Snake45

Thanks! It might be more accurate to say that I take substandard builtups with "good bones" and potential and bring them up to just barely fit to display publicly (i.e., here).

Thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated and model on!

Thanks for the kind words!

Well, the front fenders have been fitted and affixed in place, and looks like it might be a pretty clean job, too. Looks like the B-pillars have been straightened out (or the master was made from a very early issue of the kit, before they got messed up). And it doesn't seem to have prominent mold lines/kink on the roof C-pillar. All in all, this looks like the body that SHOULD have been in the kit. There's nothing here you can't make yourself out of the kit parts, but I think this resin piece would save several hours of tedious work that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place.

There are a couple of Pinewood Derby cars in the latest episode (ep #8) of American Rust on Showtime. One of them plays a semi-prominent role, actually, and gets some good screen time.

Interesting variety made the list--everything from Legos to simple diecast to simple plastic kits to Tamiya plastic.

Thanks! I'll try that.

Zippi, what are you thinning the Folk Art with for airbrushing? I'm thinking of trying one of these soon.

Love the idea! Even as we speak I'm working on a build involving a '65 El Camino body that almost anyone else would have simply thrown away, and am finishing it using only spare or leftover or "junk" pars I'll never use on anything else.

I think I see what happened. You typed your price was "not $13.99." I think maybe you meant "now $13.99." That makes sense. Mine was $12.79 or $12.99 and I couldn't imagine that yours would be cheaper in NY, unless you found some that hadn't been repriced yet.

Mine are 8 oz. Did I get ripped off, or did you get a deal?

Good clean build! Well done and model on!

Is your can small or large? My $12.99 cans are pretty big, not the small ones.

Just got a SMH resin '65 Chevelle AWB funny car I ordered last week off eBay (I'm a sucker for the words "Last one"). Looks pretty clean, and it includes hood, front and rear bumpers/grille, separate taillights, interior tub, dashboard, and front axle--looks like everything needed to put it on the more common '65 Nova AWB chassis. Not a bad deal for a price not much over MSRP of a new kit, and probably less than a glue bomb of an original on eBay.

To be honest, I usually just paint the whole chassis flat black and ignore molded-in exhausts. But my standards are getting lower the older I get.

Very cool, thanks for sharing it! Few years back, I made some quickie brakes out of some random washers I dug out of my Dad's workshop junk drawer, and some scrap red plastic. They're okay for the junky model I used them on.

Good eye! Yes, the steering wheel was upside down and I put it right. The green plastic isn't super-glittery, though it looks that way in the side pic. Happens sometimes in flash photography. And it's quite opaque--no danger of any color showing through on the headliner, even black. (I've learned about dealing with this problem on my polish projects.)

They've got it molded with "wrap-arounds" on the ends that go into the roof, and they shouldn't. Best thing to do it cut these off, glue and putty them into the roof where they belong, then drive on. Second best thing to do is just paint 'em.

Picked this one up at the local toy show a couple months ago. It's the Revell snapper. I already did one of these and painted it silver, but have been wanting to do one molded in that lovely metallic dark green. It seemed to be complete and in good shape, but I didn't look at it close enough. Turned out to have quite a few problems. Most obvious problem was the poorly applied stripe stickers. Tried to save/fix 'em, couldn't, peeled 'em off without much regret. So it's a stripe-delete car. Next, the top was quite scratched up. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but some kinds of plastic will polish out nicely and some kinds won't, and this turned out to be one of the latter. Tried all my Snake-Fu polishing tricks and got it fairly nice, but not quite as shiny as the rest of the car. Oh well. I also sanded and polished out the molding lines on the C-pillars. The glass was all scratched, too, but that polished out pretty much okay. Didn't notice when I bought it that it was missing the left taillight. Actually it was missing the right taillight—OB had incorrectly tried to install the left light on the right side (they're “handed”). Gave some thought to using the lenses from an AMT '70 Chevelle I'm parting out, but decided it would be easier to just scratchbuild a lens out of .030” styrene. This only took about a half hour, and I painted it Testor Stop Light Red. OB had replaced the kit rear tires with some AMT slicks, a change I actually didn't hate. But turns out he didn't use the kit rear wheels. All four wheels are of the same general type (Magnum 500s), but they're from at least two and maybe three different kits. Sorting out the wheel problems took a couple of mornings' work, not even counting detail-painting them. The headlights had been installed with what seems to be hot glue. I tried and failed to remove and fix or replace them. Ended up just picking some hot glue blobs off around the edges with an Xacto point. They're the weak point of the finished model, but, ah shucks oh well. Did some detailing of the (molded in tan) interior with black paint and Silver Sharpie, and painted the headliner tan with craft acrylic. Everything else was standard Snake-Fu—window trim and grille detailing, side marker lights, and so forth. Oh, I had to detail-paint the center bar of the grille with Model Master British Green. When finished, I took it to the next toy show and showed it to the vendor I bought it from. He went absolutely NUTS over it, and offered me a fistful of money for it (but not enough to cover the 10-12 hours work I had in it, IMHO). Was kinda pleased he liked it so much, though. Thanks for looking and, as always, comments welcome.

You're off to a great start! Love the color and you're getting a good finish. Don't forget to hit the ends of the back window with some of that maroon. Revell's '68 and '69 Corvettes are some of their very best kits of the modern era, even though they're now somewhere around 30 years old or more. Well, except for that weird rear window on the coupe thing, but that's easily fixed/dealt with. Drive on!

Very satisfying watching the bully Robin Roberts grenade his tranny in the first two minutes last night. (Does that make me a bad person? ) Karma is real! I've never liked Chuck, but I've never pulled for him harder than I did in his first race last night. It was amazing how he planned it all down to the last detail, and everything happened exactly as he planned. And the Swansong kid still didn't learn his lesson. (Still shooting his arrogant mouth off.) Also good to see Erik K blow up and be unable to make the final against Ryan Martin. More karma? I'm liking Bobby Ducote better all the time. He always talks like his car's on its last legs, but he seems to send it downrange just about every time. Also finding it just about impossible not to like Scott Taylor. Seems like an all-around good guy. Lizzy Musi's car is on a mission, but it looks like she has a bad crash next week. (Didn't like the talk of "a devastating loss to the NOLA team.") I hope she's okay, at least.

Do some net research on the "salt technique" used for weathering by military modelers. Looks like something that might work for this. (I've never done it so can't comment on it personally.)

Been decades since I saw it, but I seem to recall that the high point was watching a TBM Avenger drop a load of manure on Paul Williams in the first five minutes. Is that about right?

Very, VERY nice! One of Revell's very best kits of the last couple decades and you did it proud. Well done and model on!

In a couple months, you might be able to sell it on eBay and turn a profit!