jbwelda

I am in line for one and can't wait! and if it shows up anytime in the next three weeks it will be delivered exactly when promised! jb

thanks! that would even pass the wife test! jb

I don't know how you might feel about this but I would suggest you bring this to the attention of the rock and roll museum in Cleveland or wherever it is. they would be wanting to display or buy this so bad... most excellent build I think I have ever seen. fantastic. though that figure looks like Janis probably wished she looked. jb

how do they actually mount to the wall? thanks for the tip! jb

I think its pretty kool looking. kind of reminds me of a Cadillac Eldorado somehow there in the front. and know what? I think visibility is just fine or it wouldn't be on the track, not from Nissan. the look of 10 years from now, now. jb

fantastic frame building, and great engine too. I vote for the stacks slanted upward, looks wicked. I would try to do something similar with the exhaust system jb

dude that interior is genius! rest of it is right up there too! but now I got to go find some spoons! jb

and then Dirty (Dapper) Doug would come over and do the demo in person every once in a while. spot on with the recorder, perfect build in for demo and display music! jb

black happens to be pretty much the most difficult color to do, shows up every imperfection of the body (and in the 1:1 world, looks like it hasn't been washed in a week when it was just washed yesterday). it is really difficult to get to look good. an airbrush will definitely make things easier but you will have to learn that as well, so maybe you should rethink your color and concentrate on one hard thing at a time. or, you could shoot some coats of a light color as a base for the black and get some practice in on that before tackling the main color. on the other hand, as you probably already know, a beautiful smooth deep gloss black finish makes any car look like a million bucks. one other thing you might consider is buying some Tamiya Black paint in a spray can. if you are going to try black, this is a relatively easy source of good paint. follow it with some gloss clear. what I really mean is don't be disappointed if you can't get it to look how you want, you've picked a real challenge! jb

thanks folks, note that I am showing the left side and not the right side! Steve, not positive as to what you are referring to but the chassis came chromed, but with a lot of parting lines and sink marks and the chrome itself was kind of uneven. what you see is a quick attempt to clean up the chassis but then not being replated but instead touched up with Testors Chrome silver paint and a silver sharpie. that's probably why it looks uneven. also the chassis consists of side pieces, rear pieces and front pieces, and the sides are canted strangely and fairly difficult to get put together halfway straight. so what I did was mock it up with white glue and then when it looked good I went back with 5 minute epoxy at the joints. that leaves a lump of resin to be sanded flat and of course that means removing chrome adjacent to it. which in turns means one more touch up. note that the ref book I have said the chassis on the real thing was flat black not chrome. next time (if there is one) I pledge to strip the chassis of chrome, get rid of all the lines and sink marks, really get it lined up well somehow before committing to glue (its not bad here but not perfect either, and the left front wheel would be about 1/16 off the ground as a result of the misalignment except that I made all four sit on the ground through a kludge), and then I would paint it either flat black or some kind of graphite metallic over silver paint. it would look good rechromed at that point but I am unsure if you can send an assembled frame into the chrome tank and expect the epoxy to hold. it would not be good enough to get the pieces back freshly chromed only to have to touch it up in actual assembly. let me know if that answers your question and again thanks everyone for taking a look. I did cut out the area of the rear floor over the engine and that looks really much better now, but the body still kinda tilts around and doesn't sit as low as I want it to. I am probably, like most of us, my own worst critic. jb

use Tamiya clear, ignore advice not to use it. test first but I am near 100% confident you will not have a problem, at all. what you see there is testors at work. jb

pretty sure not unless maybe some resin caster was offering one. jb

look for parts lots on ebay. jb

maybe there is more to that car in person but from the pictures all it looks like to me is another rich man over billeted over done tasteless waste of money. and that paint job sucks. beautiful roadsters just aren't what they used to be evidently. jb

jb

this is all kind of comical. the theme (one of two) of the show is not "Bonneville Cars" as originally posted, it is, and i am quoting from the website http://www.nnlwest.org/nnlwest.html, "Land Speed Record Cars" (well, not exactly quoting but rather gleaning from the poster there for the event, otherwise the site is pretty disorganized and mangled and i don't even really see any real mention of theme in the text, when i look beyond the late 90s quotes from magazines and other forms of hysteric oops sorry historic self-promotion). Land Speed Record cars may never have ran at Bonneville Speedway, nor are "Bonneville Cars" (cars that have run at Bonneville Speedway) necessarily in the running for any land speed records. what i am expecting to see is a bunch of otherwise non-LSR cars with Parks or otherwise spun aluminum disks on two or more wheels. because no one actually lays out what they mean by "Land Speed Record" cars. so it will be interesting to see what gets put on the theme table this year. i am hoping to see, amongst the 53 studes and 32 fords, with aluminum wheel covers of course, some scratch built belly tankers and some actual LSR cars like perhaps the Mormon Meteor or some Campbell cars, and even a green monster jet or two. jb

probably not, at least not in my experience. might want to test of course but if you need the future off youre not going to have many other choices jb

maybe i am remembering wrong then, because i seem to remember the detail being pretty soft, but i could just be totally spoiled by typical Tamiya quality and level of detail. i have never gotten another of that kit but i think i do still have that project around somewhere. i should dig it up and revive it. .... nah. i will wait for Tim's comparison! what i hope is that this signals a move on Tamiya's part to start issuing new tool vintage sports cars. that kind of stuff i don't mind busting loose with 60$ or so if the level of detail is right. jb

to me, from memory of the real car, it looks kinda stumpy somehow. maybe its that it might be too far off the ground but to my untrained eye either the door is too short, or the panel behind the door is too short, for overall effect of roof looking too short. or maybe its too short in the trunk. maybe its the photos too, but they all seem to be consistent in that look. i have always liked that first gen GTO, far more than what came after jb

i still have some "Model Cars" sponsor decals so maybe we can build competing cars, Austin! jb

Well i am about done with this although i am not happy with it. for one thing i messed up the paint on the right side thanks to overambitious application of clear coat. for another the body does not fit on the chassis correctly, the interior fouls on something keeping it tippy and not sitting down flat and straight. part of that is my fault (well probably all of it is my fault) because i trimmed the rear strut supports to get the body down and then had to relieve the sides of the interior bucket to fit in between the rear slicks. all that done the body is still unsteady so i just now took the interior out and cut out the little window through which you can view the front of the engine, cut it out so the entire engine is exposed in the interior (looks nicer that way, can see more engine detail without lifting off the body) so i will reassemble the car later this evening and see if the result is any nicer. look for improved photos in the Under Glass section when i get done but i doubt i will post anything if it doesn't improve substantially from what you see here. another problem: bubble top fit fine before mounting interior but now stick up a bit in front. think i will leave it as is...also the rear trunk panel will fit flush with the body but then is quite difficult to get open. this thing won't really go anywhere but my display case with the other Roth cars but one day i want to do this again and strip the chassis, remove all the parting lines and sink marks and get it truly straight, then modify the interior even more to fit over the engine better. the car really does look best low and down on the chassis which this one is not at the moment. plus the paint needs to be improved and the chassis itself, according to the book i have, shouldn't be chrome anyhow, the real one was flat black which would work a whole lot better. oh well, better luck next time. thanks again for looking and any comments! jb

> long as you sand the body overall , you can sand metallics , pearls not the way i understand it; from what i know sanding on the metallic or pearl will kill its reflective properties and leave them looking like cheap metallic instead of glamour finishes. the only thing i can see with your advice is that if you sand the entire body (in metallic or pearl paint) at least it will be uniformly dull. ive found the luster somewhat comes back with a clear coat, but never really to the original as-laid-down paint did jb

i will be needing one of these as well. jb

"The model you can actually STEER!" Q: why would you want to? jb

compare this to the ancient AMT offering? ha. i am weighing in heavily on the side of modern Tamiya, and i remember building that AMT mess. never did finish it, after all my (pre being half serious again) building efforts, the body was warped, the glass didn't even sort of fit, and the warp was so severe i ruined the body trying to correct it. that had to be back in the seventies. i think i still have that junk around here somewhere. very very excited to see Tamiya get into this one. what can be next? jb