StevenGuthmiller

Mostly masking paper. The type that you can buy by the roll at any home improvement store. I use this to cover the bulk of the surface. Then I use Tamiya tape or BMF to mask only the separation of colors. I try my absolute hardest not to have any masking tape, whether standard tape or blue painters, touching the painted surface. Tamiya tape is pretty safe. It is low enough tack to guard against pulling any paint off & it won't leave behind any residue. BMF may leave some adhesive, but it's easily removed with a little WD-40. Steve

Very nice work Mark! Haven't seen a lot of these being built yet. Steve

I suppose that this could be one way to put the parts to use from my Trumpeter kit! I'll never build it otherwise with that horrible body! Steve

That was my fear. As I said, Using masking tape on a finished surface cam be a real craps shoot. Steve

I haven't bought any of these yet, but I definitely will when the need arises. I'm especially intrigued by some of the Mopar door handles that he offers! Steve

In my opinion, all of these trucks have become way too massive & heavy looking in the front end in the past decade. As someone who spends a little time behind the wheel in nearly all of them, I can say that they are all difficult to see over the hood from behind the wheel & I'm 6 ft. tall. I wouldn't want to spend much time driving in traffic in any of them. I think they have begun to take the "macho" thing a little too far That plus the fact that they have become un-affordable to the people that actually need them is a big turn off. The poor construction slobs that actually need an affordable work truck for their livelihood are reduced to trying to find a decent used one because a new truck costs a year's wages or more! In the meantime, "soccer dads" are driving around in a 3 year old, top of the line truck with not a single scratch in the bed! It has all become bass ackwards if you ask me. Steve

As "mikemodeler" stated, it's most likely the same reason that fast food joints routinely flip flop back and forth between Coke & Pepsi. One offers a better deal over the other. I can't think of another real reason why you would dump a line that sells well for an uncertainty. Steve

That sounds like one of their lacquer formulas. I agree. If it is one of those, it will definitely eat into a paint as fragile as this. The clear I am referring to is #2936 "Enamel Top Coat". I haven't tried it in years, but I just bought a can recently for a particular project. If the formula hasn't changed, it used to work pretty well for a quick, one shot, shiny finish. But I will remember never to use it over light colors. Steve

??? One thing I have never had issues with when using Testors clear enamel is orange peel. It has a tendency to yellow over time depending on your base color, but I have never had orange peel issues. This '55 Nomad body was shot with Testors clear enamel over a a flat enamel base probably 20 years ago. One coat with zero polishing. Steve

You could give it a light sanding with very fine sand paper & shoot it with another coat of gold. Let it cure & then a fairly heavy coat of Testors enamel clear gloss. The clear enamel will take a long time to cure, but you could move on to another project for a month or two and when you come back to it, you should have a nice shiny bright gold finish. I've used this paint in silver with clear over it & it looks pretty nice when it's done. The gold is a little too bright for my taste, but it does give you a nice thin, smooth base. Steve

I remember having one of these "Visible Vans" as a kid. If I recall correctly, it was a Ford Econoline. Maybe late '60s or early 70s? Steve Steve

It wouldn't be too difficult of a leap for Moebius to modify the '56 Chrysler 300 tooling to do this one. Modify the body tooling, new bumpers & grille, a few added interior parts & viola! instant '56 Desoto! They could do this one & then take off the top, add a few gold plated parts & some decals, and you would have a pace car version! They're always looking for ways to stretch tooling. This seems like a no-brainer to me. Steve Then, you could take it one step further & bring us a '56 Chrysler New Yorker, & then maybe finish up with an Imperial. Lots of potential with these toolings. Steve

Another of my all time favorites. Steve

That's the problem with the Testors Gold, silver & Copper enamels. They are extremely fragile. You will likely never get the finger prints back out without repainting. In the future, you might want to give it a shot of Testors clear enamel gloss after the gold. It's the only way that you will ever be able to protect the color coats. Another thing to remember with these paints is that the adhesion properties are terrible! You should never try to mask over them without spraying some sort of protective coating over them. The tape will pull the paint right off! Even after a protective coat, it is very questionable whether tape should be used on it. I have had clear pull right off of these colors in sheets with the tape. I hardly ever use these paints any more because they are so troublesome. Steve

My only concern if they do something like a limited run of 100 kits is that they figure out a way to install a "one per customer" policy. Otherwise your going to have people buying up the entire run & selling them on ebay for $300.00! Steve

I tried once at around noon when I saw that they had some 50s Borrani wire wheels listed, but of course, they were already gone. No big deal. I figured that it was going to be a frenzy that I didn't really need, nor want to get involved in. Steve

I wouldn't care to guess how many times these AMT '37 Chevies have been re-popped, but it's a bunch! These are older ones, so I don't know what the most recent box art looked like. I think I have a coupe & a pair of convertibles. Steve

Here are just a couple of many, probably in the neighborhood of 30 years old! Steve

There used to be an Avon product years ago called "Skin So Soft". If you have access to it, grab it! This stuff works great for removing many kinds of adhesives. It would take a bumper sticker right off of your car! Steve

WD-40 will take it right off if it is truly just residue. You might wind up finding impressions in the paint from the tape though. This is part of the reason why I never use regular masking tape on my paint jobs. If it is just residue, and the WD-40 takes it off, (which it will) just be cognoscente that you now have an oil on the surface. Just something to keep in mind if you are planning on doing more painting or decal work afterwards. But I have never had an issue with just washing the WD off of the body with some warm water & Dawn detergent. I would be very wary of using anything that people use for removing paint, like alcohol, paint thinner or nail polish remover, (acetone). Acetone especially. Not only may it damage your paint, but I know from experience that it will eat the plastic. Just seems risky to me to use these solvents on your paint. Steve

I would love to make a deal with you Bill. As a matter of fact, we could probably just do a body swap if one of yours is just the body. I also have the complete interior to go with the hard top that I could trade you for the up top. I'm going to be using the promo interior in mine. I might even have an extra dated bumper. I would have to check. Talk at you later Bill! There is no hurry to make a decision. I probably won't build my Dodge for quite some time either. But if I had a convertible with an up top........You never know! Steve

Strange that it only lasted 2 years. Steve

Sorry Bill, I need to have a '64 Fury kit of some sort. But I would trade my '64 Dodge Polara hard top for a '64 Polara convertible with the up top in like condition. I wanted to have one of each of the flat box '64 Polara & '64 Fury, and I wound up with both hard tops, but I thought that it would have been nice to have one of them in a convertible just to break things up. I've never been a huge fan of the roof line on the 1962-''64 Dodge and Plymouth hard tops. I always thought that a convertible with the top up was a much better looking configuration. Steve

Something along these lines would have been a much better choice for a new kit than the Foose Cadillac in my opinion. This is immediately identifiable as a Cadillac, custom or not. The Foose kit could just as easily be a modified '51 Chevy! I like it Dennis! Steve

I'll trade ya'! Steve