peteski

You know, there is a sticky thread about this topic in the Tips and Tricks section of the forum. Hard to miss. If you look at few of the recent posts in there, you'll find some alternatives.

I'm curious if the yellowing is also present on the clear plastic that connects the windshield with the rear window, or is it just in the exposed window areas? Once you pry the "glass" out of the model, If the entire piece is yellowed, scrape some plastic from both surfaces of the connecting piece to see if the yellowing is just on the surface, or through the entire thickness of the plastic.

If we are now playing "spot the difference", the license plate is missing and each taillight is different, or is mounted differenly.

It is the same reason Les mentioned: lack of technology. Ancients did not know diseases were caused by bacteria or viruses (they have not yet invented microscopes), so they could not develop vaccines. Back in the day, people thought Earth was the center of the universe and was flat. Human brain is just a biological organ. It has very little information when we are born, and it learns as we age. I'm pretty certain if we could somehow bring a baby from ancient times and have it grow up in today's world, it would function just like the rest of us. It might even invent something new. The learned knowledge makes the difference in shaping the human brain. And don't forget that ancient Egyptians built all those pyramids, and we still haven't really figured out how they did it using their basic tools. Leonardo Da Vinci had some interesting ideas for flying machines, but the technology hasn't yet evolved to allow him to actually build working examples.

I spotted this one last week in the morning traffic. It's been years since last time I've seen one of them, and this one seemed to be in pristine condition. Not bad for 30+ year old vehicle. As a side note, it also had the older style license plate. Those are also rare nowadays. Current plates have red numbers on white background. Sorry for the spotted photo - my windshield was covered with sticky stuff coming off the trees this time of the year.

It is not about the amount of metallic flakes in the paint. Most Testors metallic spray paints from that time had what many modelers perceive as overly large metallic flakes. The paint would look fine on a 1:1 vehicle, but for small model it is basically out-of-scale. Flakes have size which could pass for the glitter-finish on a scale bass boat. It is not super noticeable viewed in-person, but taking photos of the model, the out-of-scale size of metallic flakes is readily apparent (to some of us). Actually looking at the photo of your Charger, the metallic flakes which show up look too large to me. Again, it is all in the eye of the beholder. In 1:25 scale, metallic flakes should be barely perceivable. The paint should have more homogeneous metallic look.

When I visit that link it shows it as"'Pre Order'. That's not the same as in stock. The price seems reasonable compared to Japanese online vendors considering the shipping cost from Japan.

$645 shipping charges for a $107 worth of decals? That seems a bit excessive. I seem to recall someone here mention that he has someone in USA distributing his decals.

Yes, unfortunately paint compatibility from different manufactures is not guaranteed. Sorry to hear that you learned the hard way. Even if both are lacquers, they likely use different binder (resin) and different mixture of chemicals in the solvent (thinner). If not using the same brand and type of paint for all the colors, it always makes sense to test the combination on some unimportant object (plastic spoon, soda bottle, or spare model body). None of this was a problem back when we all painted our models using hobby (enamel) paints from Testors or Pactra. But now modelers have dozens of different paints to experiment with.

Not sure if it is available ready-made, but with most modelers owning a computer and a color printer, one could use even the most basic graphic program to draw a color grid to some specific dimensions, then print it out. Or find a photo of a real trunk liner, shrink it to desired size in that same program, and print it out.

I thought the paints were made in gloss, semi-gloss, satin, and flat. I would think that semi-gloss would be more appropriate for a pedestrian vehicle than satin. Semi-gloss is shiny, but not mirror-smooth like gloss.

That's deep Mike! Because those are black/white photos. When I removed the only other color (blue) from that picture, the red also disappeared, as it became a black/white picture. Like I mentioned, I think the blue has something to do with us seeing red. Maybe the brain only fills the missing color when there is another color in the picture? I don't know.

I believe that it is the worst of BMF foils. They came up with it after Detail Master came up with their "chrome" foil as competition (touting that it is better than BMF chrome). That stuff actually *IS* aluminum foil, stiff and not the pliable foil that the original Chrome BMF is. But it is shiner than BMF original chrome. I tried the Detail Master and the BMF Ultra Chrome years ago and ditched them both. The original chrome BMF still rules my world. If the Ultra Chrome is the only BMF product you used, then you don't know what you're missing.

I wonder how color blind individuals see the original image. Most color blindness is not total (as in grayscale), but usually red/green blindness, so it would be curious how they see the original image (and how they see the color of a real can of Coke).

I suspect that like Bill mentioned, even if you don't drink or even like Coca Cola, your brain has seen enough images of Coke cans during your life, your brain knows it is supposed to be red. I also think the blue is there for a reason. I made the image grayscale (which converted blue to light gray) and the coke can does not look red. Brain is far from infallible and ripe for being fooled or . . . brainwashed.

That's very creative Joe!

That is *A LOT* of rivets!! Nice!

Interesting builds, especially since they are scratched, and also interesting painting (or staining?) technique where you leave the wood grain visible.

If you hang around the forum for some time you will see various levels of photo quality and their composition. Just like you will see various levels of model build quality. Post whatever you think is worthy of showing to the forum's members. One thing I would suggest is not to upload huge size photos. Smaller is better for viewing on the forum. Like nobody really needs a 24 mega-pixel photo. I know that the Model Car Magazine staff scours the forum for some interesting models or techniques to use them in the printed magazine, so I the photos should not be very low-res. I resample my photos down to about 1200 pixels across. Not really good for publishing in the magazine, but I really don't care.

While the headlight pods are vaguely similar, the bumper and grille are totally different.

The "Chrome" on parts trees is actually vacuum-deposited layer of aluminum, only few atoms thick. Aluminum is a fragile metal, susceptible to being attacked by chemicals (even the sweat on human hands can live permanent fingerprints). What you see is likely that some caustic liquid accidentally sprayed on those parts etched the aluminum away exposing the bare plastic color. Nothing can be done to fix that other than having the parts refinished (or replaced).

See https://jaxchemical.com/shop/ Stainless Steel Activator and blackener. Looks like you can buy in in 2 oz. quantity, so it shouldn't break the bank. I use Jax Chemical blackeners and they work well (I have never used the stainless steel ones though).

Yes, there are companies doing chemical metal milling (photoetching), but to be economical you have to design your own artwork, and order more than a single quantity of the etching. Funny, that company is within about 50 miles from where I am.