Snake45

Okay, Ace, old friend, here it is after Round Two in the Snakepit Rescue & Resto Shop. I left the rear wheels alone and haven’t added a real license plate yet. But I DID: *Pull it back apart and make a serious effort to flat-black all exposed orange plastic on the chassis sides, wheel wells, and so forth. *Painted the headliner and the orange-showing area on the “back seat” (actually, as it turns out, just a bulkhead) flat black. *Ran a black finepoint Sharpie around the trunk lines, followed by a blue medium-point Sharpie to kill the orange on the cut sides, followed by a blue Gel Sharpie to kill the purplish look of the black and blue Sharpies. *I decided that the best way to handle the rear end was to paint the rear panel matte black (by hand, with a brush). And I thought if I were going to do that, I might see what I could do about the taillights. The taillights were such a mess that I didn’t even fool with them in Round One. But I was able to CAREFULLY pry/pop/cut/cajole/finagle them out with a dull Xacto this time. I did manage to pop about 1/8” off the end of one, but luckily the tiny piece landed right on the table in front of me and wasn’t lost for all time, just for a change. Gluing it back on required some Plastic Weld and some VERY careful and delicate work. You won’t believe this, but the taillights had been installed not only switched left-for-right, but upside down and backwards as well. I couldn’t have done that if I’d tried for a whole afternoon, yet apparently someone managed to achieve it with no effort or thought at all! There was a LOT of dried tube glue that had to be chiseled/cut out of the taillight wells, and filed off the taillights themselves. When I got them to where they’d kinda sorta more or less fit into the holes where they were supposed to go, I painted their backsides with Silver Sharpie and freshened their faces with red Sharpie. Reinstalled them with Tacky glue. Total taillight repair time took over an hour all by itself. They’re not perfect, but they’re 1000% better than they were. I'm surprised no one gigged me on the missing gas cap the first time around. The glue bomb didn't come with one. But I just happened to have a “wrecked,” melted DOH body I literally picked out the trash over 30 years ago, and by some miracle, it still had its gas cap. So I appropriated it. Moral: Never throw anything away! So, Ace, this one's for you, old friend, and thanks for egging me on to do “just a little bit better.”

Not really, no.

Yeah, I have that, but I don't think the decal yellow over black paint will match the yellow paint all that well. I want to mask off the yellow before I paint the matte black, and then cut the decal to fit around it. I know HOW to accomplish what I want to do, I just don't want to DO the tedious PITA job. But someday I'll be taken by the urge to kick this thing through the goalposts once and for all and I'll do it. I know me--that's just how I roll.

Here's what I did with a recent glue bomb resto of one of these. I just went for a late-'70s street bomber vibe and had fun with it. It actually turned out better than I expected.

I built the original issue when it first came out and IIRC it had shielded ignition. I think it might have had an unshielded distributor, too. I don't remember if it has a radio or not, or window cranks or power buttons. This was a VERY nice kit, one of the best I've built. The only thing I could find to whine about is, the rear of the roof is just a little too high (compare it with a Revell '69 and you can see it). But there's enough meat there that you can file and sand a noticeably lower profile into it and improve it a bit. Mine won a Best Out Of Box Model at an IPMS Regional in, I think, 1992. That's how nice the kit is. If you're a '68-'72 Corvette fan, Life Is Good, because between the AMT and Revell kits, you can build just about any '68-'72 Corvette you can dream up.

So is Sharpie. It comes right off with rubbing alcohol. And you're not likely to slip with your knife and scratch it, as is very possible with BMF.

I'm kinda of the same mind. I'm not a big fan of this car, so I'd find someone who is and see what I could trade it for. If I were a fan of this car, I'd be tempted to leave this one alone. OR I might polish the body and Sharpie the trim. I have a couple nice-but-not-mint '70s Corvettes that I'll be polishing and hitting with some Snake-fu.

As is, Where is. Ran perfectly a month ago.

Fabulous! I wonder if Musk himself thought of that one.

As I said, the area gave me no trouble at all. What's giving me fits--and has kept me from finishing the model for over 20 years--is figuring out how to do the yellow on the hood right. There's a thin stripe of yellow down the center, and the hood scoops are surrounded with yellow, which most modelers seen to just ignore and paint black. I THINK I've figured out how to mask the scoops but the thin stripe is still something I don't want to deal with, yet. In the meantime, this cheap, slightly undersized (I think about 1/26.5) Welly diecast with added Snake-fu is holding down the GSX slot on my shelf This was one of the first diecasts I Snake-fu'ed about four years ago, and I can see from the pictures that it could probably use another helping, using some of my newer tricks. Maybe soon!

Not really my style but VERY cleanly built! Respect!

I sometimes see Edsels in crossword puzzles with the clue having some reference to "lemon." That's probably unfair. "Sales flop" would be a better clue for them.

Superdan, did you get that model finished? What was it?

Shiny! What black paint did you use? It came out great!

Mine neither. No clearance island for kits, saw the yellow $7.50 tag on a couple tanks but no cars or airplanes. But I noticed the '57 Ford wagon gassers were gone, as were the MPC '75 Vettes, so maybe they cleared out before I got there. Bought another Black Widow '57 Chev with the coupon just so it wouldn't be a wasted trip.

When I did mine I airbrushed it in Model Master Chrome Yellow and just brushed-painted the bezels the same color. When brushing something like this, I found the best way is to start with a NEW bottle, flow it on a little bit thick, and work FAST. If you're lucky this can give a very acceptable result. Oh, and I didn't remove the chrome, just brushed right over it. Good luck!

Good catch. I realized after I posted I forgot the '66 Impala. Never had one so I tend to forget that kit.

Near as I can tell, the first BBC engine was in the AMT '66 Vette Coupe (but not the roadster). It was reprised in the '67 Vette Coupe, and I suppose in the '67 Impala (I never had one, so can't say for sure). I believe the first-gen AMT Funny Cars appeared in 1967, and the '65 Chevelle and Nova funnies had the BBC. On the MPC side, I believe the first BBC was in the Mako Shark, which debuted in late '66 or early '67 (the kit). Then it was in their '68 Camaro, Corvette, and Impala kits. It was NOT in their '66 or '67 Corvettes, although both included the special big block hoods. I don't know what was in the AMT '68 annuals, as I never had any of them. By '69, AMT was all over the BBC, and they were in the Camaro, Corvette, Chevelle, and Impala. They were still in the MPC Corvette and Camaro. If I've forgotten any, please feel to jump in here. Tim? Mark?

Absolutely outstanding! You are nothing less than an inspiration! Model on!

VERY clean build, as we've come to expect from you. You're quickly becoming one of my favorite builders on this whole site. Model on!

We needed something after Mike Judge got tired of writing and producing Beavis and Butthead. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Why? BECAUSE WE CAN, THAT'S WHY! We're America and we're AWESOME! We sent a man to the moon to play golf! We invented a cannon that shoots T-shirts! We invented a vehicle called the El Camino that's BOTH a pickup truck AND a musclecar! We have a giant big-box store that sells nothing but STAPLES! WE'RE AMERICA AND WE'RE AWESOME! BOO-YAH!

Not a fan of the big wheels but WOW this is one of the cleanest builds I've seen in a long time--and I've seen quite a few very clean builds on here lately. Well done and model on!

Much smaller than HO. I've got some ROCO HO scale minitanks and trucks that would dwarf those nanomodels.

SUPER clean work!