo. I figure a bonus for this is that the ride height will be lowered slightly in the front from the material removed by cutting and sanding flush. A few more brush painted details on some parts and then it's onward to assembly and decals. I may finish this within the month!

Spent entirely too much time painting the lettering on the front bumper using some heavily thinned acrylic paint and a sharpened toothpick. Should have noted prior to doing this that the car on the box art and 90% of the Days of Thunder cars in Google image search don't have those letters painted. DOH! Oh well, mine does. This took a lot of patience and a steady hand, neither of which I have in abundance. Could be better but it could be worse too. Currently debating whether I want to spend the money and buy some contingency decals for this, a few came with the set but they are kind of sparse.

What kind of clear would you recommend over acrylic/future?

I'm guessing that the lot of this was an eBay find? I'm incredibly jealous. You are drowning in Mustangs!

WE HAVE COLOR! It actually looks a little washed out in that photo with my 100w work light shining on it, the actual color is better represented in this photo: To the naked eye it is a super close match to the box art and has that hot orange look that I was really craving. The Faskolor went on really well when mixed with Future to the consistency of skim milk and shot at 25 PSI, I'm very pleased considering it was my first attempt at airbrushing a body. The only drawback was that this is a really transparent orange so it took about 7-8 coats (with the last few being really thick) to get it looking decent. It went down really smooth but I did get some funk in the paint in several places... looks suspiciously like carpet fibers and dust, I blame the liberal use of the hair dryer (I cooked the paint between each coat) and my lax cleaning standards of the man cave (who wants to lug a vacuum upstairs all the time???). Of course after the fiasco that was the first paint job on this project my standards have come down quite a bit so we're going to just pretend that it's just track funk on a race car. I would try to get rid of it but with this paint being as transparent as it is and with it being a somewhat flexible paint (intended for RC bodies) I'm afraid of what the result of sanding would be. My game plan is to do my detail painting on the body (bumper lettering, etc.) tomorrow night and then put a coat or twelve of Future over it before doing decals -- does this sound smart?

Yes that is all great information. I had no idea where to start, thanks!

What kind of clearcoat did you use?

I realized there's a little hobby shop a couple of towns over that I didn't know about so I went by today to see what all they had. Sadly it's mostly devoted to RC Cars and NASCAR diecasts with a decent selection of run of the mill Revell/AMT kits at full retail prices and very little in the way of paint. On the positive side though I came across this paint while I was there for $4: The color is called "Fasflourescent Orange" and baby does it glow... exactly what I have in mind when I think about this car. Unfortunately this is a water based paint (I guess that means it's acrylic?) which is intended for painting the interior of the clear lexan shells of RC cars. Has anybody ever used this brand before? It is Faskolor by Parma International. I'm assuming it's like any other acrylic and hoping that a good clearcoat will make it look good. I also finally managed to pick up some Pledge Floorcare Multi-Surface Finish at Wally World while I was out, I'm hoping this is the same thing as Future because I can't find that anywhere around here. The price tag on the shelf said something to the effect of "PLDG w/FUTRE" and the instructions on the bottle make reference to an acrylic finish, so I'm assuming it's just a rebrand. I'm thinking this would be a good clear for the mystery paint referenced above. It will be my first attempt at Future, you may want to place bets on whether or not I'm going to have to strip this body twice! In Googling this stuff I did find somebody making reference to using the Future to thin the Faskolor, any thoughts on that?

And Ben,a word of caution with the CD thing.... I wouldn't do it with anything other than acrylic because you WILL end up with paint somewhere other than you intend... the acrylic is easy to get off when you do.

I learned that one on a forum too,I think it was this one. Works really well as long as you have a steady hand and brush it onto the CD nice and thin. You have to tilt the tire when pressing to get the tips of the letters but by my third tire I was getting pretty good at it. So much for any painting tonight, the propane tank for my gas grill leaked and filled the garage and house with propane. Didn't get thick enough in the house to cause much alarm after airing out but my wife is scared to sleep in our bedroom because it is near the garage. So now her and my four year old are asleep in the room directly below my loud spray booth. DOH!

My Christmas acquisition of an airbrush setup has prodded me into getting back to work on this. Put together about 100 airbrush part clips from alligator clips and skewers and separated them all out, put base color on everything. Used it as practice spraying both cheap Apple Barrel acrylics and Testor's square bottle enamels. I'm thinning the acrylics with Windex and the Testors with lacquer thinner from Lowes. Both have gone pretty well so far but I'm nervous about spraying a body with it just yet. Paid some attention to the tires last night and today... I used my little home made tire jig to put them in the drill press to sand them down and give them a track worn look (I think I might have picked that tip up around here at some point, as with most things!). Then I used the CD trick with some Apple Barrel acrylic to do the lettering. It went pretty well. Not as nice and clear as decals would be but definitely better and a whole lot faster than if I painted them by hand (made that mistake once before, never again). The end result looks great with the exception of one that I let get a little bit warm on the drill press by getting too ballsy with the sanding block. Oh well, we'll call it tire damage. Maybe it will be pitting for a tire swap when I put it on display. Tonight the order of business is re-priming the body that just came out of the brake fluid bath as well as attempting my first application of Allclad (on the exhaust pipes). Although I realized while separating out all my parts for painting that I'm missing one set of headers... no clue where it could have gone. I guess I'm going to have to scratch build a new set and I'm not looking forward to that because I've never scratch built anything yet and frankly don't know where to start.

Simple question... which is better? Decals or transfers for tire markings?

I'm absolutely speechless.... the paint... especially on that Mustang.... Holy cow. What do you normally use to paint/clear?

Did my first trade with Quick GMC, went great!

I finally have an airbrush setup and started using it tonight. Don't know how I've done without it this far, MUCH better than hand brushing 100 parts. I have some general airbrushing questions though that I'm hoping you guys can shed some light on... - I've been reading about decanting spray cans... I realize a can of Duplicolor will provide enough paint for several models, but how long does the paint last in a jar after you've decanted? Can it still be used in the airbrush a year later? Two years? And supposedly there is no need to thin this paint before ABing, right? - I bought a four pack of "Artist's Loft" glass jars from Michael's the other day with the intention of storing my thinned enamels and decanted lacquers (These: http://www.michaels.com/Glass-Jars-.75-fl-oz-4pk/fa2188,default,pd.html?q=glass%20jar)... anybody know if these are safe to use for this purpose? The lid is plastic and there is a little foam pad on the bottom of the lid. - The idea of spraying acrylics is very appealing due to the lack of fumes but I'm concerned about the durability of these paints, do they adhere good enough for handling? - Curious to hear what your workflow is... what your setup for thinner, etc. is, what you normally do in between colors, your cleanup routine, etc. That is the most overwhelming part of the whole thing -- figuring out what I need to be doing while I have my hands full of airbrush and solvents. - For those of you that are airbrushing your bodies using Testor's enamels (without any good hobby shops nearby this is what I'm stuck with unless I want to do mail order), how long do you wait between coats? Seems to me from ABing small parts with the enamels and lacquer thinner that they dry pretty #$*$ quickly. How many coats do you normally put on? And do you do multiple mist coats with a final wet coat (until it "flashes")? This is what I was doing with spray cans prior to the AB, is this still the best method to get a good finish?

Bravo, Mr. Muffler seals the deal on this one for me.

Getting ready to complete my first trade and I'm just curious what you guys have found to be the most inexpensive way of shipping and how much it normally costs?

@Roadkill: That looks great! @Slusher: Did you use a separate primer when you used it? I'm thinking maybe that was my problem... the shortcuts paint says it is Paint+Primer, maybe it was too hot for my underlaying primer. I did notice when I stripped it that the underlying primer cracked all over the place.