Olle F

Some superglue types seem to be a bit slow to cure, up to a minute for some. Actually, I don't know if it's the type of glue or a matter of how old it is, but I have a few bottles with CA that are much slower than others, and IMO that's easier to work with as it gives you a few seconds to adjust the part and make sure that it is in the right place and position. Then I spray some accelerator on it, and it bonds instantly. You shouldn't have any bonding problems if you use accelerator, CA glues seems to stick extremely well to anything around it... for better and for worse. And I have never had any problems with liquid glue (like Tenax) either. I sand the surfaces to fit as nicely as possible, hold it in place with tape, rubber bands, my fingers or whatever is most convenient, then I brush it on the seam and let capillary action take care of the rest. However, it's important to know that most of the thin liquid glues are not really adhesives. They are solvents that dissolve the material and fuse it together. This is why they, unlike traditional adhesives, only work on on the material they are intended for. If the glue can't dissolve the material you're trying to glue (for example resin or plated parts), you'll never get it to bond.

I like all the smileys, it's very helpful for us who suffer from severe mood swings. I actually don't care much if the site looks good or not as long as it's easy to read, and this one seems to be very easy on my eyes. There's one thing I miss though: A check mark on the threads you have posted in. Is that something that you can add/turn on in this new format?

A touch-up gun might work, but I'd say that an airbrush will work much better. It will use less paint, reduce the overspray, and will also atomize the paint better. It might also be difficult to spray small items like 1:25 body parts without blowing them away with the higher pressure and air flow that's required for a touch-up gun. And once you start using an airbrush, you'll find that you'll get much better finishes on everything by spraying, so you might end up like me and spray paint just about everything. You can use the compressor you have, just turn down the pressure and you'll be fine. I run my Badger 200 off of a 6 hp Craftsman compressor, with the pressure set at about 40-45 psi. I use enamels, but laquers or catalyzed car paints will be easier to polish. I have used a Micro-Mesh polishing kit for years with good results, it contains polishing cloths in different grits down to 12,000 and requires minimal polishing after the final sanding. The cloths are reusable, and will last forever if you use plenty of water when sanding. There are many polishes to chose from, but I use "The Treatment" wax/polish for the final polish as it won't attack the enamel. If you use car paint, you should be able to use any car polish.

I just started using Tamiya's epoxy putty sticks and I'm very pleased with it so far. I guess this is basically the same thing as Milliput, it's very similar anyway. It's easy to mix (1+1 ratio makes for a consistent quality every time), and sets up pretty quickly but still gives you plenty of time to work it. It seems to be about the same hardness as styrene, and it sands great. It's a bit difficult to feather, so it might not be the best thing to use for small repairs, unless you like to sand a lot.

Outstanding! 8) Almost made me rethink the color I picked for my '65 Impala project...

I polished the body last weekend, and today I have been sitting on the deck, drinking ice tea and applying the BMF. IMO, polish and BMF are the most tedious parts of any build, so it's a great relief to have that done. BTW: I was really happy to see how the paint turned out in the sunlight, the color was quite different from what it looked like while I was working on it in the hobby room... I definitely have to get those "daylight" fluorescent tubes and improve the overall lighting over my workbench. :roll:

The few license tags I have printed were from large images, and scaled down by changing the printer settings instead of the image size. You'll probably have to try a few different settings before you get the right size, but it's not difficult to do. If you have a good quality printer, you shouldn't lose any detail.

I have used them on some race cars, and they work great. Where I had to use several of them to write something (like driver's name and such), I found it easier to get them on straight if I put them on clear decal film and then transfered the whole thing to the model. I used Testors clearcoat over mine without problems, but I haven't tried Future.

I think the question would be: Would anyone even dare to push it? :mrgreen:

I think Jason was saying that gloves is a requirement, but yes, you do have to be careful with any chemicals. The fact that you have done something for XX years without problems doesn't mean that it's safe. BTW: I used to paint motorcycles back in the '70s and '80's and was never really careful with all the paint and thinners I was using. The custom paints I used to do kinda required an altered state of mind anyway, so many times I sprayed away without even using a respirator. Afterwhile, it seemed like I developed a sensitivity to paint thinners, so nowadays I can't handle the stuff without getting bad headaches. Who knows what else it did to me, so I am very careful with all chemicals I use.

I have opened doors and trunks by scribing with the back of an X-acto knife, but due tho the thickness of the blade you can end up with a door gap that is a bit too large. Straight lines are not all that bad, but curved sections can be a bit trickier. I have solved that by simply gluing in thin strips of Evergreen to close the gaps, but some people use two bodies, cut the openings in one body and cut the doors from the other body. That way you can get any gap you want without having to fill. Another method, which I haven't tried yet, is to rub your way through with a nylon string. I saw a thread about this a while ago, but haven't been able to find it again. Any way you do it will be tedious, but not all that difficult. As far as the door hinges go, there are several aspects of "realistic": They can look like real car hinges, and/or they can pivot like real car hinges. To get a 100% realistic look, you'll also have to build realistic door jambs, so this can get just as involved as you want it to be. IMO, this is probably one of the more frustrating things you can get into, and I'd say that it takes both skills, patience and an extensive vocabulary to pull it off. Here's a very good thread by Mr Obsessive that shows how it can be done: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3269 Trunks are a bit easier, but still require a lot of work. Here is an old picture of a '61 Impala where I opened up the trunk, thinned down the edges of the trunk lid and added bracing, built a drip rail, non-working hinges etc. This is one of many projects that rest in their boxes because they got more involved than I planned to begin with... :roll:

You might not have to install new software, it should be possible to just change the print size without changing the image size. For example, in MS Paint you can go to "file/print", then go to the printer setup and see if it has an option for scaling the picture. The menu where you do this should be called "page setup", "page layout" or something similar. The options in the menu will depend on the printer software and in my experience, the default settings will most often be "fit to page" or "100%". The print preview should tell you how the preferences are set in your computer. What you need to find is a place where you can set the print size by a percentage, this should allow you to print any picture in any size you prefer. In short: You keep the original picture size, and just adjust the output from the printer.

I agree, I can't see any salvation for that paint, it has to come off. I'm sorry, but this is something we all go through at some point in life. Look at it as a modeler's initiation rite. :roll: :wink:

Well, that's one way of looking at it... If anyone comments on a sloppy decal job I can always say: "Everybody knows that it is supposed to be that way, I bet you have never seen a real '65 Impala, have you???" Well, I would still like to fix it, as I suspect that this problem could be due to bad adhesive. I would hate for the decals to fall off later when it's impossible to get them back on again, but getting them smoothed out plus a coat of clear should keep them in place. And thanks for the kind comment! BTW: A friend of mine was trying to build an old NASCAR racer as detailed and realistic as he possibly could, and one detail he picked up from an old photo was that the large decals that ran over the side trim seemed to be just slapped on and cut the corners a bit, i.e. they were not perfectly snug around the trim. He was very proud of having this realistic detail on his model, but the first comment he heard when he entered it in a show was: "Use setting solution next time, it would make the decals look much better"... :mrgreen:

Thanks! I have been thinking about doing something like what you're talking about, but have been burned several times while trying moves like that so I'm a little bit reluctant. With my luck, I'll get fingerprints everywhere and end up with the decal stuck to the toothpick instead of the valve cover. :? But if no one has any solutions that would be safer for a clumsy guy like me, I'll certainly give it a try. I can always touch it up and give it another coat of clear if I make a mess. I'm kinda used to that, so this will be just another day in the office for me.

I haven't done many windows like this, but I have had slighly wavy edges on some of them. I will definitely try to get the edges as smooth as possible, but sometimes you won't notice until the glue is dry and then you'll have a major (at least in my eyes) problem to correct. I was thinking it would be safer to take the fool proof route by using a thicker material and just ignore the minor gaps that may occur, rather than ending up with waves in a window that's already glued to the body. But I have seen the glass you and Mark have installed, and that's proof enough that your methods work. I just have to get there... can't... let... model... win... :mrgreen:

You know, there are a lot of things I would be willing to pay for, instead of going through this endless pursuit of the right materials that should have been in the kit to begin with. But I guess this is wishful thinking. :wink:

I did get Evergreen clear styrene a while ago but it looked terrible, to say the least. Maybe I happened to get a bad batch, but it had a slightly frosted look to it, plus some strange looking scratches, almost like stretch marks. It could possibly be polished, but it turned me off so badly that I want to go with something else. I'll ask about the other stuff you mentioned though, my hobby store is good at ordering odds and ends like that. That's another thing I'll look into, and I saw that it comes in .016 too. Have you had any problems with wavy edges using this material? I'm having a probelm getting a nice, continuous bow if the material is too thin, so I would like to go with a fairly thick material to minimize this. There are no compound curves on what I'm building right now, so it will work as long as it bends nicely one way.

Some more progress: The battery was nice, but wasn't very detailed so I tried to make it more realistic by adding the hold-down bracket. It was quite frustrating to handle all the itty-bitty pieces of Evergreen and metal wire, but it turned out pretty good. The only fly in the ointment was that the edges of the decal curled up a bit. Any suggestions for how to fix this will be greatly appreciated! The front end, painted and with some some Model Doctor bolts added just to detail it a bit. It looked pretty good out of the box, except for the fact that the parts were badly warped. Had to bend and cuss quite a bit to get it together, but there's still a gap between the upper and lower half of the crossmember. Fortunately, I'm not detailing the chassis, so it won't matter all that much. I was thinking about using a semi-gloss finish on the upper control arms to resemble the dip painted finish on the original parts, but I think duller finishes look better in an engine compartment so I'll probably leave it as it is. Engine, ready for detailing. The only mod so far is the photoetched oil filler cap, as the cap that was molded in was way too flat. The paint turned out to glossy, so I'll dry spray some clear on it later to bring down the sheen. And the "Tonawanda" decal curled up a bit too, so again: Please let me know how to fix this! And finally a detail that caused some sleepless nights... The inner fender edges usually look a bit naked on models, on the original cars there's some bracing between the outer and the inner fender. This is almost always missing on models. I have never really cared as it's a lot of work to fix, but this time I decided to bite the bullet and do something. I looked at reference pictures and under the hood of my 1:1 Chevelle, and found out that the inner fenders sit much higher on the model than on a real car. Instead of doing major surgery to correct this, I decided to cheat and simplify the design a bit. IMO, it could definitely have been better, but it beats nothing at all. I have spent a lot of time under the hoods of old Chevys, so this detail is something that bugs me a bit, but I hope that the difference won't be too noticeable to others. :roll: I'm going to add screws and bolts to it later, but this is pretty much what it's gonna look like:

Yeah, they have those at Office Max and Staples, but the sheets I have found so far were too thin. I remember having some old overhead sheets that were about 2 or 3 times thicker, and they were perfect. They made a nice, smooth bow when you bent them and didn't bubble around the edges like the thinner variety tends to do. Some of them even had a nice, blueish tint, and would have been great to use as car windows. Lost them when I moved though...

Thanks for the heads-up! You can never bee too careful around chemicals, and there's enough of them in the hobby room already. I'll definitely take precautions, gotta save the liver for other occasions! :mrgreen:

I have seen all those great builds with windows that look like real glass, but so far I haven't been able to find the right material. I have tried Evergreen clear styrene, which was way too rough. I have been to Hobby Lobby looking for clear stencil sheet, but they only have it in pink, green or blue, with a frosted surface, or in a thickness that can't be used. I have been to several stores and explained what I need, and have been met with a blank stare, worthy of SpongeBob Squarepants. I have looked at the clear material you find in packages with toy cars and Christmas ornaments, but it's either too flimsy or too wavy. I have asked in flower shops, and some of them do indeed have a pretty nice material but it's either not for sale or too scratched to use. I have been looking for the material that you can find inside the collars of expensive shirts, but haven't been able to find a store here in town that sells expensive shirts. So, in short: Can anyone tell me where to buy it and what to ask for, before I start collecting stamps instead?

For some reason, I have managed to totally miss this thread. That is a great build, can't wait to see the finished product! Two thumbs up! 8)

I have been tinkering with this for a while, but it's a slow go due to a busy work schedule, house, family and all that good stuff. I hate to post progress threads as I usually don't make much progress, but maybe posting a thread will give me some incentive to finish up. Anywho, the model is a RM '65 Impala, and I have spent some time fixing their boo-boos. One of the major ones was the rear window. The molding was way too wide and thick, and the corners were too square. Here's the before and after pictures of that... As a matter of fact, I think the "before" picture was taken after I tried to round off the original molding. I have already shown the interior in another thread, but here it is again... Testors Boyd red with some weathering powder, dull clear, BMF and detail painting: Originally, I was planning on an off-white paint, but I finally decided to go with Testors "Ivory". Red is nice but gets kind of old, and I wanted something more mundane on this one. I think it will work well with the red interior. Another thing I had to fix before painting the body was to drill guide pins into the door handles and the rear view mirrors. I'm just wondering how RM had that figured, there were no indications whatsoever for where to put these. Just imagine what a nightmare it would be to try to glue them in the right place on a freshly painted and polished body... Not to mention how easy it would be to knock them off again. Have to let the body sit for a while now before I polish it, so I guess the engine is next. Got it painted yesterday, so now it's time to detail it. This is the part I enjoy the most, but I guess it will take a while. That's what I got so far, hope you'll like it.

Hmmm... The plot thickens. :mrgreen: Anyway, the kit was supposed to be a Father's Day present from my 6-year old son and after returning the kit, I couldn't find another one in any of the stores nearby. I finally ordered one from my favorite hobby store, because I know that my son will be seriously disappointed if I don't build it asap. I didn't tell him anything about what happened, I just hope that I will get the kit before he starts bugging me to build it. All because some lowlife screwed it up and returned it to the store. :roll: