Snake45

Oh no. With more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, I have no intention of even TRYING to polish paint on this backbirth. Disassembled it this morning. Now facing having to grind out four rivets to remove the windows. At least they don't look like they're made of the stuff that ERTL uses for window rivets.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! About half of commercials on TV these days, I either can't figger out the story they're trying to tell me, or I can't figger out what the product is. And most of the rest are for insurance, all of which are trying to be funny and none of which tells me anything about the insurance. I recently read that the average Progressive insurance customer is now paying $67 or something a year just for the company's commercials. Maybe that's why my insurance company, which hardly advertises at all, has rates much lower than either Progressive or Geico.

Thinking about taking this project off the Shelf of Doom. Looking for ideas, I found this one, in matte black. Interesting looking: https://www.hotrod.com/articles/1969-pontiac-firebird-metal-mania/

I know that lye will eat aluminum (and smell like rotten eggs doing it), and I've recently learned it's not good for diecast metal, but didn't know about steel. Could that just be common rust, accelerated?

And don't forget the L60 tires on the front, and the painfully obvious wire front axle.

And now I'm even seeing El Caminos and Rancheros get hijacked down to Trucks--though, for some reason, not all of them. I just finished an Elky rescue I'm almost afraid to post for fear it will get sent downstairs. Your '53 truck is obviously a truck, not much can be done about that. But many, MANY '29s are done as rods, though, and are never used to haul anything but ass. (Others, of course, are done as stockers and trucks, even commercial ones.)

Ya gotta have moah putty!

Oh yah, gimme an early Nova wagon!

Ford "Poppy Red" is actually more of an orange. Think Gas Ronda's Mustangs. Just looked through the Dyno Don book again, and in one of the captions, it says that "Mercury suggested cardinal red" for the '67 car. "Cardinal Red" was a factory '67 Merc color, same paint code as Ford '67 Candyapple Red, also same paint code on '66 Ford Candyapple red. Google-image search for '67 Cardinal Red Mercs shows pics in a range of red colors, but many of them are a bit dark. Hmmmmm, now I'm thinking Testor #4 red for that one....

I just bought a Revell '55 Chev Pace Car off eBay for under $25 including shipping, "Buy It Now." Damaged box, but all I really want is the front end to graft onto the AMT Sedan kit. Sooner or later, someone will want/need those '55 Pace Car decals. And heck, I might even use the chassis under the AMT if it's significantly nicer than AMT's.

I'm in the planning stages of a couple Dyno Don builds, specifically the '65 Cyclone and the '67 Cyclone funny Eliminator II. Trying to nail down the colors. The '65 car looks pretty easy. Looks like a straight bright red in the several color photos in the Dyno Don book. It might well have been factory '65 Carnival Red (Ford Rangoon Red); it's definitely NOT Poppy Red. OTOH, in the pic showing it on the Chevy truck, they look like the same color, so maybe DD had it painted a "special" red. At any rate, I'll probably go with good ol' Testor #3/Guards Red for this one. Here's a '65 Cyclone and '65 Mustang I shot last year at a local car show, both supposedly wearing original factory paint. (Both looked a little brighter in real life than in these particular pics.) Eliminator II is harder to pin down. In some pics it looks like a darker red (like Testor #4) and in others almost maroon. At the moment I'm thinking of going with Model Master Stop Light Red metallic over white primer, but who knows what I'll do by build time. The more pics I look at of Eliminator (the '66 Cyclone funny), the more convinced I am that it was '66 Mercury/Ford Emberglow. Anyone have any definitive info on any of these?

I mentioned above that the Krylon Foil actually looks better than some kit chrome I've seen. Here it is on a '67 Impala, next to a survivor '69 El Camino I just rescued. It doesn't show up real well in the pics but the Krylon Foil is actually much brighter and richer than the Elky's kit chrome (which is actually in really nice shape), although it does have a very slight amount of "orange peel" if you look closely at it. Oh yeah, I'll be using this stuff again!

As promised, here's a couple quick pics of the five survivor rescue projects I completed last week (surely a record for me). Two '67 Impala promos, '65 Chevelle promo, Monogram '65 Corvette, and an AMT '69 El Camino. The two Impalas had been in process for a couple months, and the '65 Chevelle for a couple weeks. The Corvette and Elky were done in just a few days each, beginning to end. I did no external painting except the hood on the Elky, the others all have the original paint/finishes (bare plastic in the case of the blue Impala) they wore when I got them, just polished up a little. The Corvette came from the local toy show, the other four were rescued from eBay. Looks like 2020 is shaping up as a '60s Chevy kinda year, eh?

Looks good! I think there's a set of nekkid Rallys in the MPC '75 Corvette roadster that recently came and went and went to Ollie's to die in the $10 pile. I picked up two or three of them just for those wheels and tires, and the metal injector stacks.

Forgot to mention that I finished that '69 Elky rescue on Friday. Hope to have pics up soon.

Didn't get anything new, but in the last three days I've Snake-Fu'ed a Welly Porsche 356, a Burago Ferrari GTO, and that backbirth Revell '63 Corvette roadster I recently got from Randy. Hope to have pics up soon. Randy's not gonna recognize that Vette!

VERY clean build. Great color and finish. Well done and model on!

You sound like me about 10 years ago. I was just counting my diecast list today--I now have over 100 of the things, plus another 20 or so built from kits. Today I finished up a diecast '63 Corvette and tonight I'm putting the finishing touches on a Ferrari GTO. Many of my diecasts are things that have never been made in plastic, or have been extinct for years, or in a few cases are actually BETTER than what's available in plastic. Come to the Dark Side, Young Roadrunner.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002CMO3FM?ie=UTF8&tag=exalycombo-20

Another idea might be to apply a styrene solvent such as liquid cement, lacquer thinner, etc. to the area and while wet, stipple it with a STIFF paintbrush.

GITTER DONE!

I have a Prestige '63 Chevy and the body is warped. It's not too bad and I think it might straighten out when the interior and chassis are installed, but at the time I was pretty irked, considering what these kits cost.

So that explains why Curtis Mayfield's Superfly theme starting playing in my head the moment I saw it! I remember reading in an old Cars magazine about a '67 Chevelle that had been painted in one of the Cad Firemist colors--I think it was some kind of bronze or brown tone--back in the day. That was part of the reason I painted my recent '66 Chevelle street monster build Testor Root Beer. I thought it might look cool, and darned if it doesn't!

I seem to recall having a similar problem when I built my AMT '40 Ford Coupe. Been awhile so the details are fuzzy at this point, but I remember something about cutting the "crossmember" between the rear fenders and either lengthening or shortening it in some way. When I got finished the body and fenders fit perfectly and to this day is not even attached with glue. I also spent a lot of time making the hood fit. Later, after achieving the fit I was looking for, I noticed in pictures of real '40s that their hoods don't seem to fit too well either, and the AMT kit was probably more accurate in this area than not. Oh well. But that's another story for another day.

It's called DecoColor Premium, "shiny metallic paint marker for most surfaces, produces a rich silver leaf finish." It's on a black card hanging on the wall with the Sharpies and stuff in the Artsy Craftsy section of Walmart.