peteski

What air pressure are you using and how far from the model's surface are you spraying? Since you are willing to play (practice on plastic spoons), lower the air pressure, increase the paint flow and move the airbrush closer to the surface.

Strong lighting is vital for miniature model work. I often work on 1:43 or even 1:160 scale models. On my workbench I use 2 sunnex gooseneck 20W halogen lights and 2 magnifier lamps with 3000K "Kitchens and Bathrooms" GE fluorescent bulbs which have CRI of 85 (pretty decent CRI for fluorescent lamps). The halogen lights also have an excellent CRI value. The halogen lamps have very small heads so I can position them very close to my face and to the work area to focus the intense light exactly where I need it. The Sunnex lamps aren't cheap, but they are well worth their price. I bought mine about 150 years ago. I just checked their website and nowadays they offer a whole range of LED-based lamps. Still, I like the halogen ones for their high CRI.

I'm glad you got this thing figured out and thanks for the follow up. It is always good to know the final solution.

Buick? Where? I don't see any Buicks in those photos. That car looks very nice, but the name has to go! It sounds like some blood-pressure or diabetes drug.

Funny, I just picked up a model of it few weeks ago!

LOL! They are nice! Some not as well proportioned as original Matchbox ones, but they have nice paint jobs and most have operating features.

Funny - Couple of years ago I saw one of those in what looked like original unrestored (but good) condition at a local supermarket parking lot (used as a grocery getter). Talking about unique cars!

Vegas, Ace Ventura and Mr. T? I pity the fool!

Replicas and Miniatures (Norm) used to sell photoetched nickel-silver egg crate pattern. Check the catalog. I bought one for my T-Bird model (which is now buried deep in my stash, and the photoetch is packed in the kit's box.

Oh yes it can - and it will. No matter which party gets in. Trust me on that one.

I'm also not sure about this aversion to nail polish. Nail polish is simply a solvent-based lacquer. Similar to to the automotive touch-up paints you buy in a car parts store or at a car dealer. It is also similar to several brands of model paints (like Scale Finishes). If you think about it, paint/lacquer is manufactured in large quantities and then it is poured into small bottles (like hobby paints or nail polishes). If I were to take some orange nail polish, thin it a bit with lacquer thinner and pour it in a Scale Finishes bottle with their label, you would use it and never know that the paint came from a nail polish bottle.

I'm not sure that I would want to see some of the Spotlight forum members here. I have Comcast as my ISP at home and I have not problems accessing that other board. Can't you take one of your wireless devices to some random WiFi hotspot in your town and see if the problem still happens on those networks? Or can you try shutting off the WiFi on your phone and trying to access it through your phone carrier's network?

Bill, I think some of this diluting of those American value was due to the fact that there was a major change in the global economy. The world has become a much smaller place and less isolated than it was let's say 40 years ago. Instead of doing everything in-house (and keeping the know how within the company and within the country), large companies have expanded into many different locations all over the world. The R&D is no longer just kept in USA. They can do it cheaper in other countries. Which brings up another point: the bottom line. Now it seems that more than ever before (at least in my lifetime) all that the corporations seem to care about is maximizing their profit and pay off the shareholders. Plus all the mega-mergers where there are fewer and fewer companies competing with each other is also stiffing innovation. That is how I see it and there doesn't seem to be any way to reverse these trends. The other thing is that the population is getting lazier when it comes to logical thinking. With the Internet and easy and instant access to the entire knowledge of the world, nobody needs to think anymore - we just "Google it". The technology makes us not want to think - especially those who don't remember days before the Internet or a smart phone. Why learn cursive writing or arithmetical operation in your head when the computing devices which are ever-present in our lives can do all of that for us. Like I said: I don't see a good way to get things back to the good-old-days. The cat (the tightly interconnected global economy) is out of the bag and we can't turn back. But as a naturalized immigrant I can tell you that while I can see lots of negative changes have taken place since I arrived in the good US of A, we still are much better off than many other places on this blue planet of ours.

Whatever it is - it's very cute!

From that picture it looks like Pale Gold would be a good match, but I have that Alclad paint and I don't think it is as intensely yellow as the photo above shows. The Inca Gold looks like even better match. Problem with the Testors paints is that the metallic particles in them are rather large and they look like metal flake paint instead of metallic finish. You might want to browse the fingernail polish section of your local grocery store or drug store - you might find something that works.

When I was growing up in Poland in the 70s we mostly had Matchbox models (and of course the various models from the Eastern Bloc countries). I did encounter few Hot Wheels cars but they always looked odd to me. Now as an adult I can clearly see that most (but not all) Matchbox cars of that era were nicely-proportioned scale models of real vehicles, where Hot Wheels were more of a whimsical fantasy automobiles rather than scale models of the real vehicles. When I emigrated from Poland I sold all my diecast cars. But I have since then rebuilt some of my collection and even added models which attracted me as an adult. I like to mention that Tomy diecast cars also depict rather well-proportioned scale replicas of real vehicles. I also have several Tomy models in my collection. I addition, I have several Matchbox Super Kings which are mostly diecast models of larger trucks which are close in scale to the standard Matchbox passenger vehicles. Most of those are fantasy vehicles (they look very futuristic), but there are few (like the gasoline tankers) which look like real trucks.

It's a Buick - do I have to say anything else?

Is that a front-engined Beetle?

I used 0.010" styrene painted satin black. Looks like a rubber mud flap. To keep this in perspective, a 1:1 rubber flap us probably around 1/4" thick. That works out exactly to 0.010" in 1:25 scale! If you make them thicker then they won't look right. I also has some black rubbery material of about that same thickness (anti-static bag for electronic parts). I made mud flaps out of it but it didn't hang straight down. While it was nice and floppy, it didn't look realistic. The 0.010" styrene looked most realistic.

My GF shops for nail polishes, with me. For painting model cars. She also gave me old pantyhose so I could fill it with rock salt and throw it in the roof to get rid of an ice dam (last winter). You have to find a good woman guys!

Awesome! Things like in-scale cables and wiring really contribute to the realism of this model. The only thing I noticed saying "model" to me (in one of the photos) was the tread on the front tire. Scuffing it with some sandpaper would have been absolute perfection. The rear tire looks realistic.

That is a nice clean build. I love lots of chrome on bikes!

Neah, there is a UPC barcode on the carton! I grew up in Poland in the 60s and 70s and lived in a house pockmarked by WWII shrapnel. I've been to Oświęcim (Auschwitz) and seen many first hand examples of the war damage. I also learned the painful war history in school. So, it is not like I'm not familiar with the atrocities of WWII. Yet, I think this blanket ban on swastikas or other Nazi related symbolism is just going too far. Everybody seems to be offended by everything nowadays. Swastikas are banned from model kit decals in Germany. You'll never see a swastika on a model on a cover of any modeling magazine. IMO, this is all part of history. If used appropriately, I don't see any problems with it. Just don't glorify the Nazi methodology. Even the silly uses like on that ice cream in India shouldn't cause anybody to get their knickers in a twist - I have a feeling that not much premeditated thought was put into naming that ice cream. I say: come on - lighten up.

I didn't translate the text on that webpage - the photos already tell the story! It looks like the model was 3D printed. The only slight hint that the photo is of a model are the headlights: the pattern on the lenses looks too uniform, and the real headlights are way more sparkly. But none of this takes much away from this superb model. Even the windshield wipers (the usual giveaway of a model) look 100% realistic to me. The thin "glass" also greatly enhances the realism.

I've been collecting nail polishes for use on model cars for decades. There are some really good "car colors" available. I usually shop for them with my GF. Plus, like others mentioned, other beauty shop supplies are really good for our hobbies. I use the multi-grit emery sticks and pads and also the resin used for acrylic nails. I have around 100 bottles of nail polish in the stash! Here is a recent model I used nail polish on: