Nacho Z

Great looking dragster, Ian!

Wow, Fred!!! This is just fantastic!

Very nice, Ludwig! Great color and paint job.

This is going to be so cool, Tim! Look at those wheels! Amazing detail for 1:43. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

Welcome back to the hobby, Will! I’m happy to see you building again. The Buick turned out great, you obviously haven’t lost your touch. I’m already looking forward to seeing your next project!

Now that is a very cool model!! Great job on it. You gotta love it when the paint comes out so nice.

Welcome, John! There is a good group of modelers in the Morgantown and Fairmont area. Do you ever go to the model shows in Castle Shannon?

Happy to see the good news!! I always visit with Rich at the 2 Pittsburgh model contests and I fully intend to see him again this year!

Wow, Bruce!!!, this is exciting news. I’m happy for you! Can’t wait to see what you do with it. I know it will be nice!

I’ll be there! And I’m looking forward to seeing you, Rich. Can’t wait to see your new builds.

Thank you, Dale!

Thank you, Tom. On one hand the decals are the highlight of the kit and on the other had they are a let down of the kit. More information is in the build thread. The surface is a 2’ x 2’ piece of black acrylic. I have a large piece of poster board for the backdrop. All pics are taken with a Galaxy S9 phone. Very, very little to no processing is done on my pics. I shoot midday in my sunroom which is 3 walls, floor to ceiling of windows. Great natural light. Thanks for asking!

Rich, I sure do appreciate your comments on both of my Lancia threads! I believe you and I have the same modeling tastes!

Let’s see, a 1:12 Tamiya kit with a full Top Studio set and a 1:12 MFH kit......hmmmmmm, I’m guessing not your first rodeo!?!? This 250GTO is gorgeous!

What an amazing model, Scott! I love the Tamiya 1:12 kits, they provide so much opportunity for detailing. Looks like you took full advantage of that.

You're a heck of a builder, Dale! Another beauty from your workbench, she looks great!

Great looking Buick!

Here is my latest completion, the Revell of Germany 1977 Lancia Stratos WRC. I'm fairly confident that this is a reboxed Hasegawa kit. If you want to know all of the nitty gritty details about the build here is a link to the Workbench section:

Man, Dann, this thing is too cool! I love it!

Terry, you may already know this but you can download Google translator on your phone. I use it all of the time. Have fun with the Lambo! I’ve seen some very nice models built from this kit.

As promised, this will be my last update before posting in the Under Glass section. I want to discuss the decals and the fit of the body to the chassis in this post. I will not overdo it with multiple pictures of my in-progress decaling. As can be seen in this photo and some of the others I have already posted, the decals with the red and green are a little thicker and lay done with a definite texture to them. This is not uncommon and I've experienced it with Tamiya's decals as well. After getting her all decaled, I did something I have not done before, I clear coated the decals. I had to walk a fine line between too much and not enough clear. I did my best at striking a compromise between the two. I polished out the clear to a level that I thought was appropriate for a 1977 rally car. I then masked it off and painted the rubber trim around the windows and windshield. Another big deal for me, I airbrushed a second thing on this car!! On the rear there is a small panel that is black. I airbrushed Tamiya semi-gloss black bottle paint. It came out nice. I had just a little bit of clean up to do but considering this is only the second thing I've really airbrushed, I was super happy! But it was all going too well when a small disaster struck. All you have to do is Google a review of this kit and they almost all mention how hard it is to spread the body out far enough to get the chassis into it. I think I made 4 attempts and had something break off of the interior each time. I finally resorted to cutting the sides of the chassis down. The following picture is not staged. This is what happened when I finally got the chassis in the body but had to take it back out because another dang piece came off. Admittedly, I lost my cool a little and as it was all coming apart as I tried to take it out, I just gave it a good hard pull. Later that night. You can see where I cut the sides of the chassis down.

Thanks, Bruce! It has been a labor of love...lol.

She is coming along nicely, Chris!

Rich, I’m sorry to see this. I completely understand your trepidation about your upcoming procedure. I know it is of little comfort but it is a good thing that you appear to have a skilled physician performing your bypass. Much better that you are nervous and not him!! ?. You will be in my thoughts and prayers, Rich. I will see you at the next Pittsburgh show!

Time for another update. To start off with I will describe the whole hood decal ordeal...lol. Honestly, it was more time consuming than anything. I started by just getting the big ol' thing laid down and centered. When I had it positioned and all of the excess water and setting solutions squeegeed out I started cutting slits in the decal. If anyone has used decals with these thicker, opaque colors you know that they are a little harder to work with. The decal didn't cut in a nice straight line but rather in a more jagged fashion, (and yes, I used new surgical scalpel for this). I then took a micro brush loaded up with Tamiya's decal solution and worked each individual vent. Now don't be too alarmed at how absolutely ugly this looks right now. This picture is zoomed in a lot and a bit over exposed. What I was trying to capture was how the decal cannot cover the entire inner surfaces of the vents. You can see a lot of white area in each vent. I am generally a lazy and impatient modeler so I have to pat myself on the back a little bit. I took my time and after several attempts I was able to mix some green paint to be dead-on balls accurate match when it dried! I then took a tiny paint brush and painted the inside of each vent. I took small breaks from the hood decal madness and worked on the interior and chassis. My last update will be covering the overall quality of the decals and the nightmare that was putting the chassis and body together. Stay tuned!