Olle F

Absolutely. IMO, there are many cars that simply can't look any better than the way they came from the factory, but if you want to try anyway, why not? You can always hide it or recycle it for parts if it ends up being too hideous. Or you can show it to people just to upset them.

Ok, it might not be as bad as I thought then. I know that you can peel it off by just scraping with a toothpick, your fingernail etc, but I was afraid of damaging the chrome. I might just soak it in hot water for a while, and then scrape it off.

I made a terrible mistake when I was assembling some chrome parts with Kristal Klear, and didn't realize it until the glue was completely dry. I need to disassemble and clean the parts so I'm wondering if it's as simple as soaking the whole assembly in water, or is there more to it? They say that it's waterproof when dry, but I don't want to damage the chrome with any chemicals so I'm hoping there's a safe solution for this.

Thanks guys, I sure appreciate all the kind comments! Now if you could just keep your fingers crossed for me, I'm thinking about using those photoetched windshield wipers I bought many years ago and never was able to figure out how to assemble. It shouldn't take any longer than a few months though...

Try Lowes or Home Depot, they have portable air tanks and all the fittings you need. I believe that some auto parts stores and Co-ops carry these as well. Not sure if they come as small as 1 or 2 gal though. Home Depot #KT110003AV is an 11 gal tank, but it should work well for what you want to do. There are also kits that you can use to convert propane bottles into air tanks. Last place I saw them was at Walmart, and I think it was like $10 or so.

It did slow down quite a bit after the "facelift", but now it seems to be slower than ever. I guess it's a server problem, all other web sites seem to work just fine.

Almost there... Just some detail painting on the emblems, an air filter plus some odds and ends, then it will finally be done: [/

Go to an auto parts store, they usually have fine wet-or-dry paper. I think Walmart has it too. And recommended grit... well, that will depend on what you want to use it for. If you are talking about polishing paint, you're probably better off ordering a Micro Mesh kit.

Thanks for the detailed description! I'm thinking about building a weathered Corvette gasser, and that would be a great way to simulate the cracks you see in old fiberglass bodies. You could even use thin copper wire to make the cracks thinner on a 1:25 car... the gears are turning now...

Looks great, I like the weathered look way better than any mirror-smooth show finish! BTW: How did you do those spider web cracks on the T-Bird?

That's way cool! I'm trying to wrap up a '65 Impala coupe right now, but this makes me tempted to start a station wagon conversion right away.

I say unreal...

More pictures....

Try some kind of cooking oil (Canola, olive oil etc). It works on a lot of the adhesives you find on tapes and stickers. I discovered this by mistake when I was cooking: There was a paper label on my new kitchen countertop, and I had tried a lot of different chemicals on it without success. Then I happened to leave a bottle of olive oil sitting right on the label overnight, and as bottles of olive oil tend to do, it left some olive oil on the countertop. The next day I was wiping the counter clean, and the label came right off.

I tend to get stuck on details like that too, but I have come to the conclusion that it's better to improvise and go on than letting the kit sit half built forever. I do what I can to get it right where possible, and try to do the rest in a way that looks "convincing enough". After all, there's usually only a precious few that know exactly what a particular car is supposed to look like, so who's gonna tell?

Has never happened to me... never ever. And I have never polished through the paint in my quest for the perfect finish either...

You should definitely not throw the airbrush away, this sounds like a freak occurence and shouldn't have anything to do with the airbrush itself. I would probably be just as frustrated as you are right now, but just take a step back, and breathe slowly.... I'm still not sure about what's happening so I'm just guessing, but there could be something wrong with the can and/or the way you used it. The propellant will cool off as it exits the bottle and expands (like any other compressed gas will), so maybe you just happened to get more pressure and gas flow than it could take without freezing. First of all, I would try to use it without heating the bottle and with the valve half closed, to minimize the gas flow. If you can get the propellant to flow without freezing, pour some paint thinner in the jar and try to spray. Again, I'm just guessing but it sure sounds like the gas flow happened to be too high, either from the heated bottle, the valve being turned down too far, or a combination of both.

That's strange... Granted, I haven't used propellant in many years but have never seen or heard of that happening. Even if you hate the airbrush right now, I can almost guarantee that once you get it to work you will like it better than rattle cans. As Anthony said, get a compressor. It won't give you any grief and you can get a decent one for the price of 10-15 cans of propellant. And once you have a compressor, you'll find that it's useful for many other things around the house.

Did you have the can of propellant standing straight up? I'm not 100% sure, but I would think that it can do what you describe if it's laying down.

I usually check all the parts in the box to see what I need to replace, modify or scratch build to make it look right. Then I clean up, dry fit and adjust the major parts as needed, to make sure that I don't have to carv on a freshly painted body or chassis later to make it fit. I usually start the build itself by gluing together engine, rear axle and other assemblies to give them time dry for a while before I prep them for paint. Prepping small parts is so incredibly boring that I want to get it out of the way asap, so one thing I try to do is to cut all the small parts off the sprue, clean them up and bag them according to color. I usually air brush most parts, so by sorting and bagging them I can usually avoid a lot of the clean-up you would have to do by using the same paint several times over. The rest will be done in my usual random fashion...

Slowly but surely... I was planning to have this one finished for the show in Cookeville, but I had to work out of town for a while so it didn't happen. Well, at least I have got a few more things done, and they say that there will be a show next year as well... Added some more detail to the engine, such as radiator hoses, ignition coil and some other miscellaneous parts. Fortunately, the air filter will cover just about everything on the intake manifold, so I can skip details like gas linkage, return springs etc. without feeling too bad about it: The firewall is just about done, just need to add the previously discussed "mystery can" and a brake line from the master cylinder, and that should hopefully be it: The chassis is straight out of the box, just painted and assembled. There are still a few parts missing, but it's just about done:

I have a bottle of BMF polish at home, so I'll definitely try it. I usually tend to stick to what works for me, but it never hurts to try to new materials and methods. And speaking of chemical softening: I bet many of us already know this, but regular car waxes and polishes can cause disasters when used on enamels so any tips on products that are safe to use are apppreciated. One thing I like about "The Treatment" is that it's an effective polish but still doesn't seem to affect the paint at all. It will just polish and treat the paint to a nice sheen, with little effort. As a matter of fact, I have even used it on paint that wasn't fully cured, and it still worked great. Another thing I like is that it's a paste, so even a small dab will go a long way.

IMO, lacquer thinner is the only way to go with enamels. Not only does it dry quicker, it also seems to adhere much better. I'm usually very careful when I pull masking tape, apply BMF and so on, but knock on wood, I have never had any paint come loose when using the enamel/lacquer thinner combo. I haven't tried the BMF polish though, I use "The Treatment" which I believe is a fine polish and carnauba wax in one. Whatever it is, it works great on enamels and is also a good product to use when you polish styrene windows.

I work in the basement/garage, which has a concrete floor that I painted white just because it's (in theory anyway) is much easier to spot the parts you drop on it. Still, I dropped a valve cover for my Chrysler 300c on the floor about a year ago, and was never able to find it again. You wouldn't think that a tiny plastic part that falls about 2 feet would have enough kinetic energy to bounce right into the twilight zone, but this one seems to have done just that. I also lost a whole bag of Evergreen styrene strips several months ago, and I still don't know where it is... I have lost so many parts through the years that I have developed a system that's almost fool proof. Every time I cut something off the sprue, I put it in a small ziploc bag (like the small, jewelry kind baggies you can find in the hobby stores) and put it in the box. If I'm working on the parts, I drill a small hole in them and stick a pin in them, or super glue them to a piece of sprue to create a "handle". If the parts are too small to do that (lenses, PE parts etc), I simply put them on a piece of tape. It still happens that parts manage to escape though, but I guess that's just an inevitable part of a modeler's life.

Was it this '58? It's just a box, but it seems like it's for a 1:25 kit: http://cgi.ebay.com/1958-58-STUDEBAKER-GOL...1QQcmdZViewItem