Pete J.

Just an FYI Kleen strip lacquer thinner as sold in California is predominantly acetone and ethanol. The composition is spelled on the Manufacturer's Safety Data Sheet. AKA MSDS. Here is the web site for this product. http://www.kleanstrip.com/product/lacquer-thinner-for-california Click on the MSDS/Data tab and then on the SDS tab. You will see, shockingly, that this product, as sold in California can be as much as 100% Acetone! Unlikely that it is that way, but it can be. This is bears out what I have said for years. All lacquer thinners are not the same. Automotive lacquer thinners meet a much more stringent standard and will do a better job of dissolving the solids in your paint but they are also more inclined to attack plastic such as your O-rings. Not to mention a heck of a lot more expensive. If you were able to order Restoration Shop lacquer thinner(I assume that is what your got because their HQ is in San Diego) in SoCal you were very lucky. I tried not so long ago and they refused. Amazon also had a block on the sale. I had to ship it to a friend in Arizona and he shipped it back. Last time I was in Phoenix, I stopped by the PPG auto paint store and bought 2 gallons of PPG thinner. I now have 3 gallons. I will reserve these for paint thinning only and clean the airbrush with straight acetone. Living in SoCal has its issues.

Mike one piece of advise on the deals. They really do not like flat paint finishes. You tend to get "silvering" under the clear parts which can really mess up the look. That silvering is the microscopic air bubbles trapped under the decal film. Military modelers deal with it this way. They put down a gloss finish, decal the model and then overspray with clear in the gloss they want. That way, if they lay down one finish and don't like it, they can just put a coat of something else over the top.

As I mentioned, I got mine in Sterling Colorado. It is a small town in north eastern Colorado. The dealer had almost no show room and one mechanic. You put your name on the list and when one came in you could buy it or go to the back of the list. Never really liked the color of mine, but it was mine! The dealer wasn't doing the big town games because he had a much smaller customer base and needed his reputation to stay clean. He didn't charge any more than the MSRP. I was lucky to deal with him. Of course is probably didn't hurt that he was a WWII vet and I was a young second Lieutenant going to my first duty station. The military wasn't shown any love at that time in our counties history, but some still respected those who served.

Interestingly enough those are very similar to stock US wheels except they were wheel covers. Most owners swapped them out for something else because they made a weird clunking sound. Never did figure out what that was.

You are right about the LHD . My Bad. The 240z badges are already there and the only pieces that need changing are the "Datsun" hood badges and front quarter panels and the rear deck lid The center console is the same on both cars and flipping the wipers is something any builder could do. You would probably have to change the pedals as well. The dash, firewall, master cylinder, steering shaft and rack and pinion, as well as the front pieces need replacement. Still, not a huge undertaking! Perhaps they will come out with the Safari car in 1/24th as well. That would take care of the front end parts. Just an FYI, I bought mine new in July 1972 in Sterling Colorado. I got the dealer added dual rear view mirrors and rear window louvers painted in body color and the front bumper override. As I recall, it was about $2,600 out the door. One of two cars I wish I had never gotten rid of!

That is a real quality video. Thanks for posting it. In looking at the instruction sheets, I count less than 8 parts to make a RHD spec 240Z. Also the layout on the sprues look like it would not be all that difficult to do. The parts that need to change are pretty much on their own sprues. My guess is that Tamiya could pop one more sprue and get all the conversion parts. I also noticed that the metal transfers have all the right pieces already. Please! Oh, Please Tamiya!

First car I ever bought by myself was a 72 240Z. I would kill for an aftermarket set for LHD and short nose! I know it is a lot of design work, but would it be that difficult to scan the kit dash and mirror image it and 3D print it? Probably, but just an idea for all of us Z enthusiasts here in the USA.

Yea, same here! I could see the Karrmann ghia design in the rear end and Bug top on a 356 nose, but got nothing even close with any of those keywords. This was a tough one. Time for an easy one. Maybe a 69 Mustang coupe! ?

It really depends on the issues. If you have very heavy orange peel you may need a 500 grit sanding stick. If you are just knocking down a few spots the 3000 in a sanding stick is a good place to start. As one of the other members mentioned metalics and metal flakes are a different kettle of fish because of the way the metal flake settles when it goes down and drys. By sanding it, you can easily get an uneven finish. My preference is to start metal flake with several very thin almost dry coats. This gives you a consistent substrate. Then follow with a coat heavy enough that is just short of running. Metallics are clear tinted paint with flake mixed in. When you spray them, the flake drops to the lowest level so in heavy coats you have a fairly thick layer of tinted clear on top. A very light sanding to get rid of any unevenness is all you need, then a clear coat. You are doing it right with plastic spoons. Take other peoples advise (mine included) as suggestions but you have to experiment until you have a technique that works for you. I always suggest to people to have a diary for painting. Record the brand and type of paint, your thinner and the ratio you used, temperature and humidity and any thing you may have done differently and finally the result. Paint is not really a black art as some will suggest. It is chemistry and baking combined. If you do the same thing under the same conditions every time, you will get the same results. Mike is dead on! I am referring to using acrylic lacquers such as Tamiya or automotive lacquers. Frankly, I never use water based paints (except two part paint you get at the auto paint store) because they are not very robust. Many will not adhere well to plastic and are hard to sand without making a mess of them.

I wrote an article on painting for the Tamiya website many years ago, unfortunately it is no longer there. Here is my brief explanation that may help you. Clear hides nothing. Clear can give you a perfectly smooth and polished surface, but the light passes through it like glass on a mirror. If you put sandpaper under glass, you still see the sandpaper. The glass doesn't make it glossy. You need a smooth surface under the clear to get a good reflective surface. Consider this. If you had a piece of fuzz in the surface of your color coat, would you expect clear paint to make it go away? You don't need to polish the substrate to a high gloss but you do need to have it as level as you can get it. I would say wet sand it down to at least a 3000 grit before clear coating. It can be slightly dull because most paints slightly dissolve the surface of the substrate to bind to them. That deals with micro scratches but you still need to get rid of all the imperfections. In all cases you need enough paint on the surface to sand it without sanding through to your base coat, primer or plastic but not so much that you hide the engraved details of model. It is all a matter for practice and learning how the paint you choose and the tools you apply it with work. There are no mistakes. Only lessons and the lessons continue until they are learned.

Same here! Strange modification. Looks very much like a lot of styling cues taken from a lot of similar cars. When all is said and done, I am pretty sure I know what the chassis is.

Tim, a year ago I said I had run out of expletives. This is just piling on!

If you get a good mill or drill press then you can use the circuit board carbide drills. They are super sharp but are quite brittle. You have a high risk of snapping them with a hand held pin vice. They don't take flexing well so you need the control of a mill or drill press.

If you need something other than a "Hobby" grade, you should be able to find it here. https://www.mcmaster.com/drill-bits Been buying my drill bits here for quite a while. They are not the cheap stuff you get in a tin pack, but then I am using them for some precision drilling in brass and aluminum.

Personally, over the years, I have developed a hate for cheap tools. I have been let down by them far too many times. First time was the cheap cast aluminum screwdriver and wrench that came with my Yamaha in the 60's. Stranded on the side of the road(pre cell phone days ?) with bent tools and unable to fix a simple problem. In my thirties I decided that enough is enough. Spend the money and get the good ones. Which is cheaper? A good tool that lasts you a lifetime or a cheap one you keep buying over and over each time it lets you down! Not to mention the frustration of dealing with the results of a poor quality tool. Yea, I buy the good stuff. At 71 I am to frugal to buy the cheap stuff. Also, with the internet, you can almost alway find the good tools at discounted prices. One story of buying the good ones and I will step off the soapbox. Some time ago, when I was venturing into miniature machining for this hobby, an old guy told me to buy Starrett measuring tools. My response was, "They are too darned expensive" He then told me about a way to save money. Starrett has a tool refurbishment program, to repair and restore old tools to new certification standards. I found I could buy broken Starrett tools on eBay really cheaply and send them off to Massachusetts, and they would send me back a like new tool for about a third of the cost of a new one. You can still have the best tools, but the internet means that you don't have to pay full price for them anymore! Oh and to answer your question, Tamiya. https://www.tamiyausa.com/shop/tools/side-cutter-for-plastic/mk801/

What you are describing is familiar to anyone who has used a lathe. It is called chatter and it is cause by the cutting tool flexing and rebounding. On that basis I would say that this is not the tool for you. By the way, the best way to remedy the problem you describe is to change the angle of the blade from perpendicular to the seam. One pass perpendicular, one angled left and then one angled right. You do that because chatter becomes more pronounced with each pass.

Did the same thing here on the west coast years ago but sports cars were my forte. After winning 3 of the biggest shows on the west coast, I realized that I really didn't have much else to prove. I still build and compete, but my entries are something I built to see if I could improve some skill or technique. If I win, fine, but like you, I go to see what others are doing and to have lunch or dinner with my friends. In August, I am going to IPMS Nationals in Las Vegas. I will be there a whole week for a three day show. I plan of having some great food with my friends. See a show or two. Drink to much a couple of nights and just have a good time. This time I am taking my camera and volunteering to shoot all the car models. I've some skill with a camera and I want to test that to see how many photos I can get published. ? Oh and I am entering something I have only seen done one time before and that was by me on a much smaller scale!

Interesting question that begs a follow on from me. Why do you ask? This hobby seems to have two general types of top quality builders. Those who's driving force is to win contests and those who are driven by the desire to do better for the satisfaction of doing something new or different whether they even enter contests or not. I would like to believe that I fall into the latter class. Every kit I do, I try to make better in some way than my last. This keeps me interested in the hobby and I love honing my skills to achieve more difficult details. The upside of building to win, is that if you win, you have achieved your goal. The downside is that there are only a few winners at each show and not winning can lead to feelings of failure. The upside to building to do the best you can, it that each new kit presents new challenges and the satisfaction of succeeding at new skills. The downside is that you never really cross the finish line. There is always something you could do better on the next model. It also can lead you down the path of expensive equipment to do something you never thought possible. https://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/ ?

Pre registered, T-shirt ordered, room reserved! See you all in August.

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Was digging through my model photos and found these of the chop I did on the Red Bull panel as shown in my prior post. Thought some of you might like to see how this was done.

1:12 ??

Mike, scale model photography is really a challenge. Unless the lighting is just right most round objects such as spark plug wires look too large. That is because most photos are lit inline with the round objects and thus you lose the shadowing on the bottom than you have when you see the same object in 1:1. In other words, lighting flattens round objects. The best way to change that is to make the light source above the line of the shot. This gives the subtle shadows that make round objects "look" right.

I got it because by chance I happened to have watched this on the Motor Trend Channel last week. Lucky coincidence! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=693060571284149

I agree. There are many different types of model "chrome" out there and each seems to need it's own chemical to take it off. Often that is because there may be three layers or more of different coatings. Sodium Hydroxide(super clean and oven cleaner) will take most of them off, but sometimes you have to go through a series of strips with NcOH and alcohol. DOT 3 Brake fluid also may need to be thrown in the mix. NEVER COMBINE THEM IN THE SAME CONTAINER. Use them separately and rinse them thoroughly. Also get a good pair of rubber chemical gloves to protect your flesh.