StevenGuthmiller

Check out ebay. I bought this set a while back & it covers most any color you could need. The company is called "Hamilton Art" & this set cost a little under $15.00. They have many other sets as well if this is not what you're looking for. You can also mix these for a custom color. Steve

It's funny, but my dad was a purely Chevrolet guy when I was growing up. My mother was a Mopar station wagon freak. When I was young, I was a GM/ Mopar guy with a distaste of Fords. As the years went by, that all went away & I love all "classic" American makes. As far as what my family drives, it's been all Honda for more than 20 years. That just came from the trial & error of owning many different makes over the years & landing on Honda as being the most reliable vehicles that I have ever owned. We no longer even look at anything else when we're looking for a car. Steve

Sometimes I think we have a bit of a tendency to over complicate air brushing. This is my set up. Has been for over 25 years. No tanks, no traps, no regulators. Just a simple compressor with an inexpensive Badger siphon feed single action brush. Has worked just fine for me for a quarter century. I've thought about all the goodies over the years & the only thing that I can come up with that I may like to add would be a simple gravity feed brush for small jobs so I don't have to mix as much color & clean jars. Other than that, this is all I really need. I get perfectly good results with it. Steve

I use spray cans for things like priming, clear coating, & basic jobs like any parts painted black, etc. I will use spray cans when I'm painting bodies a basic "non-metallic" color like black, red or white. Where I use an airbrush is for any body painted in a metallic color or anything odd. I use MCW paints because I can't get past the large metal flakes in most spray paints like Duplicolor & Testors. Plus I like to use factory colors as much as I can. Pretty hard to find 1958 Chevrolet "Cay Coral" in a rattle can. I also use the airbrush a lot for interiors. I like to mix my own interior colors from flat enamels. Steve

I'm not much of a Beetle fan, but you did a very nice job Stefan! Very realistic weathering job! Steve

I wouldn't worry too much about that Bill. I almost always have a little bit of orange peel to polish out of my builds, but I rarely sand any trim for foiling. The paint has a tendency to "draw away" from high points like moldings anyway, so my trim usually looks smoother than the flat body panels in the end. Foiling usually goes pretty well for me & yields pretty good results without sanding. Give it a shot anyway. Steve

Just a misunderstanding it seems Frank. Steve

I agree with Mike. Personally, I wouldn't waste my time with it. Not every build needs to be a full detail build. I have a lot of curbside builds that I display proudly that have nothing more than a flat black chassis plate, including the '59 Imperial. Steve

I'm not sure where the resin connection came in either Mike. I was also assuming that Frank was using styrene parts & was soaking them to remove paint. Steve

Well Mark, I don't use a lot of resin myself anyway, but if the manufacturer recommends it, I assume that there must be some validity to it. Steve

Very nice Alan! Love the color! Steve

I'm not exactly sure which colors were used which years for Pontiac motors, but the engine in my '69 Grand Prix was a light blue without any metallic in it. This photo is after the engine rebuild, but it is the original color. even in '69 they were a bit on the "aqua" side. I think you nailed it pretty close to the photo in my previous post Art. Steve

Looks great Smelly! The color is terrific & you can't go wrong with wire wheels on these old Mopars. I've used Modelhaus wires on several of my early 60s Mopar builds & they look great! Build on! Steve

That may be the case Mark, but why do many resin producers "recommend" using a cleaner like Super Clean to remove mold release agents. From the Modelhaus website, Quote: CLEANING: The typical unplated castings will have a mold release film on them. TO PREVENT EVENTUAL PAINTING PROBLEMS, THIS MUST BE THOROUGHLY REMOVED BEFORE ANY MODEL WORK BEGINS. The best method that we have found for removing the film is letting the parts soak for 24 hours in a product from Por 15 called Marine Clean. Other soaking solutions that can be used are Castrol Super Clean or Westley's Whitewall Tire Cleaner. Steve

I don't know guys. According to a lot of photos I've seen, I think he hit it pretty close! Steve

I agree! You can buy all of the New York plates you can handle right off of ebay for $2.49 for a sheet of 5 sets of plates. Best Model Car Parts makes tons of exceptionally nice plates, whether you want modern or vintage. & shipping is free. Steve

You have several options. A couple that I have used are Easy Off oven cleaner & Super Clean. I use almost exclusively Super Clean for stripping myself. It's available at many auto parts stores. a lot of guys use brake fluid as well. I've never liked brake fluid personally. It's too messy & harder to dispose of. Super Clean is biodegradable so it's easy to dispose of when it's lost it's usefulness. Steve

I was wondering the same thing. Steve

What kind of Testors paint did you use? Enamel or Lacquer? Did you prime first? Looks to me like the paint was sprayed on too heavy in one coat & pulled away on high points & pooled in low. Testors lacquers work pretty well if you prime first & use several lighter coats. Enamels have a tendency to act this way because they dry very slowly & will run & sag easily. Steve

I also use a Nikon "Coolpix". Mine is an L100 that I've had for many years. A very sound suggestion is to get yourself a "Portable Photo Studio" set up. You can get a cheap one for $30.00 or less & it will make all the difference in the world for shooting photos indoors. I paid around $50.00 for mine & it has everything you need to get very nice photos. It came with the diffuser box, 4 lights, a camera tripod with a phone attachment. & 4 colored backdrops. Best investment I've made in a while. They have dozens to choose from on Amazon. Steve

I would think that almost any cheap digital camera would yield better results than what we've seen so far. You can get something tolerable for as little as $25.00. For that price, if you don't like it.......no huge loss. Steve

That's an interesting color combination! Steve

Your best bet would be the AMT '57 Chrysler 300. I can't imagine that there would be anything else even close. Steve

Just came today! An extremely nice MPC '66 Bonneville. MPC did some really nice kits back then! Very nice detail throughout. Aside from possibly the '61 Bonneville, I think the '66 was the best looking Bonny of the '60s. Looking forward to building this one. Steve

Well, we were talking about kits & what has & has not been produced. Scale was never brought up. The Monogram '56 is the only styrene Belair kit to date whether we like it or not. Personally, I don't care for it. The body proportions are off & it looks a little "goofy" to me. Yeah, I only mentioned the Belairs & Impalas, but the Delray was still a full sized car. I'm a full sized car kind of guy & I really don't much care about the model. The new Moebius '61 Ventura is a great kit, but personally, I would have preferred a Bonneville. Same with the AMT '62 Catalina. Although, it's probably better that they did the Ventura & Catalina. The '61 & '62 Bonnevilles have already been kitted, so these are something different. Steve