Nacho Z

I have been making good progress on this. Wheels and tires are done. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the tire decals / transfers did not want to stick very well. I believe that due to their age they have lost some of their adhesiveness. I had what I had and did the best with what I had. Actually, to the naked eye they look fine. A first for me was to use a Sharpie to highlight seam lines on the body. The seams are barely existent on the Tamiya body and I thought it would be easy to miss some of them. It worked out nicely. My shipment from Gravity Colors Spain came in. I bought a bottle of their Dark Primer which is a very slight dark shade of gray. It laid down so smooth. I then shot the Honda Takata Green. It also laid down as smooth as butter. The first pic is just paint and the second picture it has been cleared with Tamiya TS-13. One last thing for this update. Again, something new for me. I shot the body pieces that needed to be semi-gloss black with Tamiya's LP line. I used Mr. Color Leveling Thinner and holy BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH, I couldn't have asked for better results! If you haven't tried these lacquers I can't recommend them enough.

Great looking model, Rich! I love all things JPS and that last photo put a huge smile on my face!

You are off to a great start! I’ll be following along for sure.

That is a real nice Camaro, Tom! Great color. Nice job on the engine bay too!

This thing is absolutely gorgeous!! You’ve done a great job on this, Simon. The color is sweet on this. I’ve seen SMS advertised but I haven’t seen it used very often. They need to use your model in their advertisements!

That is very, very nice, Marco. Great job and thanks for sharing it!

Thanks, Rich! There are some great tips in your post and I appreciate them. Yeah, that was the first time seeing that harness material. It stretched ever so slightly on me while I was cutting it and that caused the strips to not be a uniform width. Tamiya spec’d 2.4mm wide. The longer shoulder belts were the ones that gave me trouble. I received my Gravity Colors Spain shipment yesterday and shot a test spoon tonight. I am using their Dark Primer for the first time. It laid down so smooooooth! I’ll post some pics tomorrow.

Thanks again, Anton! Thank you, Josh!

Another small update. So far everything is going very well. I was able to complete the interior this weekend.

Time for the first update. This will bring me up to nearly real time in this build. I have been working on the rotors, wheels and tires as well as the interior tub and various bits that go in it. I have struggled trying to find any photos of the interior of this car or even its sister cars. For this reason I am pretty much following Tamiya's paint guide. The dash is fairly simple but looks good when completed. The rotors and wheels are done as well as one tire. I had a little trouble with the tire decals. I think because of their age they are not adhering as well as they should. At least this was the case with the first one. For the next update I hope to have all 4 tires mounted to the wheels and to have both wheels and tires decaled. I also hope to have the interior tub completed. Thanks for looking!

Thanks, Anton! I guess I can understand why they did it but I'm still not sure if I am a fan of this type of chassis plate. As for the belts, it took me a while to realize that this Takata is the same Takata as the airbag debacle and it was the harness decals that made the light bulb come on...lol.

She does look good in green! Sharp build, you did a great job on it.

Up next on my workbench is Tamiya's 2005 Honda Takata Dome NSX. This will not be a pure box stock build nor will it be a super detailed build, somewhere in the middle I guess. I will be using Tamiya's PE set for this car and Gravity Colors - Spain Takata Green. This is one of the models that Tamiya decided to use a metal/diecast chassis plate. I have never built one of these before so we'll see how it goes. Here is what I am starting with. The Gravity Colors - Spain paint is absolutely beautiful in my opinion. I took it to work to show some of my coworkers how nice it was. I was giving it a shake as we were talking about it and it slipped out of my hand. Sigh. My shop smelled good for awhile...lol. I've already placed another order. While I wait for my new bottle of paint to arrive I went ahead and started work on the other bits. Another new one for me is how Tamiya has you make their racing harness. There are decals but I did not want to use them. The PE set has all of the required pieces and this weird vinyl material that you need to cut to 2.4mm wide. I used my Infini cutting mat for this. It took several attempts because this material stretches as it is being cut. Next up will be more interior updates and wheels/rotors.

Wow!! I’m pretty sure that I had placed an order with Internet Hobbies a number of years ago, when they were relatively new. I didn’t get my order and I got the run around for a bit. I honestly don’t remember how it went down but I did get my money back. Might have been PayPal? Anyhow, I stayed away from them from the point on. It is a shame that there are people like this out there.

Oh yeah!!! What’s not to love?!?! Great looking Ferrari, Gary. And like Josh said, that first picture could pass for the real thing.

Could it be a resin kit by Niko?

Tom, may I ask which ship and which kit?

Very nice, Gavin! Good looking model of a good looking car!

Sorry, forgot to quote you so you would see my reply, which is above this post. See, not too bright...lol.

Thanks, Patrick. I'll answer your question but want to give a little "method to my madness". This was going to be a quick, fun, stress free build. Nothing more than a shelf model. For me, these are the types of builds that I will experiment on. If they go South, I don't really mind. Kind of a lesson learned thing. With that being said, I wanted to try UPOL rattle can clear. I did in fact test it first of some spoons I had shot with fingernail polish. The UPOL looked good. To your point about Tamiya TS-13 over their paint, you are right, no issues at all. But I had those big decals and in the past I have had TS-13 mess up my decals. So UPOL it is...lol. I flat out, 100% put the UPOL on too doggone heavy. My brain kept saying stop but my finger would not let off of the nozzle. I've never been accused of being too bright.

All three are gorgeous! It is nice to see them in those particular colors. I mean to say it is nice to see them in something other than red. Very nice job on all three!

I use UpScale Hobbies often, mostly for detail sets and Zero Paint. I was in contact with Chris very recently so yes, he is still in business. I can’t answer as to why you are having trouble getting your kit. I would tend to believe what Chris told you. He is a smaller operation and may not get the same “attention” from distributors as bigger vendors do? Not that this has anything to do with his inventory, it has more to do with communication perhaps. Both Chris and his wife had COVID. His wife was in ICU and fought it for 30 days. Unfortunately she lost her battle. Chris updated the UpScale Hobbies Facebook page regularly. Maybe he didn’t do the same on the .com site. This all happened in the timeframe that you referred to. I know it is frustrating when vendors don’t reply in a timely manner. Hope you get your kit soon.

I was very bad about replying to comments on my van. I just wanted to thank all of you who took the time to leave a comment. I appreciate all of them!

Wow! I like everything about this. Great job. The color and paint job are really nice. My first car had baby moons so I have a soft spot for them.

You just have to love these Tamiya kits! Such a unique subject. I have this one in the stash. As Rich said, seeing yours makes me want to get started on mine. Nice job on this one, Mike!