Pete J.

Low 60's - 20% chance of rain. Day after - darkness followed by some early morning light - got to be at work at 3:45 am(Black friday sucks!)

If everything is metal(no plastic window frames or bumper or other parts) acetone with get just about anything of PDQ!

I have used the BMF under paint trick quite succesfully in the past. I have also used a differant trick for larger script and badges. I make a mold of the piece. I do this by BMFing it, leaving a bit of foil around the edges. Perhaps a 1/4" or so. I coat it with a very heavy coat of white glue. Once the white glue is dry, I use a thick body putty and build a large lump that you can get a hold of on top of the white glue. Once everything is dry, pull it off the model. You will have a nice one time use mold of the script. Fill the back of the mold with thick super glue and let it harden. Once set, use a sanding stick to level the back and sand it until you get rid of the surface of the BMF at the first level of the white glue. Throw the whole mess in some warm water. This will desolve the white glue and the script will separate with the BMF surface intact. Handle with care as it is a bit brittle. You can then sand the original from the body and paint as normal. Use a thin coat of white glue on the back of the script to glue it to the body. This is a bit challenging, but you don't get the build up of paint that you get with the other method.

....don't forget the Gunze High Tech kits. There were the earliest examples of photoetched that I am aware of. Great kits!

I would put one comment out there for all. The comment about "at least till Hasegawa, Aoshima, and Tamiya get into a serious duke-out over bikes" really struck a cord with me. The general catagory is best ever and as long as we have people with differant tastes, this will never get resolved and I am happy that no one has broken out the flame throwers yet. The comment highlighted that a preferance for a genra will trump the quality of the kit every time. There really aren't lot of U.S manufacturers that can "out quality" many of the Japanese makers but the appeal of those makers will never be very broad here because they don't do dragsters, stockers, hotrods and choppers. I have built a couple of Revells choppers and they were fun but the quality fo the kits was nothing like Tamiya's super bikes. So which is the best series, Tamiya's super bikes or Revell's choppers? Simple! It depends on what you like the best. Same thing with the F1 cars vs. Stockers/Nascar and sports cars vs hotrods, etc.,etc........ It is nice to get other opinions about who builds the best series from those who like the genra. Just keep the flamethrowers in the trunk. :D

I voted real but after some research I think I am wrong. No, I didn't find the picture but there are a couple of styling ques that I missed before I voted. Oh well, we will find out Friday!

Tom - Really??? I have been looking everywhere to find photos that show those tires. All the vintage photos show a traditional round shape. I can't find a single one anywhere that show them with that shape. Were they a short lived experiment or what? Normally Tamiya products are well researched and I was shocked that they would have a major mistake. If you have anything that documents that shape I would love to see it. It has been driving me nuts!

If you want to do a super detail Tamiya bike, get your hands on the Honda RC166. With the exception of the really weird tires it is far an away the best motorcycle kit ever produced. Add the Tamiya detail up pieces and it has all the Wow factor a piece of plastic could have. Yes, it is an older bike, but individual link chain, real spoked rims with turned aluminum rims, stainless steel spokes and turned nipples, this is a real stand out.

Best is a very subjective word, but I think the best series by far is Tamiya's 1:20 scale Formula 1 kits. They pretty much brought me back into the hobby. Yes, F1 isn't everyones cup of tea, but they are such great kits to build and they did a lot of my favorite drivers cars.

Wait until you see the chassis. It is coming along nicely. Nothing like some of your rust, but I am really trying to get a "through the desert" look to it. Lots of dirt and oil streaks with a touch of worn metal in the right places. It is nice to be doing modeling for fun again!

Here are the struts and brakes completed. You can see the differance between the hights and it isn't much but it will change the stance of the enough to make it look right. When I have the mounts done I will post pics. I have an unmodified one to compare it to.

George - I also saw it in Cinerama and was just totally blown away by it. I am talking about the first bit where they start with black screen and slowly pull back and you realize you have been looking down the exhaust of a F1 car. Then you get the bits like Phill Hill putting his helmet on, someone putting in sparkplugs, a shot of the carbs, the sound of a heart beat as one of the actors puts cotton in his ears and it all culminates with the start of the Monaco Gran Prix. Just a montage of European racing of that era. Love it.

I was going through my video library last night watching a few classics and realized that the movies I have enjoyed long term have great opening scenes to set the story up. I was discussing this with some friends and my thoughts are the two best opening scenes are 1- Top Gun and 2- Gran Prix. Top Gun because the music and the photography is so vicereral. Gran Prix for the shear art of the photography. Music is a bit dated but the cut shots of all the bits and pieces is still amazing even after 45+ years. What is your favorite?

Here are the completed left and right rear suspension parts. I am working on the chassis and will post them once they are in place. This little car has a rather complex chassis bottom. I think you will find it intersting as I have an unmodified chassis completed to compare it to.

Here is a '69 GTO engine that I did years ago.

Here is a "69 convertable I created out of the coupe kit. It was a real pain to do right!

Living in SoCal I have a lot of friends who are really into hot rods and that is a major part of the car culture here I thought I would try to shed a little light on the subject. If I recall, the base story behind the rat rod is that it was an attempt to take hot rodding back to it's roots and as a counter to the multi-thousand dollar rich boy rods of the Chip Foose/Boyd Coddington genre that the hot rods had evolved into. In other words go back to creating a cars that were done in a back yard or under a tree that was a low budget hobby. In these cases the builders could not afford a high end paint job or the crate motor from a big name builder and had to fabricate a lot of the bits and pieces themselves. (kind of like low budget modeling were you build it yourself instead of buying aftermarket). So these cars may appear "ratty" but they are really low budget attempt to make something that is fun to drive and will go fast without an eye toward the what looks nice. Now the genre has evolved since then but this was the orignal intent, not to make an insult to the eye or and unsafe vehicle.

Hmmmmm, was just looking at the photo I chose and something didn't look right! This is showing the body rolling to the inside of the turn. That is just weird. Car must have been tossed over the burm when this photo was shot. Well, it is still the look I want but compression to the outside of the turn in oversteer mode.

That wasn't in the plan as I intend to have the tires pushing dirt on the out side. I suppose it wouldn't be all that difficult to heat the tires and squash them down a bit. By the same token, this is going to be showing a softer sandy/gravel type desert surface so I suppose the car would be pushing a lot of dirt on the outside and you wouldn't really see much deformation. Good thought though!

I appreciate the comment and I did see that issue. I believe they tested it on a hard surface. This is really the look I am going for as it will be be an "in the dirt" race. As you can see the right suspension is at or near full extension and the left is near full comprssion. .10" is not a lot but enough to show the side to side transfer.

I am making a diorama using a Tamiya WRC Ford Focus and was disturbed by the number of dioramas I have seen with the car sitting perfectly flat in a hard turn. Now, race cars have very stiff suspensions but the body is still going to lean. I wanted to give my Focus a more realistic rolling attitude in a slow hairpin turn. The Tamiya suspention is much to complex to just cut off a mounting pin and relocate it so I decided to shorten the struts on one side and lengthen them on the other to get the caracteristic roll into the outside of the turn. I broke out the trusty Sherline and turned 4 replacement top halfs of the struts which are .10 inch longer or shorter than the original parts. I then cut off the plastic coils and took a pin vise and drilled out a locating hole in the top of the lower half of the strut and glued the new top half in place. In the photo you will see the original pieces and the modified one. After they are painted, I will wind a spring made from wire to repesent the coils.

Because we are dealing with humans, you can count on some bias coming into play. Every judge has some bias, wether it is mold lines or ejector pin marks or paint issues, we all have them. The issue is to reduce it to the lowest possible level so that the only factor is skill of the build. Say what you will about IPMS, there judging standard are really aimed at reducing bias by concentrating on skill of the build. A good judge will stick to issues of quality and not judge on personal preferance to the largest extent possible. That is very difficult to do. Don't believe me? Next time you go to a contest, step over to a catagory that you really don't like and try to judge it. See how close you can come to the final outcome. I think you will find it educational.

Frankly, it takes skill to lay down a great paint job regardless of sheen. Flat paint jobs require that the underlying work be flawless. That is why I use primer as a guide coat for sanding, Every possible ding and scratch shows up. Gloss jobs on the other hand have the potential to create as many problems with depth and evenness of surface. The fact is that non glossy paint is not just limited to rats and hot rods. I have seen several Mercedes AMG SLS's done in either silver or titanium gold in a matt or semi gloss finish. There was also an Enzo in flat black(looked mean as heck). My experience in judging has taught me to look at the quality of the finish as a whole. Is it even and consistant across the model? If it is, then move on to other issues. I think it would be very inappropiate to set up a catagory just based on gloss alone. Now that would really open a can of worms. If you did it by gloss, would you then subcatagorize with parallel catagoies to those in the glossy catigory? I would contend that this is a judge education issue, not a catagory issue.

The part about the "just before it goes completely black"? Well, I just go the call from my mechanic. 500$ for ball joints, 1200$ for a new exhaust manifold, 300$ for new CV boots and he can't find the source of the oil leak. Ah, heck, it is just money.