Roadrunner

Yours looks just great. I too am wondering about the color. I have the same kit almost ready for primer now, but have to scribe around the hood, and I've been too lazy to do it.

This looks very nice. Hard to believe it's the old Monogram kit. Good job.

You mean little plastic discs that looked like Tiddly Winks?

Thanks, I'll certainly keep that in mind.

I think I fall squarely into this camp as well. As a comparative newbie here, I have very little confidence that my own feeble attempts are "up to par", so I tend to gravitate toward offering compliments about what I do like about a less than stellar model, as I feel those modelers need the encouragement and support, as do I. On this and all other modeling forums I'm active on, when I see something really bad, I usually just say nothing, and move on.

Yep, my fear at the moment, is that the passion I feel right now, may burn out like a Roman candle, leaving me stuck with something that's never going to fulfill its usefulness. I'll tread lightly, that's for sure.

Very nice. Man, I just loves me some Tiger.

I'd love a larger Scope, but $200-$250 is about the upper limit of what I'm willing to part with. As to clubs, a good idea, but I have no car at the moment, and probably won't until next year sometime, so getting around is troublesome, to say the least.

I already bought some, Hugh, just wasn't wearing them at the time. Live and learn, eh? I also have a nasty habit of wet sanding a little, then polishing a little, and I now believe this is also causing problems, as I'm handling the same areas way too frequently. I think maybe I should just wet sand the whole thing, polish it, then leave it the heck alone as much as possible. I'd be interested in how others deal with this aspect of the paint finish.

Yea, on two of my earliest paint jobs, I had to touch up, and the paint just slid off and pooled everywhere, even after a thorough scrubbing with dish soap, like I was spraying onto grease; quite the mess, and very frustrating. Someone here pointed out the silicone issue, and that was that.

Looking real good.

I wish I lived out in the middle of nowhere like you do, Ed, but I live in the suburbs, and it may just not be as practical for me. Still and all, a reasonable sized (I'm looking at a Meade 102mm), isn't too horribly expensive (always a concern with me), so I might still just go for it.

One thing I did learn the hard way, is that Novus #2, contains silicone. If you ever need to respray an area after using that, the paint will not stick. I've switched to Meguiar's, and have had no issues (of that sort anyway) since then.

I hate to be a stickler here, but it's actually Hampden, not Hamden.

Interesting to know, but since the tires provided in the kits are usually junk anyway, I'd be replacing them with AMT tires, using whatever pattern I determined to go best with my chosen paint scheme, be it stock or otherwise. Thanks for the info, Bill. Right now I'm debating whether or not I even want to consider buying any more car models.

I can't answer your questions, but I can certainly comment on the cars in the stash. I have roughly 20 cars in the stash that I've acquired in the last 18 months, and I'm very seriously considering that if I can't get at least one of them finished to an acceptable standard by the end of the year, selling off all the remainder and just calling it a frivolous exercise in futility.

I think you're being too hard on yourself, Jerry. I've botched nearly every paint job I've done in the last year, to one degree or another, but I'm slowly learning, and the results seem to be getting somewhat better. Having built predominantly aircraft and armor for the last twenty years, cars are a whole other world for me, and it seems to be taking me forever to learn how to get the results I want.

One mystery solved at least. On both my '69 GTX and this car, I've ended up with chipped paint on the left side rear window vicinity. Yesterday I discovered that when I'm using my left hand to stabilize the car during wet sanding and polishing the driver side, my thumbnail is digging into the paint. On the GTX, the BMF covered it, but on this car, it actually happened to the body itself, and fixing it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, without showing as an ugly patch. This is so annoying, and I'm beginning to seriously doubt that I'll ever be able to get a car finished that I can take to a show and be proud of.

I'm seriously disappointed; I've gone and wet sanded right through the paint on the scallop edges on the driver door. My experience so far with using this canned paint to do airbrush touch ups, has not been good, so I have no reason to assume this attempt will work out any better.

Tried it yesterday, and it did seem to help somewhat, Joe. Thanks a bunch, Carl, I like it too.

I'll probably grab the Revell kit next month. Thanks again, fellas.

Actually, my next step will probably be directly to a refractor telescope. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of brightness on the horizon and very tall trees that restrict my view here, so how far I'll pursue this is questionable.

Most of my neighbors aren't too appealing from a distance, I shudder to think of what they'd look like up close.

Ha! Yep, keeping them horizontal like that just aids with the overall balance when moving the tripod around. Clarity and definition with these seems good, I checked out some birds and stuff, and they seem to focus really well, whereas my older binoculars (which I can't find at the moment), were very fiddly, and never seemed to focus really well. The older pair may need collimating, I'm not real sure.

I received my star gazing (12 x 50) binoculars yesterday, and that pleases me very much. (A tripod mount for them was also delivered today, the tripod itself having been purchased a few months ago.) These will certainly tide me over until later this year, when I buy my telescope. (As luck would have it, last night was the first time in the last two weeks that the sky was completely overcast, and it looks like more of the same tonight.)