Snake45

Yes, but they weren't particularly good. Well, there was one by Dennis Doty that wasn't awful, but if you never find any of them, don't feel like you've missed anything.

While we're on the topic, does Super Clean hurt resin?

I went to work at TAB Books in September or October 1980, so I just missed working on that one.

Who's the publisher?

Is that a TAB book?

Rut-roh, I"m feeling yet another Grumpy's Toy (at least one) in my future....

If you pick the right plastic to work with, and do a good job, it can look amazingly good. But the vast majority of plastic will just look like plastic.

I dug the Mustang out two nights ago and started on the quickie rescue job. It disassembled fairly easily. The dashboard and seats broke out of the interior tub and I dropped the whole interior into Lake Purple to remove the horrible gold. After 24 hours, about 90% of the gold is gone (cleanly) and I expect the rest will come off too. I’ll probably paint the carpet and dashboard black and leave the seats and side panels white plastic, at least for the time being. Not gonna go crazy detailing the interior at this time. On to the body. On the plus side, everything’s here and the bumpers aren’t even broken, which in my experience is a bit of a rarity with these old Mustangs. The body is in pretty good shape for a full rebuild, but not so much for a quickie rescue as I’m doing. The left rear corner of the hood is broken off and apparently glued solid to the top of the firewall. Not a big deal to fix on a rebuild, not that easy to hide on a quick rescue. The body was originally painted gold, like the interior, and the black is over that. The black is in pretty poor shape. I don’t know what it is as it has very little shine like a Testor or Pactra enamel, but it’s also not a flat black. Probably either AMT gloss lacquer applied too dry, or some kind of generic rattlecan stuff. Either way, it’s not suitable for color-sanding or polishing out and I’m not going to waste any time trying to do so. You can see in the photo above a rather large glue booger on the left quarter just below the roof C-panel. (The roof on the AMT ’65 and ’66 Mustang coupe annuals was separate, and it could be built as a convertible.) First thing I did was file and sand this all off and then hit the area with a black Sharpie Pro (chisel point) just to see what that would look like. It doesn’t look great but really not much worse than the paint on the rest of the thing. When I get all the white areas Black Sharpie-ed, I might hit the whole mess with one brushed coat of Future. Meanwhile, I broke out the grille and started cleaning all the glue boogers off of that. I don’t know what this glue is but I discovered that it didn’t “bite” particularly well, and much of it could be simply picked, peeled, or pried off with little if any damage to the plastic underneath. It’s not quite as easy to remove as Elmer’s or Tacky Glue would be, but it’s definitely not Testor or Revell model glue. Some kind of (balsa) model airplane glue, maybe? A wood glue? Duco? Who knows. But this turned out to be a very good thing, because the roof was glued on about 1/32” off center, and I was able to pry the whole thing off cleanly, YAY! I was then able to pick the HUGE glue boogers off the base of the C-pillars with my fingernails, which was fabulous. This also means I can easily hit the roof with a shot of rattlecan semigloss black, if the mood strikes me, although what’s on there now doesn’t look horrible for black vinyl. We’ll see what happens. All four original wheels and tires are here, so that’s a plus. I do plan to hit both the grille and the wheel covers with a black wash. There does seem to be some glue damage on the body where the roof C-pillars were glued on. This stuff isn’t picking or peeling off; I spent aboujt a half hour last night filing on just the left side. The idea at this point is just to get the roof to fit back on passably well. So that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far. Will try to take and post a couple pics tonight. As I’ve said, I don’t have the time or inclination to do a full rebuild of this thing right now (too many other interesting projects on the bench), I’m just fixing it up a little to make it SOMEWHAT presentable for the moment and for the purpose of participating in this build. I’ve often said with my “rescues” that if I can get a project looking like something I might have built in 1968, I’m happy. With this job, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it to look like one of the very first model cars I built in 1966!

Not long ago I spent some time in a Sally Beauty looking for a couple particular colors. Didn't really find them and then looked at Walmart and found that Walmart has MANY more nail polishes--more lines, more colors, more price points--than Sally Beauty, to my surprise. One warning about nail polishes--if you find a color you like, be sure to buy enough of it to paint every model you think you will EVER want to do in that color. Nail polish colors come and go and what you buy today will probably be discontinued next week and never be available again.

Nothing will make your car's finish look smoother, slicker, or shinier than Prop Wash. It's available at your local airport. Just ask around.

Has anyone here ever built the Heller Alfa Romeo Zagato? Squadron had them on sale CHEAP about 20 years ago and I got one since it's pretty cool looking. Looks good in the box but I wonder how easily/well it actually builds.

Actually, they are--the '74 Challenger (and a few others of similar vintage) in Lindberg boxes.

FABULOUS diorama! How did you make the tiny tennis ball?

Your first sentence made me actually LOL. And then your second sentence made me very sad. I don't think a writer has ever peaked such opposite emotions in just two sentences. Well played, sir!

You might have a point. (But how many IQ points would it take for SOMEBODY at R2 to get the bright idea to TAKE THE FREAKIN' SHRINK WRAP OFF THESE BOXES!) Now, who can we blame for the fact that he can't seem to hold the box still for more than half a second?

And T.H.E. Cat.

That was a real car, a promotional giveaway deal involving Don Nicholson and Car Craft magazine. There are pics of it in the Dyno Don book (and, of course, in the old CC magazines).

And make sure the Johnson rod is tight!

51? What really sucks about that is that you weren't around to buy all the cool AMT and MPC and JoHan '60s annuals in every drug store for $2...or to see the real ones several times a day, every single day.

Yup. Elvis ain't getting older. Prince ain't getting older. Whitney ain't getting older. Jungle Jim ain't getting older. Sam Kinnison ain't getting older. Jimi ain't getting older. I'm not complaining.

Absolutely beautiful! I've wanted to build this exact model (same color and everything) for over 30 years, and SOMEDAY I will! (I"ll do it on a JoHan body, though.) Where did you get the hood? I've seen several vendors have them. How did yours fit? Well done and model on!

Did they used to fly 106s? Always thought their blue tail marking was cool. I have a pic of a T-33 with the same thing on it, and always thought it would be cool to build models of both of them. (I HAVE the kits, just haven't gotten around to doing it.)

Well now you're just giving me ideas! I have a snapper version of this kit and every now and then I get it out and want to build it, but can't decide on a color. They look great in red but I used to work for a guy who had one of these in red and he was a real jerkbag, so I don't want it in red. Have thought of graphite or gray of some kind to match its name but I'm sick of looking at real silver/gray cars on the road (including my own). But I hadn't thought of pearl white! Mine's molded in white styrene, so all I'd have to do is shoot a couple coats of Testor White Lightning Pearl right over that, what could be easier? Hmmmmm....now what color interior would look good with that....

Two more What Jet Fighters Should Look Like: Lockheed XF-90: Douglas F4D Skyray:

And even THEN we won't know what the model looks like, just the box. And Chad will use his superpower to cloak anything you might actually want to see on the box with lighting glare.