Snake45

Interesting and not unattractive, but a bit "busy." If I had a plastic kit of it, I could knock a lot of fru-fru off of it and make it REALLY interesting.

He was talking about the old AMT '57 Chevy hardtop kit.

Well, that and the ancient Revell '56.

Saw this model in yellow at Walmart a few weeks ago, and only didn’t get it because I decided I wanted something else more that day; sadly, it hasn’t reappeared locally. I needed a C7 Corvette of some kind for my January 2020 Corvette calendar car. Some net research showed 2019s available from Motor Max and Welly. The Welly’s probably a little better, but the MM is available in orange, which matches the calendar picture, so Motor Max it was! Ordered it from diecastmodelswholesale. Sale price, including shipping (split with two other diecasts), was well under $20. Comparing it to net reference pics, it seems to look pretty good. The pearly orange paint is shiny and nice. The only area that really needed improvement was the grilles on the front end. The prepainted black didn’t come out to the edges of the areas; I had to paint in all the borders with a brush and Model Master Black Chrome Trim. Some more black touchup was required at the tops and bottoms of the A-pillars on both sides, not a big deal. Then just had to paint the tailpipes black and the front side marker lights yellow and sand the tire treads. With only about an hour’s worth of 1st degree Snake-Fu, I was ready for the new year! Thanks for looking, and as always, comments welcome.

Dunno, have never seen it, but with a completely different roof, it could well have been a new tool. If so, I wonder if it's still around? I'd buy and build one.

I remember that! It was a GREAT rebuild! I have the same kit, also missing the engine lid. Another member here donated a second glue bomber (with lid) to the cause, so now I have enough parts to build up at least one, and almost enough to do a second, if I had the rear deck. Oh well.

Very nice, very clean! Your Blade-Fu is obviously much stronger than mine!

Okay, here's a pic that shows right vs wrong. On the left is the MPC '69 Camaro, which was poorly and incorrectly converted from their rather nice '68 in exactly the same way they poorly and incorrectly converted their '69 Firebird from their rather nice '68. On the right is the Revell '69 Camaro, which is just about universally regarded as having a nearly perfect body shape. See the difference in the crease lines on the side of the body? That's where they were in '67 and '68 (on the MPC body); GM moved them up a couple inches for 1969 and MPC did not. The Revell body has these lines in the right place, where they should be. The MPC (now AMT) '69 Firebird has the same problem. But there's no '69 Firebird kit where these lines are in the right place.

That sounds easy. Isn't. Isn't easy at all to take a slice off a vinyl tire and get it FLAT. I've thought of maybe trying to make a little clamp/jig of some sort that would hold the tire solidly, and you'd slide a razor blade or utility knife blade along the edge and just sort of plane the slice off in one shot , if you follow what I mean. Wouldn't be that hard with solid vinyl, dunno if it would work with hollow vinyl at all or not. I've flat-spotted probably hundreds of model airplane tires, using a file and sanding block on solid styrene. THAT is a challenge, to keep everything perfectly flat in two planes, but it can be done. I'm thinking it would be about 20 times harder to pull off with flexible vinyl.

MM and GTX, just what I need to know! I'll see what I have in rattlecans in the light gray or blue-gray area. I'm not going for complete accuracy (the model isn't even CLOSE to the real car), but anything in that neighborhood HAS to be better than the drippy yellow that's on there now.

The original kit was NOT a Trans Am. The TA parts were added later. The original was a Firebird 400, with extra OHC6 engine. And it is the same basic kit reissued many times over the years (under both MPC and AMT labels) and commonly available today. It's bad. It's always been bad. And unless they fix it (which I don't see happening), it'll always BE bad. The only thing of special interest in the original, first issue kit is that the hood was clear, which was kinda cool, but not really of that much actual use.

When I built mine as a kid, I painted the frame yellow (and not too well, either), as shown on the box art. Over the years the frame has pretty much fallen apart (though I think I have all the pieces) and need to rebuild it anyway, so I'm gonna strip it, take off all the mold lines, and repaint it. What color was the frame on the real one. Black? I was originally gonna strip and repaint the body, too, but now I think I'm just gonna leave the original paint on it as a "survivor." The decals are in bad shape and starting to flake off. If I could get new decals, I might try to polish out the existing paint (I think it was Pactra Red, and it looks thick enough to take a polish). Dave Van, do you make your decals available to others? I might be interested in a set. SnakeACP45 at AOL dot com.

My first guess was a customized Maverick!

I don't flat-spot my model car tires, but I totally get it, because I ALWAYS do that on model airplanes and laugh at others' models "on tippy-toes." Main reason I don't do it on cars is that I haven't found a good way to accurately flat-spot either solid or hollow vinyl. So how do you guys do that?

There are several CVS stores in my area but they don't carry the 1/24 Wellys, only some 1/32 or 1/43 stuff of no interest to me.

I just saw that Motormax now has a 2018 Hellcat in 1/24 diecast. I just got their 2019 ZR1 Corvette and it's pretty darn nice for the money.

Yours is a '68. I was wrong about mine. I bought two recently, and had them mixed up my head. The '69 is Bittersweet Orange and has two bent A-pillars, but they're not broken. The turquoise one with both A-pillars missing is a '70. I'm hoping that by '70, they'd switched plastics to something glue-able. Oh well, I shall improvise, adapt, and overcome. And also strive to endeavor to persevere.

If you can't be bothered to read the linked threads, why should I bother typing it all out again for you? Unbelievable. But if you can look at that kit body and a photo of a real '69 Firebird and can't see the problems for yourself, then build it and be happy. It'll look good to you.

Was just doing some google-image research in preparing to Snake-Fu my Welly 356. The Welly has two chromed vents on the engine cover. Every 1961 photo I found showed one vent right in the center of the engine cover. Every '62 I found (and pics of the back ends of these things are not particularly common) had two chromed vents just like the Welly. So I'm beginning to think this one is maybe a '62. Or am I missing something else?

So you didn't bother to read the linked threads, then?

Totally not the point.

Oh my yes, Dremel makes a variable-speed tool that will turn at any RPM you want. I routinely use mine on plastic, turned down to 2 or 3.

Poorly, as I said.

Believe it or not, I just found Jungle Pam in one of those clickbait things. The weird part is the clickbait story is "Nostalgic TV Sitcoms That Would Be Censored Today." What does Jungle Pam have to do with TV sitcoms? https://groovyhistory.com/nostalgic-tv-sitcoms-that-would-be-censored-today/14

I consider it one of those projects like the frozen tundra, or the US State Department: Almost anything you could do to it would make it better. Trying to find a red that matches it to paint the doors. It's not as bright or as red as Testor #3 but not as dark as Testor #4. Not nearly as orange as Italian Red. I just remembered I have a can of Krylon I did a Monogram '68 GTO with that might be a fairly close match. Gotta find and test it. If I don't find a good red to repaint the doors, no big deal, I'll just leave 'em alone. The thing's not worth any extra heartburn.