CabDriver

Oh man, I love the second version too! Great stance!

I’d bet if it looks good now, it’ll stay looking good most likely without needing to clear coat. A good automotive wax might help project it from eventually fading and deteriorating but if it looks good now and you’re happy I’d be inclined to leave it alone There’s plenty of debate over whether to clear over decals - I don’t think they’ll suffer usually if you DON’T clear over them, but also I guess it can’t hurt if you decide you want to!

I haven’t had luck with their primers/sealers - no matter what I tried I couldn’t get them to adhere to styrene well enough that I could safely mask over it. If you’re not going to do any masking, you might get away with using them, but even that $1 Color Place primer you can get at Walmart works better than their stuff does on the plastic we like. I use their sealers for other stuff, but ALWAYS over a ‘real’ primer base. For projects like that Impala I posted above there was a TONNE of masking, and I had about 0% confidence in their water-based based Auto Borne products for that job - I don’t see how a water-based paint can bite into styrene as well as regular primer can, and in my experience it just doesn’t work. The Createx reducer however works great for me and isn’t expensive - I’ve used Rx 91% type alcohol too, like some others above, but their own brand stuff works great and a little goes a long way so I don’t mess with anything else very often. For a clearcoat, I haven’t found much that DOESN’T work over Createx paint - I like gloss enamel cut with lacquer thinner right now, but there’s plenty of options in the flavor of your choice out there. As always, opinions vary and mine’s only worth as much as you paid for it, but these have been my experiences with the stuff...

Jaw dropping work! I’ll start clearing a space on my shelf! ??❤️

My three favorites right now:

Yep! Love all their paints! Very forgiving to use, great price, great colors, and they mix easy as pie. Hard to go wrong with them! You can’t polish them like lacquers or enamels, so you’ll need a top coat, so bear that in mind but I love them! All painted with Createx or Wicked Colors paints (mostly Createx):

Oh man, I’m learning all this stuff as I go - but it’s fun! This weekend’s project - the bed! In continuing the pieced-together-from-5-different-trucks theme of this build, I’m giving it a slightly different look to the other parts I’ve weathered...same technique tho...base coat of brown, then some salt: Then some black, and remove salt: And then a bunch of weathering with watercolor pencils and pastels and we’re getting close to what I had in mind... I figured the bed would almost certainly be pretty rotten after 86 years, but a resourceful New York speed shop would no doubt have noticed the almost limitless amount of free wood laying around the city... What better to replace the bed than free material that’s laying around forgotten on about every block in the city? Cut some strips of styrene, and painted with Tamiya acrylic: Then added some grain: Then some salt, and some blue: Removed the salt and buffed back through the blue in a few spots to make it look like the paint was worn away from endless parts getting dragged across it: And some tricky masking and airbrushing later we’ve got some serviceable NYPD standard issue barriers ready for installation: Added some photoetch screws to ‘secure’ them and got them attached to the bed: Fun little detail I think!!! Looks cool with the other parts too: More to do on the bed still, but that’s this weekend’s progress so far...more when I’ve done more!

I like the blue one! ? That would be a REALLY cool bed-filler for this build! Bring it on! I know you haven’t got that ol’ Datsun slowing you down any more ?

It’s been a while since we saw the 32 roadster too, I’d love to see that one back on the shelves. Not that it’s impossible to find, but it has been a while...

Thank you! I agree! It was certainly a real accomplishment for them to build trucks that turned out to still be around, and in working order, nearly 100 years later...or over 100 years later if you look at how many Ts are still out there in great shape! Better get a tetanus shot before you put this one up on the shelf though ?? That old Chevy is SUPER cool! I’d love to build a kit of one of those! That’s super helpful info, as always - thank you again Dennis! Gives me some informed knowledge to go off when I get to the floor! And yeah, I found PLENTY of mangled and ruined fenders in my search for research material. The chance of these parts making it out alive in my fictitious New York shop truck for this long are pretty slim probably, especially in modern day “park by feel” NY ? Thank you sir! Speaking of fenders, those were this morning’s project. Roughed them up a LITTLE, but in keeping with the ratty-but-loved theme of this truck I didn’t completely ruin them, just a few dings and marks, then shot a base coat of silver: Next, shot a coat of Vallejo steel and stippled it with a q-tip to make it a little more interesting of a starting point for the layers to come... Next up, some red oxide primer to imply this thing had been restored at LEAST once in the past, and had probably been at least a couple of different colors: Most of the reference pics I found showed that the fenders rust and wear more on the tops than the sides, so I’m trying to keep a little of that silver finish on there for me to layer over later and have a little more paint (and thus not rust) everywhere else... Salted to season again: And shot some translucent black followed by a light coat of translucent dark blue over the whole thing: Remove salt, because it’s bad for you anyway... We can see some hints of this thing’s past now, a little dark blue clinging on there (and tying in to the color of the cab) but much more Henry Black...next up, more rust tones to get the look I’m shooting for. For this step I used brown and orange watercolor pencils, applied to a wet piece of sponge and built up in dozens of light layers to allow most of the metal and paint tones to show though but give a realistic rust look. I’ve applied a couple of brown tones here and just started the orange on the rear fenders: A dozen light layers layer... Getting to what I had in mind! Another rusty old part to add to the collection ? More soon!

That would be incredible!

Thank you! I’d like to build one myself now! Can’t wait to see whatever you end up working on! You’ve been a huge help on this project Dennis, thank you!! The floors are steel, right? I’ve seen some different variations but I THINK steel is what these came with? As a far better modeller than me I’m sure you know good tweezers help a lot ?? Had a busy week (I think @thatz4u jinxed me ?) but I’ve been prepping some parts and getting ready for buildathon (rustathon?) this weekend. Dirtied up a 40 Ford steering wheel and got that installed... And started doing a little aging to the fenders, frame and bed so I can get on those this weekend. From the pics I’ve seen the fenders on these trucks don’t seem to end up full of holes too often - pretty common to see them rusty and losing all their paint, but they must’ve been made of decent grade steel back in the day. Looking forward to messing with some of the bigger parts of this build over the weekend! More soon!

Yep, good spot! That'll be the first thing I do. Interesting that the box calls it a one piece body - it KINDA is, but some of it is part of the chassis as you note.

Ahh bummer - thanks for the info though! I hadn’t really started researching this build properly so it’s good to find out about that now...appreciate it!

The part you’ve polished looks great! If you can get rid of the peel and get it all like that it’ll look stunning when you’re done!

Any chance of a pic of what’s in the full detail Chezoom kit? I’ve been wanting to do one of those!

Request granted!

England would have been under “Nazi style” leadership in 1940 too if Churchill hadn’t asked FDR for help...

Ohh, I’ve been wanting to build a Grumman LLV - that S10 kit will be helpful for that hopefully. Wrong engine though.

I can post pics tomorrow if you’re still interested...it’s been a while since you asked though ? Anyone built one of these? My wife picked one up for me this week, I’m looking for some inspiration!

My wife went to Hobby Lobby whilst I was out - I would’ve been disappointed to miss a trip there if she hadn’t come home and surprised me with a kit and another sign for the workshop wall. I have the best wife! Never built a 1/32nd before...shouldn’t take forever seeing as there’s about 8 parts in there ?. Will be a fun weekend build!

Ohhhh awesomeeeeeee - this is gonna be a GREAT thread ??.

I’m not sure - but I’m going to add one of my own to this one I think! ??

Oh wow, I love the look of that! WAY cool!! ???

I can’t see it? ??