Brendan

Typical Profil 24. Hardly any detail on the interior. They have a tendency to concentrate more on the body, which is okay but sometimes I like a little more interior detail. Most of the Mazdas usually didn't have too much stuff on the inside so they could keep their car light.

The 250TR would not have a fan. It was built as a race car. That's why there were under 40 of them made. It had to meet the standards of the governing body to be called a Production Based car. There are some out there that do have electric fans but they were added by the owners of the cars. As for the other two cars, I can't see them not having a fan somewhere. Most of those cars were driven on the street unless they had it as a race car and then they would not have a fan. Ferrari would never have the fan attached to the motor due to the fact of parasitic drag. (loss of horse power)

Finally got my airbrush this past week. Got a little more work done. Found a couple of better photos of the chassis which shows it being all aluminum on the inside. So I ended up repainting the chassis. Can't do much more on the interior until I get the body on since you have to attach the firewall after the body is on. A really big pain. One thing that really irks me is that on the chassis they show a partial motor and a transmission, but the tranmission is shown as an automatic instead of a stick. (See picture.) Still waiting on some blue for the car. I'm hoping to get it within the next couple of weeks.

If you're going to be in the Bay Area the weekend of the 19th of Oct., there's the ALMS Race at Laguna Seca. Let me know. Great to hear that you had fun at the Monterey Historics. There's always some great cars to see there.

I don't think anybody has to worry about winning the GSL. I don't think you'll have it done till about 2012. I'm still waiting to see the Jaguar. As you know, I'm just kidding. Great little kit. Always wanted to build that scale, but I think if I tried, I might slip and crush it with my sausage fingers.

I'm the same with cleaning airbrushes. I take mine completely apart. But I use the solvents that appropriate with the paints that I use, so if it's water based I use alcohol to clean. If it's enamel or lacquer, I use lacquer thinner. But you need to be careful with the type of cleaners you use because there are rubber O rings in the airbrushes. And the solvents will deteriorate the rubber. Just make sure you do general maintenance on your airbrush every couple of months. I was able to make my airbrush last for over 25 years before I cracked the body.

Vintage Racing Miniatures http://www.v-r-m.com/coming_soon.htm

The easiest way is to lay down the base of a metallic color. Let it cure. Then take your girlfriend's, your wife's, or your mom's nylons and wrap the nylon tightly against the painted section and spray your black on it. And you'll get a weaved pattern. I used to do this a long time ago. Turns out good.

I think your best bet is to not use it on your metallic painted cars. You might want to find a different clear coat. The only other thing I can think of is if you want to use that clear do put on only one to two coats. Has it happened to any of your other non-metallic painted kits?

Very interesting choice of color for that car. Not sure if I'd want that on my Ferrari if I owned one as a 1:1 car. Very nice clean build. I also had some fit issues with the kit. If you don't have everything in perfectly, it screws other things up.

I didn't know I made any of these. I've only met one other person with the same spelling of their name as mine. Must be Scotch/Irish descent. He does very nice work. A lot better than what I did when I was that young.

What he means by gas-out (off gassing) is the rate of the solvent and propellant releasing from the paint in a gas state, which is the paint drying. If you put paint on too soon, the gas would try to exit and would get caught by the second layer of paint and cause adhesion problems. It usually looks like small air bubbles in the paint.

While I'm thinking about it, how are you storing your models? Are they getting hot and cold rapidly from like sunlight? I also remember reading somewhere that some metallics don't like having clear over the top. I don't remember which magazine...some automotive magazine.

What I mean by inside and out, I mean to paint the inside of the body as well as the outside. A lot of people I know don't paint the insdie of the body trying to save paint.

I use a product called Scalecoat II. It's a really good paint stripper especially for Tamiya. It was originally made for Acrylics, but it strips lacquer based paints just as well. It's non-toxic and also can be reused several times. Also it can be flushed down the toilet when you're done. One bottle usually lasts me about 10 to 13 stripping jobs. Usually works in about 15-30 minutes and it just peels it off like butter. Just use a toothbrush to get all the tight areas.

Two things that come to mind. When you put the color coat down, did you spray the entire kit inside and out? Also with the clear, did you spray inside and out? I've had this happen with acrylic lacquers and cellulose-based paint. If you don't paint the entire kit, you have different rates of shrinkage on the kit. If you don't paint the inside of the car and just painted the outside, the paint can pull the body in different directions. Most manufacturers tell you to paint the whole kit in the base coat to make sure it doesn't do this...also the clear as well. The other thing that comes to mind is what primer did you use? If the primer is not suitable to the paint, this will happen. Hope this helps.

Very nicely done on your build on the Nissan. I had the Nissan Maxima with the 300ZX V6. And it ran into electrical problems. I had something to do with the engine management. It would start misfiring the motor. At that point it's cheaper to buy a new car rather than having it worked on. Nissan had major problems with their electronics in the late 80's through the 90's.

Isn't it done yet? Love the work you have done on it so far. It should turn out real nice.

Very nice Bugeye Sprite. Now you just need to get a Sunbeam Tiger to go along side of it.

I got some stuff painted yesterday before my airbrush broke. New roll cage fabricated. Dashboard with detail painting; gauges are decals. Homemade seatbelt material, using cloth tape. Rear firewall and exhaust painted with different shades of Alclad.

Nice job on the Lola. I've several of the Tamiya 1/12 lying around somewhere. I need to build them at some point. One of my favorite Can-Am cars.

Very nice job on the build. I built this when it first came out and it was very frustrating. I had some major part fit issues.

Well, I finally did it after 25 years of use. It finally broke. I cracked the main body on my Pasche VL. Of course, right in the middle of my doing a paint job. So, now I need to buy a new airbrush. If anyone has any suggestions about any good businesses that sell airbrushes, let me know.

It was too much ($150). I bought for myself for a birthday present. Body is nice but everything else is ######. I'm already going to have to replace the rims since they are incorrect for the car. On top of that, the tires don't even fit. No motor. But it would be easy to make. Just make a square and stick it in and there's your rotory motor. It's one of the few Mazdas that I actually like. I'm not a big Mazda/Ford fan.

Very nice looking. Can't wait to see the body. Porsche I've always liked.