mustang1989

Thanks alot Bill! Some people use paint for that. Man , I just aint that brave as I wrap up alot of time in paint on my aircraft builds and to use paints and mess it up in the final stages would mean a huge amount of work. I use dry brushed on ground up pastel for that starting with a base coat of black and white mixed together to get the dark gray base to simulate the burned paint effect. I followed that up with a light dry brushing of a light brown pastel to simulate oils that collected just outside of the exhaust pipe. Finally the exhaust staining turns slightly black, simulating soot, (using straight black ground up pastel) towards the end of the stain over the wing where the aircraft numerals are. Pastels are safe and forgiving and if I mess up or need a touch up, the repairs are always easy. The only thing is that you CANNOT spray a clear coat over them as it erases all of it.

Why thank you Wayne! Good to see you 'round these parts again brutha!

Now THAT'S a story you got there Gary. I'll be looking for the re-build of yours and thanks for the good word on mine. I'm like you and alot of others on that relaxation bit. My wife thinks I'm half crazy sometimes as I deal mostly in 48th scale builds but I've got some idle time on my hands until Jan 1st and got "the bug" to work with a car........................finally. I have a 90 Mustang LX coupe I want to build but that's going to involve alot of resin and PE parts and would take longer than the time I have right now. I just got finished with a Corsair in the "All the Rest" section and will be moving on to two Bf109 builds on the 1st of January so I've got just enough time to go a little slow and do a decent job on it. I, like you, was gone from the model building scene for a long while and found my way back to it in 2012 only this time I got in with the forums and find myself at home in them amongst "birds of a feather". Alot of folks just dont get how rewarding this hobby really is and it's nice to be able to come to places like this and converse with others who share the interest and get better at building along the way.

Lookin' forward to seeing that one Joseph!

Where do you come up with some of this stuff Ira? You have a true gift for making things out of things that most folks don't even see coming.

Thanks Jeff. It's pretty much a re-start. Got pics?

Man Mike! I hope I do as good a job on my re-build of my Challenger as you're doing here. Good going man.

I was searching around in my stash totes last night because I just knew I bought something that would help out with what I'm dong here. Yup , I found it! So this is what I started with using the 3200 grit sanding pad : and what I ended up with all the way through to the 12000 grit pad. That's more like it! A nice starting point.

I like the imagination involved in this. Talk about drawing from the creative side of one's brain here! BTW Ira you're on the roster.

Thanks Jose! Man thanks for the suggestion Wayne! Good seeing you around dude.

Cool man!! I'll get you on the build roster!

Those exterior finishes are friggin' incredible!

Come on with it Ira. We'd be glad to have you in here man.

I continued on with the decal removal this morning and spotted some runs that I hadn't ever seen in the clear coat at the door handle areas and on the lower areas of the body. I'll be smoothing all of this out as I go. and finally, decals are removed............and ALOT of sanding and clean up to go.

That came out really well Bill!

Thanks Glenn! Thank you too James! Dude this thing ended up in the friggin trash can twice and was headed to Ebay for a Tamiya kit both times. I simply found myself too vested in this kit to quit!

I tried to build the Dauntless version.....................................I'll stick with the plastic ones. lol

You have a good point , the -4's do look good.

The molds on these kits date back to 1963.Looks like your seams in front of the windscreen turned out ALOT better than mine did initially. I sanded away so much detail during the build that I had to apply dots of super glue from the point of a toothpick to "re-rivet" the top of the whole nose and I had to use stretched sprue to replace panel lines sanded away. Yup its an early kit as those were molded in blue. God bless you for tackling one of these over again! Try a Tamiya. Those are supposed to be a COMPLETE dream to build.

and it all starts.........................

Thanks Lee!

'Preciate it Snake! I had SEVERE fit issues with the glass too. I ended up dipping both glass sections in future and then after drying I glued them in with Testors Clear parts glue and then filled the gaps with the same glue. Surprisingly it came out ok. The next one's gonna HAVE to be a Tamiya 1/48 D model for sure! lol

Go for it Ray!

I'm game!

Thanks Mike! On this build I got lucky because the glass pieces are two separate parts with the painted windscreen brace being molded in (see pic below). I usually use BMF myself unless I can find a pre-cut mask set (which I can find for most anything but these old Monogram kits). I'll add that if any paint comes off, the airbrush takes care of that and then you can blend the paint in with either a similar shade of ground up pastel dry brushed on or cover it up with a little weathering like a wash.