Nacho Z

I have used their paint and I like it. It is base coat / clear coat. Although this is probably not the exact, proper name, I would say it is a solvent paint like a lacquer. You need to use a good primer underneath it. I have used Tamiya and Gravity Colors Spain under it.

Thank you, Steve! Thanks, Bob! I’m no kit historian, nor do I understand the intricacies of what goes into what subjects get kitted, but I would think a F355 would deserve a legitimate attempt at its own kit. Thank you, Jim!

In my humble opinion, Roy, the only way to get a nice crisp and clean line on your window rubber trim is to mask it and paint it. Best way to paint it is to either airbrush it, spray paint it, or brush paint it, in that descending order of quality finish. (Good Lord that was a mangled up sentence, I hope it made sense). Whichever method you use you have to make sure you use a quality masking tape, I highly recommend Tamiya tape. You must burnish the edge down. Lastly, you need to mist the paint on, don’t hose it on. Putting it on too heavy and wet will increase your chances of having the edge of the tape lift and paint to bleed/creep under it. Fiatboy posted about the black BMF. There was a thread about this just a few weeks ago. Myself and others have used the black BMF and I don’t believe anyone liked it or would recommend it. There is also the option to use a black Sharpie but I personally think the color/sheen is just plain wrong. Hope this is of help to you. If you would like, do a quick search of my WIP of my Ferrari F355. I have several pictures of my masking.

Wow! What an amazing model!

I’ve had that 1/12 Lotus on pre-order for forever…lol. I also have the detail up set on order. Can’t wait to get them in my grubby little mitts.

The original version of this kit was one of my first model purchases with my own money and completely built by myself. I still have the kit although a little worse for wear. I don’t think I have ever seen this car finished in this color and I think it is great! I think it works very well. I love what you have done with this kit, great job!

Good looking Peugeot! I have seen a lot of complaints about Tamiya decals on a lot of their race cars. I had issues with some of mine and had others go down with no issues whatsoever. Whatever issues you may have had, the final result is excellent!

I would like to share my recently completed Fujimi Ferrari F355. Overall, not the greatest kit ever produced. The fit of the side scoop inserts and the panel on the rear of the car was not good. A lot of work was needed to make them presentable. The glass flat out sucked, poorly molded and the fit of some pieces was enough to make you want to leave them off. The interior is for a 348 and not a F355. The window trim molded to the body is incorrect for a F355. However, at the end of the day it makes a nice shelf model if you take your time and put the work into it. I have added a link to the WIP thread. Here are some bullet points of the build. I hope you like it! Thanks for looking! Painted in OPI "Chopstix and Stones" fingernail polish. Cleared with Tamiya TS Clear Blue Splash Paints Interior Tan Photo-Etch from Acu-Stion Badges from T2M

Thanks, Ryan, I appreciate it! You are correct about the kit’s lineage. I didn’t realize that when I started it. Kind of a bummer but I think it is all that is available in plastic.

Jim, you are absolutely right. I can airbrush all day long and not slip or begin the paint flow too soon, but that one time I try to lay down paint in a tight area is the time that I will screw up and paint everything within a 2 foot area…lol. Do you have the kit in your stash? I’m not sure how easy they are to find. I found mine at a model show for $20, I believe. I sure would love to see more of these built.

Thank you, Dan, I appreciate your kind words. Overall, I am pretty happy with it.

Ooohhhhhh yeeeaaaahhhhh! Very cool! You just have to love these WW2 prop jobs. I recently built an Academy version. As a car guy, I really do get why the airplane guys are airplane guys…lol. Thanks for sharing!

Absolutely a great place to order from. I normally use Hobby Link Japan just because of their “Private Warehouse” option, but I’ve ordered from 1999.

Fandamntastic!! That is just one good looking model!

Another Monday night update. I think this will be the last one. As stated at the end of my last post, I will be showing you all the interior. I will also show you the masking and painting of the trim. Let's get to it. As has been pointed out by others, the interior is from Fujimi's 348 kit. The sprues even say 348 on them. I Googled pictures of the interior of a 348 and painted mine to match. I bought two colors of Splash Paints interior colors. One was creme and the other was tan. I used the tan and it is just a little too light for my liking. I am thinking a darker primer would have gotten me closer to the color that I was hoping for. The kit decals were severely cracked and yellowed. Toast. I didn't have any spare gauge decals that I thought looked right so I just left them off. I also could not use the center console decals and left them off as well. Anyhow, Splash Paints Tan, Tamiya LP-5 Semi-Gloss Black and lots of Tamiya tape were used. All of the kit glass in this kit sucked. Sucked badly. Sucked canal water, as we used to say. I couldn't use the driver's side glass due to a massive defect in the glass. Not on the surface, but rather inside of the glass. I ended up cutting the door portion off and using the rear quarter glass. I ended up having to do the same thing on the passenger side. The windshield glass did not have a positive fit and there was very, very little wiggle room with the fit. If you did not get it centered perfectly you would have gaps. I taped it into position first and then applied glue. The rear glass just plain didn't fit properly. Too much to explain. Very disappointing. The last pictures have to do with the masking of the body in order to paint the window trim, (which is also incorrect for a F355). The point I want to make is that I use Tamiya masking tape and I use a lot of it. I have already gotten the comments about how much masking I do and how much tape I've used. Car modelers, generally speaking, are cheap. A roll of Tamiya tape is about $5. I don't think $1.50 in tape is excessive...lol. I had to paint black on the back panel, the front grill, the windshield and both side windows. With the way I mask with Tamiya tape, I don't worry about overspray, paint bleed, tape residue and pulling up paint. Well worth the few pennies worth of tape that I use. That is all I have for the WIP portion of this build. I will be posting pictures of the finished model in the next week or two. A good amount of work went into all of the badges and detail painting. I did the best that I could with what I had to work with. This was supposed to be a relatively quick build and an exercise in shooting fingernail polish. It turned out to be a rather troublesome project. Thanks for following along and commenting along the way. See you over in Under Glass soon!

She is looking great so far! I’ll be following along on this one.

It is the Three Rivers Automodelers show in Castle Shannon on Sunday.

Welcome to the forum, Barry. I am located just South of you, near Morgantown, WV. Did you know that there is a model contest in Pittsburg this weekend?

Dennis, while doing research on this car, (I really didn’t know very much about it), I noticed that the wheels were a dull aluminum(?). I’m not crazy about them. I decided to leave the kit wheels as they are. I know that they are not prototypically correct but I like them. I truly do appreciate the input on them, however. I’ve got a lot more Ferrari kits and you can count on me hitting you up for help and information! Curtis, I really struggled with the choice of creme, (their spelling), or tan from Splash Paints. I went with tan. Thanks, Atin! The clear blue is TS shot straight from the can.

Simply gorgeous!!

Thank you, Sonny! I was very happy with the stance right out of the box. The tires are also centered in the wheel wells which isn’t always the case. I don’t have to do any work on the stance and that is a good thing! Thanks, EMRE! Honestly, the reason for the picture of each coat was to help me keep track of how many coats I laid down…lol. And yes, I’m pretty darn happy with the paint job! Very much appreciated, Justin!

Wow!! That is just fantastic! A really great looking model.

Time for my Monday night update. My last post I showed where I painted the body in OPI fingernail polish, polished it out and then shot Tamiya Clear Blue over that. I let the clear blue cure and then set about polishing out the body. I use Micro Mesh cloths and then Tamiya polishing compounds for this. I'll spare you all of the in-progress shots and go straight to the mock-up of the polished body. I should point out that there is no actual clear, clear on this model. Clear blue, yes. Clear clear, no. Here are the 3 polishing cloths that I used, one for each stage, or grit, of the Tamiya polishing compounds. I also use Q-tips for hard-to-reach places, places that my fingertip will not fit into. I have actually been chided, (there's a word you don't see every day!), for using Q-tips but I find them very useful. I do not use any type of rotary tool for polishing out my paint. I actually enjoy the process of doing it manually. My kitchen light fixture. My Alclad paint on a shelf above my bench. Next update will be the interior and another mockup with the interior installed. Thanks for checking in. Comments, suggestions and advice are always welcome.

Thank you, Dann! It is such a pretty color and it was just about exactly what I was hoping for! Thanks, Jim! Patience is probably my weakest point in model building. I mean, I suck at a lot of things modeling wise, but patience is my Achilles heel. ? I appreciate it, Sonny!

That is one beautiful Oldsmobile!