Brendan

Outstanding job on a difficult kit. Kevin's decals are outstanding. I've used them on many of my projects.

He used to be a BMW driver before he was a Ferrari driver. Now he's back home. As for the car being illegal, they're running into issues with the carbon fiber roof. It is supposed to be either steel or aluminum under the rules. But there is also another rule that the main body structure has to come from the production-based car. Also they are having issues with the height of the rear wing being too tall. And there's many other small issues.

The Aston Martin has been saying this for the past four years that they are going to enter into F1. They were supposed to enter last year as a customer car for McLaren. But that fell through because the teams have to build their own chassis. I wouldn't put too much hope on this since Aston Martin is hurting for money now as well as Lola.

Raul, Unless it's on the week of July 11, won't be making that one either. Nick, As for moving to Oregon, unless you like trees there's not much here. There's a reason why I travel down to the Bay Area. How do you think I'm able to build so many models in a year.

There really is no scale for wood grain as with all wood, it may vary from tree to tree. There are decal sheets you can get that have a wood grain pattern on them. I don't know off hand who makes them gut they're out there. Also what I've done in the past is buy balsa wood or wood trim for doll houses, stain it and then make an inlay into the plastic. As for leather, I mix up different shades of browns and tans and either shoot a semi glass or dull coat over the top to get the desired look. But if you're going for actual straps for hoods and such, you can get small pieces of leather at craft stores and then trim in down to the size you want.

Zukiholic, As far as I know, they're pretty readily available. There were multiple versions of the car. The Martini Factory cars and then a bunch of privateers. I believe Studio 27 came out with a bunch of decals for this car as well. Nick, Won't be making it to that one either. I was down at the IPMS show this past weekend in Santa Clara, CA and took a second. But that's my last show for the year probably. Unless they're closer to where I live, it's too much money for me to get there. Thanks for everyone's kind words.

It depends on what model you're getting. I bought one of the Porsches and it was junk. And then I bought one of the Panoz and it was very nice. My feeling if it's something you want in your collection, you're going to buy it anyway.

Finished this kit last night. It is the Hasegawa's Lancia 037 "Jolly Club". Body is excellent as well as the chassis and the engine. Tires need to have a tread pattern on them instead of the slick. But other than that it is a good kit. Picked this kit up at the NNL West this year. Paints were Tamiya's TS-26 and TS-17 airbrushed. And Tamiya's acrylics orange and park green for touching up the decals. Feel free to comment.

If it's the same guy I'm thinking of, they're really nice kits. I've only seen a couple of them built. I'm working on a Mitsubishi Pajero (Paris-Le-Cap Winner) which I should have done in about a week or so. I'm sort of on a rally car fix right now.

The kit is a Fujimi kit. The body of the car is nice, but the interior is just awful. It's like most of the Fujimi kits of that time when they took the street car and converted it over to a race car. For $10, it was worth it. I didn't look at the box too carefully. I just thought it had a neat paint scheme so I picked it up. Edit: This was a kit that if I made mistakes on, I wasn't going to bother to fix them. I just wanted to get something built since I haven't done anything since before the NNL West of this year.

This is a kit to get me out of my building slump. Picked this up at the NNL West this past year. I like the paint scheme on it. That was the reason I picked it up. Very simple two-toned color. It reminded me of the Honda Spoon tuned cars. The kit is not a particularly good kit for a race car. It has a stock interior and wheels are too big for the car. Makes the ride height look funny and it can't be modified to have the wheels fit the wheel wells. Decals were terrible as I kind of expected. But I think it turned out okay. Body is TS-16 (yellow) and TS-44 (blue). Feel free to comment.

The blue paint looks pretty good. The problem that you're having is that you're putting too much paint on too quickly. Do several light coats. That way you're slowly building up the paint. One thing that might help you out on painting is to make yourself some painting stands. Here are a couple of pictures of what mine look like. Some of them are what they call a finger board which is a piece of wood with several holes drilled in it with pieces of dowel sticking in it. Also a simple empty paint can with tape on the top to hold the model in place. With the paint stands it makes it easier to paint the bodies and you can get better coverage as well.

Any time you want to dull paint, use talcum powder or baby powder and mix it in. And then shoot it on with an air brush. Be careful how much talcum you put in as it can turn clear paints into a hazy white. This is an old modeler's trick. I have used this several times when I have run out of dull coat...or needed a gloss paint to be flat.

To let you know, a lot of times when Hasegawa, Fujimi and Aoshima (sp) kits call for silver, they're actually calling for flat aluminum. Most engine blocks would be a flat aluminum. I prefer Tamiya acrylics XF-16 for painting engine blocks.

Take a dark metallic color and add some brown to it and that would give you a burnt iron. The final color should be a flat color. You usually see it on headers on cars.

It's not that uncommon with resin kits coming out of Japan. Companies like Studio 27 and such usually have mis-scaled kits. It has to do with the measurement issue between metric and inches. Also a lot of times when they cast these parts, they're pulling them out before they're completely cured and have a tendency to warp. They also have issues where they're actually getting thick and thin spots curing at different rates which also makes them shrink at different rates.

I've had good success with 90% alcohol or denatured alcohol. I've not had any ill effects happen to the clear plastic. I usually put it on a cotton ball and just start wiping at it.

We can only hope so. If they're doing this, what else are they doing? If I were one of the other drivers, I would never trust that man again. And I'm hoping the drivers' association cracks down on him.

Had the same problem when I did the kit. You're going to end up having to glue the sides of the chassis to the body with epoxy. Just take your time and if you get frustrated, walk away for a couple of days and then come back to it. This is going to happen more and more when you deal with kits that are essentially transkits. Nothing is going to fit right. This is where you build up your skills to modify stuff. You're still learning and this is a good way to start. Keep on posting here and people will help you out.

What's going to be interesting is what's going to happen to Mclaren. They're still on probation over that incident with Ferrari. Also Lewis Hamilton could lose his Class A license.

Hate to tell you this but aluminum can't rust. It can oxidize. I would just mix up a rust color if you want it to look rusty. Mix up some different shades of brown.

The kits are a starting point but need work. They do make kits that no one else makes. I had picked up one of their older kits and the resin was workable. I don't know how well their resin is on the newer kits. I would contact Ed at Island Collectibles and ask him about them. He would be able to help you more. Here's the link to his web site. http://www.islandcollectiblesinc.net/

I thought it was a rather stupid race. Yah, there was a lot of passing, but this isn't NASCAR. They kept on trying to hit each other every single time. They need to do something about the rear down force. These cars are spinning out way too easily. And someone's going to get killed. They also need to something about the gap between the hard and soft tires. The soft tires aren't helping the race at all. Just makes them have to do more pit stops. The tires don't even last more than a handful of laps.

I thought Jairus' answer was pretty good. As for color, I use Tamiya's XF-69 NATO Black which has a tinge of green to it. I usually spray a dull coat over the top. It's what I've always used on my resin tires. There's a reason why I moved out of CA. Too many idiots running in politics.

When you cut the rear bumper off, test fit the new bumper. If I can remember correctly, I did have to extend mine, but I don't know how much. I would figure that since you had to do it on the front, you're going to have to do it on the back as well. This is one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of the Fujimi when they do add on resin parts. Although they do make good curbside resin kits. I think they're casted by an outside source. You also might have to extend the side skirts. I did have to do that on the Nissan, but I don't remember about the MR2.