jbwelda

thanks for outlineing exactly why brick and mortar places are disappearing and the internet is thriving. oh and the brick and mortar places are blaming "the economy" for their failure. now i dont mean you specifically because i have never met or dealt with you, but attitudes like you express in your original post just make me turn around and walk out never to return. i know you dont care and thats the problem. i can deal with uncaring personnel over the internet much easier and for far less money. so...dont forget there are three sides to every story. by the way: i have never and hopefully will never have to deal with the public in any job i have ever held. i dont have the disposition to deal with the situations you outline in a diplomatic way most of the time. luckily for the customer, there are plenty of places willing to get your money and also luckily for the customer, money speaks much louder than some wize comments about you after you have left the store. that said, i learned a long time ago that you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar. question is...why do bees want honey? maybe its flies you catch! but i digress...the point is, the customer may not always be right but it behooves any retail store to make them think they are.

thanks for the replies, let me address a couple of the questions: the wood grain, like i said i just faked it with sheet plastic, a dremel, a couple drinks and a few woody-colored brush painted colors. then i sanded down through the layers of paint a bit to reveal the different shades, followed up by a wash of detailer black and that was pretty much it. the kart was originally with AMT 63 ford f-100 extremely rare and expensive kit nowadays but Replicas and Miniatures of Maryland to the rescue with a resin repop of it. cost about 30 or 35 $ but well worth it. the shell is beginning to warp just a bit but that is probably because i didnt really pay much attention to the instrux that mentioned one should be careful to paint even coats on the inside and outside or it might warp. as it is if the shell were glued together it still fits nicely but of course then you cannot see the detail of the kart itself. i am looking for a real plastic shell and if i find one i might replace the resin one with it and hopefully make it sit together a bit better.

a bit of a diversion here, cause as we all know, monkey see, monkee doo, and i just couldnt resist trying the trailer from the Revell Midget kits and using it to support my already built reps and mins of maryland resin go kart. it looked like such a perfect match that i just had to do one! if the way this trailer goes together is any indication of what to expect from the main attraction, the midget, then i am in for a treat when i do one of those. this trailer looks nice, was a bit fiddley but basically fell together. as usual, i did have my own personal challenges, like i tried using some ancient (really...i think the date on it was 1992) matte finish bare metal foil and it would not stick at all. closer examination revealed why: there was basically no adhesive. so the center section is still prone to lift off the surface but the diamond plate image has been embossed into it so thats not a problem, i will slip some elmers in there one of these days and that should hold it down. the side sections that the wheels roll on are done with detail master foil i had around and it worked great though i liked the thickness of the real BMF better. the detail master stuff is very thin and curls when you take it off the backing if youre not careful but at least it stuck! anyway heres some pics and if you got some extra time and a subject to use on it, these trailers are a refreshing break from getting bogged down in detail and they look great when done. thanks for looking and any comments questions or criticisms are welcome! i made a "wood" floor for what is missing from the kit itself which is wide open in this area. i just took a piece of sheet plastic, scored it to resemble cracks between planks, drilled some nail holes, then ran my dremel with a small bit up and down a bit. a bit too much actually and i should have been more disciplined about what i was carving but it is what it is at this point. i layered a few coats of dark woody kinda paint and then sanded down through it and washed it with black. took longer to explain than it did to actually do it! i also modified what are in the kit wheel bump bars that wrap around the midgets front wheel when its fully on the trailer. didnt want that with the wide body of the kart so i fabbed a short rail extension with plastic strip and it worked great. any imperfections i lay to the welding job. here is a shot looking up the ramps. tailights, license plate and holder are all out of the box: loaded up, you can see the trailer almost seems made for the kart or vice versa: one more this time all packed up with the ramps up and secured by little rods one other thing i forgot to mention: i shot this all with my airbrush, really my first attempt to cover something of some size. turned out very nice if i may say so myself, even though it is just a flat surface and therefore much easier to achieve than a typical auto finish. but i got it on even, flat, and light, just what i was trying to do. and the airbrush let me get right down into corners and stuff!

alright Curt, looking forward to seeing more of this build!

hey Curt, drop me a pm and i will get you the parts you need from the fujimi 356 kit; i bought up a bunch of the testor reboxes cheap some time ago so i got lots to pirate parts from. i am thinking that nothing but the quad cam is gonna be right in that car plus whatever else you need. nice build, i want to see it done!

> but I know enough to not use a can when it comes to tamiya, you are incorrect.

i am just now getting an idea of what i can do with an A/B. i just shot the frame to a 1/25 scale motorcycle and it was total fun and turned out very nice. it was great to be able to go up and down little tubes like this is and lay down a nice gloss but thin coat of paint. versus a spray can where you would just have to stand back and hope for the best and get way too much paint on it trying to get into those little corners. and i have done a couple of minor spray jobs with the A/B so far and they have turned out well. most have been dull tone finishes so thats easy but a couple of attempts at spraying testors gloss colors have come out pretty impressive as well. that said, tamiya spray cans really do make a nice comparison to the A/B, their nozzle is the exact opposite of the testors described above. so i think i will never really give them up for the brush. a tool for every job and all that. but to get right into corners and tight spots and not flood them with paint is a very nice feeling.

>there are a number of Tamiya kits on Tower Hobbies for under $20 theres some truth.

edit: duh maybe if i had googled it i would have had a clue! sorry! i really love those rods too, now thats diecast modifications worth note!

oh no! i too was watching this from the shadows and hoping to see it done. a friend of mine had a DS21 that we used to impress the ghetto kids with when it went to its knees and stuff. and the deep gloss black with red roof didnt hurt any either. but back to this 19, doesnt that one posted by Steve Abbott get your blood going? cmon man! (thats from someone who takes 3 years with relatively simple builds mind you).

ok i got (and remain) a bit distracted here but i sat down last night and began prepping some parts for paint. heres a quick snap to keep everyones interest. motor halves are together and smoothed, side covers are just on there temporarily before they are painted chrome (vs a more muted metal finish for the case etc). wheels are together and fitted to tires; i made the rear wheel appear to be double spoked for strength and i still need to narrow the rim just a bit to make the tires look right. tank halves went together well and actually fit together pretty nicely. below you see the frame that i am going to clean up and hopefully get into gloss black later this evening. many thanks for looking! hopefully next time i will have more content to share!

very slick and killer looking! i love that chassis too...note they misspelled "safety" on the upper frame area.

yah ditto on what Harry said. but usually i do it after i finish the car!

thats a kool looking body with the air intake and fender flares and stuff. i cant remember if it was a gunze or a tamiya i built, but it went together pretty well as a recall.

plus a can of krylon goes a whole lot further than a can of tamiya. but personally, im with you, make it tamiya. if you cant get it at the LHS, i would get it from an internet site.

oops, sorry not that one, our UK bredren might recognize that guy, but try this one:

the weather isnt going to be much more humid than in wyoming. vandenberg is pretty close to desert country isnt it? probably drier out there than in wyoming, especially in the winter. but at least its warm there pretty much year round, again at least in comparison to wyoming. its perfect model building weather i think, especially as it has to do with paint drying.

and so am i implying correctly when i think that means the revell rebox is going to be the improved version? but probably not furthered improved?

any chance you put it on too thick too fast? krylon did seem to change their formula or something a while ago (few years or so) and then it started crazing the plastic for me anyway. so you could strip it but underneath the plastic was still patterned from the paint. pretty much messed up the body. but i only noticed it when i over applied it.

alright a little progress to report...the interior, such as it is, is complete. no heroics though i did make a four-piece polished aluminum steering column just cuz the kit one looked so poor. there isnt much there and its all black so a bit difficult to see. steering wheel, gauge cluster with integral brake and clutch pedals (looks totally unrealistic but its hard to see anyhow), long shift lever and non-descript shift knob, a little gas pedal, and thats all there is folks! i did flock the floorboard but again its gonna be kinda hard to tell even with the more than adequate greenhouse of the body. and speaking of the body, its getting pretty smooth now, molded the lower fairings in and cleaned up the seams. still another round to go but then it should be ready for paint. yellow. my first real airbrush full on paint job. this is gonna be interesting...perhaps i will chicken out and stick with tamiya chrome yellow outta the buzzcan. comments, suggestions, questions always cheerfully entertained!

great minds think alike...see post #133!

yeah i always dug that motor and the induction set up myself; i was thinking about using it in something one of these days. i have one each of the AM kits and maybe even a double also, but if they are going to be selling for 20$, i am going to have to get at least another just for parts. it was always obvious the model car sat high because its prototype did. i much prefer it lowered and probably slammed lowered. not sure how easy that would be without taking obvious and unacceptable liberties with the wheel to axle mount (off centering the axle on the wheel to lower it...cheap easy and not really very esthetically pleasing to my eye). but that faired out body would look great in the weeds.

heres an offbeat kind of suggestion. try a Rover/MG/Morgan V8, it was built under license from GM and resembles a nailhead though technically i am not sure they *are* a "nailhead". the most prominent feature i think of with a nailhead is the valve covers standing straight up from the heads and thats how this motor is set up. i believe either mini exotics or southeast finecast sells these in a white metal kit: as you can see, it lineage can be traced back to the buick nailhead style motor. take off that SU carbeurator rig and replace it with hilborn injection or tri power or something and it would look pretty sweet. edit: the more i look at that last photo the more i realize the valve covers arent really sitting how they should. its not apparent in real life but that photo shows it more than it should. anyway suffice to say you CAN make it look right even if i did not!

ron, thats a great build of that reps and mins of maryland resin kit. i did one myself; very similar, yellow like yours. but then i saw that trailer and when you mentioned it was from the midget kits, i just went YEAH and monkey see monkee do...had to go pirate one from one of my midget kits. i notice something though that i just noticed on your trailer: you added diamond plate at the very rear of it to cover that big open spot that the midgets fit over but the kart doesnt...i made a floorboard of plastic to look like planks of wood for mine. great idea and thanks for sharing. that kart is really great looking! i take it you made the exhaust pipe? they look better aligned than they did when you used the kit pieces:

not much chance a mag to me is gonna get "bunched" then, all the more reason for individual plastic bags. but thats hitting that one too often, i fear. anyway gregg dont get the idea that i am criticizing you. i know you put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the mag and we all appreciate your efforts. believe me, if i didnt care i wouldnt be here and i can see its the same with you. i think we all respect that and i know i do.