Harry Joy

1970 Bonneville, yes. And I might be tempted by the GMC pickemup.

Oooh! $3.99!!! But there is no "BUY IT NOW" button.

Pop the rest of the parts in the dehydrator and see what the laws of chaos cook up for you.

Very nice.

Oi. That kind of patience is real hard. Especially when you don't have an Ebay account.

While it was rusty and the paint was dull, this still put my 2013 Impala to shame. In the front view, you can see my machine to the top, left of center. Seen at Midsouth Hobbies today, the best hobby shop east of the Mississippi (and yes, I've been to a good chunk of them):

I dig this a lot.

Thanks! I bought some Duplicolor clear a few weeks ago, and didn't like the level of shine on my test piece, but that was only one coat. I'll experiment with it more. If it's more durable to sanding, that might give me more confidence. A friend of mine warned me about the peaks, valleys and edges. I'd already learned the hard way on the Olds 442 I shared a few months ago, which is part of why I was shy of shining clear already. Thanks for the tips! I'm still learning every day!

The clear is Testor's Wet Look. The base paint is Duplicolor. The first model I did a couple of months ago actually looks better than what I've done since - and I only laid one coat of clear on it. This one was giving me fits, because the hood and the car were painted simultaneously - yet the hood looked a lighter color. The more clear I kept putting on it, the closer the colors matched. I rubbed it out a little, but did not sand it.

Thanks guys. I will hit it with the Tamiya Smoke by airbrush in a few days. The Buick 87 GNX looks very tight with the India ink - it worked much better than I hoped. I'll have it posted in a few weeks. I'm open to tips on how to polish a clear coat - I'm very apprehensive about trying it. How do you get it back to perfect gloss? I've sanded and smoothed clear styrene many times over the years doing airplanes, but doing it to a clear coat intimidates me.

Getting closer. I really want a 1970 Chevy pickup that I don't have to pay over a hundred for.

Thanks! I'll shoot some in a day or so and see how it looks. Next time, I'll try polishing the clear coat. Wary of that as it did no good when I tried before.

Are you using an ad blocker? I've had to disable mine to use Photobucket.

Thanks Harry. I did polish the heck out of the base green coat, but overdid the clear coat a bit. And that I didn't polish. I'm not up to speed on techniques for polishing the clear coat, if you have any hints! A few things gave me fits - the rear bumper and wing in particular, and I wasn't happy with the cut I made on the hood. The tires screamed model to me, but when I looked up similar wheels, they looked similar to the model. I thought about spraying some Tamiya smoke on them - might still do it. On the Riviera I posted a couple of weeks ago, and on the Buick I currently have on the workbench, I colored in the rims with India ink. This set of rims though, I let be as is.

1972 Pontiac GTO, AMT. Originally, I was going to outfit this like the old family Pontiac LeMans, hence the green, but my wife got involved and asked for a hot rod. She even helped a little! I've been trying to convince her to build one herself - maybe someday.

Accurate Miniatures kits were great, and yeah, they are not hard. They are, however, really fiddly. The designers were serious fans of their subjects, and wanted the builder to have a deep, deep understanding of the car or airplane when done. That's the way I always saw it, especially after building the toilet on the B-25. Pretty sure all the molds survived, but are scattered around. Italeri has a bunch.

Tamiya Fine is great at covering fine detail without covering the detail up. Tamiya Fine is also expensive. For a part without fine detail, or where an impeccable finish is not crucial, a less expensive primer may get the work done.

I never ever spray the accelerator. I thought my trick was my own until I mentioned to my best bud one day (also a modeler), and he does it too. I unscrew the top and use the sprayer tube to apply a touch wherever I need it. In a little time, the tube gets a little hard tip of dried CA glue globbed on it. Makes it even better. By the way, I have an old spray bottle from years ago that I use, and I keep it only about a third full. Of all the bottles on my modeling desk, the accelerator seems to be the only one I ever knock over. I refill it from a larger bottle once in a while.

Thin CA is nothing but a pain. It flows quickly and dries too fast. I prefer medium thickness as well, or gap filling. Also, when using the accelerator it is possible to do damage, if you've globbed a bunch of glue into a small space. And it does get hot - very briefly.

That's one BIG bottle of nail polish. I must test this soon.

Tamiya Fine Primer dries really fast. Dry to the touch in minutes. There is no need to blast it on. It goes on very thin, but covers well. It does not take a lot to do the job. So yes, two or three thin coats, over the course of 10 or 15 minutes is all you need.

And then he has no excuse NOT to buy an Iwata PowerJet Pro compressor. Very well built, quiet - and hoses and valves for TWO airbrushes. (Have one myself - love it. The only compressor I'll ever need.)

I find it hard to concentrate on more than one model at a time. That said, I have two in progress at the moment. One is almost done, but was in need of paint, and the weather was too nasty to paint. Still is. So I started another to keep busy and keep some attention on the plastic.

Well done, like it a lot. I've got to get off my keester and do a 53 for my dad.