Brendan

Mike, I have had this happen before with decals that I have had. As long as the glue hasn't washed off completely, you should be okay. But if the decals don't stick real well, I have used Future floor finish to help make them stick. Keep in mind, though, that Future can sometimes wrinkle decals. Another trick is to take Elmer's White Glue and water it down heavily and kind of dredge the decals through the watered down glue and wipe off the excess. Then use a damp cloth to lay down the decals. If there is still residue left on the decals after they have dried, again use a wet cloth to wipe the excess away. Hope this helps.

Dave, The Le Mans Miniature kit is far superior to the Revell kit (in my opinion), even though it doesn't have an engine. The proportions and the body are more accurate than the Revell kit. The SMS produced the decals, the photoetch, the instruction sheet and the box art for the LMM kit. He has also collaborated on the LMM Pescarolo C60. I have pictures of my LMM R10 in the gallery if you'd like to take a look. I will be doing the Revell kits at some point; I can see a lot of potential in the kit. The downside is that only one version of the car is able to be done. Maybe someone will do some aftermarket decals and a better engine bay.

Thank you for the comments. My next projects are a Kramer K8 Porsche and a Street Cheetah. So keep an eye out for new posts.

Very nice work. Really like the paint scheme. There's something about black and red that makes the older cars stand out. The engine bay looks great.

Beautiful build. Very nice work on the CF.

You are correct in that they do use vinyl decals on the 1 to 1 cars. And sometimes they are painted on. The reason they use vinyl is that it cuts down on the weight of the car. The vinyl is almost half the weight of what paint would be. But they do wax their cars heavily so you can hardly tell that the decals are not actually painted. The only reason why I clearcoat is to prevent the decals from being damaged. Plus it's easier to clean if dust gets on it. But if you do put light coats, you can get it to look like it's not clearcoated. There are no stupid questions! I'm hoping I can get you interested in these types of cars. I do race cars cause I can never get a perfect paint job. I can hide my mistakes with decals.

The green was a problem area for me too. It's tricky trying to tape up the roll hoops. I ended up using Tamiya's TS-22 (light green), The paint matched the decals pretty well until I put the clear over it. The green darkened. It's hardly noticeable but when it's in direct light, you can see the difference between the paint and the decal. The instructions call for a florescent green, but none of the florescent greens matched the decals very well. They were either too bright or too dark. If I do this kit again, I plan to paint the green decals so that way, it's a definite match.

Thank you for your comment. Yes, I do clearcoat my decals. On this kit, I used Floquil Crystal-Cote (train) Part #F110004. They have a tendency to mislabel their bottles. The paint should be clear with no yellow tinge to it. It sometimes gets mixed in with the high gloss they produce. The high gloss has a yellow tinge. I've only had one problem with the clearcoat hurting the decals which were from a company called Indycals. It wrinkled the decals. After it's dried you can wet sand it and buff it. Just make sure that you spray light covering coats. I usually put 2 to 3 coats on, one day between each coat. I usually sand the 1st coat.

Here's a picture of my LMM Pescarolo C60-JUDD Le Mans 2006. I just finished it today. The body is Tamiya spray paint, decanted and airbrushed, and Alclad Polished Aluminum for the shiny bits. It took me about 3 weeks to build. I would recommend this kit for those who are interested in this type of car. Feel free to make comments.

Leon, The black is from your paint line (Cobra Colors). As always it lays down nicely. The decals were a pain. They were extremely thin and had a tendency to tear. I had problems when applying the clear. Some baby spiders decided to walk across the drying paint. The next day when I came out to my workroom, I had a whole bunch of little dots on my paint surface, but it did sand out nicely and I was able to put on another coat of clear. Hopefully you're coming back with your paints; I'm running out!

Gregg, But the Jag is a car! You might be able to if you leave 2 wheels off of it. Or turn it into a plane. Also if you're cutting the hood off the Mustang, Crazy Modeler makes good scribing tools: Set B and Set C (I don't have the part numbers for them, though.) I should have my LMM Pescarolo done by this weekend. I'll get it posted.

Gregg, Bill must have done two bodies. The one that he showed me did not have the blue trim on the bottom. His work is always very impressive! Yell at him as much as you like. He deserves it every once in a while. Let me know when you get started since I would like to know what you do with the kit.

Thanks for the comments. Dave, the kit just came out. I would suggest picking it up through mshobbies.com. Ask for Mark and let him know that I sent you. Strata Sports should also have them fairly soon. There is also a Mustang available done by BHP Enterprises. I have done the Mustang as well. It is a Tommy Kendall ALL SPORTS car. It is also an excellent kit as well. To let you also know, both kits are transkits. The Revell TransAm Camero kit to complete each one. I was one of the first to get this kit and I believe I'm the only customer who has it done besides Bill. His car doesn't have the blue trim around the bottom. We try to do two different cars so when we have them at model shows, people can see the different possiblities for the kit. I did this kit in about 2 weeks. I'm hoping he produces some of the other car decals.

Here's is the 2001 Jaguar TransAm kit I just finished. The kit is from BHP Enterprises. Feel free to comment.

cstewTAMU There is a good manual/book done by Pat Covert called the The Modeler's Guide to Scale Automotive Finishes. He shows techniques on how to prep and paint cars. I'd definitely recommend this manual if you're getting into car models. It is published by Kalmbach Books (ISBN# 0-89024-265-8). It sells for under $20. The local book store or hobby shop should be able to order it. The Publishing Company also has a couple of other books available as well. Hope this helps. Brendan

I used to sell this airbrush when I worked at a hobby shop. We used to run into this problem all the time. I take it that it is a double-action airbrush (VL). One possible solution to solve the problem is to disassemble the airbrush and put everything into lacquer thinner except the air stem (where it hooks up to the air compressor line or hose) and let it sit for a couple of hours. Then take a 3 mm pipe cleaner and clean out the interior. Then examine the 3 air holes at the front of the airbrush where the cone will sit. Take a small wire and run it through those air holes. Also check where the valve stem hooks up to the airbrush. There should be a small hole next to the threaded hole. Take a small wire and clean that out as well. Reassemble and shoot at under 15 psi lacquer thinner through the bare brush. If there is any sputtering with the spray, pull the needle out and pull the cone off; then reassemble and make sure everything is tight. Then try again. Should be a constant spray. If that does not help, it may have a blockage within it...could be a piece of metal blocking it. It's a mistake by the factory. See if you can return it. Also to rule out if it's a paint jar problem, try using the paint cup that is with the air brush. It should spray with the paint cup. If it sprays with the paint cup and not with the paint jar, it means that there is not a vent hole in the paint jar. I usually drill another hole in my paint jar lids to help with this problem. Hope this helps. Brendan

I figure the cost will be in the range of $165 to $200. They get permission from Ferrari to do these kits so the prices go up. The 575 Kit that I did was $195 (but well worth it). Also have a picture of it in the Forum Gallery. As for places to buy, I usually get my kits through Strata Sports and MS Hobbies. They usually has that sort of thing, though I have not seen it up on their sites.

You got a short-filled tube of glue. When I was working in a hobby shop, we used to get cases of glue. I would always go through all the cases and quite a few times we would get empty glue tubes. Maybe one out of every hundred. It often happens when the machine on the production line is running low on glue and they haven't refilled it yet. We would send the short-filled or sometimes even empty tubes of glue back to the manufacturer. You're not the only one this has happened to.

I have built the Ferrari 575 (Car #61 Le Mans) from technomodel and they have awesome photoetch in the kit, except in the brake photoetch. That part was kind of cheesy. So I would expect that when they do the 430, they would have the same if not more detail. It will be interesting to see what decals they have to offer in the kit. I'm expecting the factory cars. JamesBonz...very nice work on the decals.

Ismaelg I have used Duplicolor Sandable Primer on Cobra Colors and MCW paint. But I usually use Duplicolor Primer Sealer to seal the primer. I've only had one problem with it on the Cobra Colors. I sprayed too heavily and it ate the primer. If you do several light coats to build up a base, you shouldn't have a problem. I use Duplicolor Primer all the time on resin kits and Tamiya kits. I've never had any problem with it crazing the Japanese plastic kits. I have run into problems with some of the new Revell kits with it crazing the plastic. I believe this is from Revell changing their plastic formula. I do like the Tamiya fine white primer if I am painting stuff white. Brendan

Strata Sports (stratasports.com) (email:raceworks66@yahoo.com) carries the Renaissance lines of kits and they also can ask if they can get the decals separately. Also they carry a good selection of rims from many manufacturers. Just browse through their website. He can also special order items if it's available to him. Hope this clarifies things. Brendan

I think your best bet would be to try to contact Renaissance. They have a Porsche 911 GT3 RS transkit (Kit #RENTK 24167) that has the Peterson White Lightning markings that you might be able to adapt over to the Ferrari 430. The kit is, I believe, about $60. But he might be able to sell the decals separately. He also might be coming out with a transkit for this car, but I'm not sure. He did make transkits for the 360, but I'm just guessing. I have ordered stuff from him before and he has a very good product. As for the painting of the actual car, the only area that you may have problems with is the red and black lightning bolt running down the sides of the car. But that could be done by careful masking. That's a car I want to do at some point as well. Hope this helps. Brendan Howden

I live on the coast in Oregon, near the CA border. The problems we have here with the weather is the nonstop rain during the winter time. And then during the summer, we can have high humidity along with high heat and then can become very cold. It's not uncommon for the temperature to be in the 100's one day and then the next day the temperature to be in the high 50's - low 60's. It took me a long time to figure out what paints I could use and when to paint when I moved to this area. I ended up switching my paints to acrylics and automotive lacquers. They seemed to be only paints that would dry here. My modeling workroom is set for both winters and summers with a heater and dehumidifier for those hot and cold days. And a very good homemade paint booth.

This color question has popped up on other forums as well. The main reason for the confusion in my opinion is that most of the photos back then had a tendency to yellow or brown as they aged. So when people look at reference photos, they would see the white as being an off white. Also when Fisher did his instructions, he would tell you to add a drop of brown into the white to make it a brown-tinged white...which ended up, unfortunately, being wrong. Good to hear that you found some replacement decals. Fisher makes a great product. If you are a Chaparral fan and if you can find Fisher kits, definitely pick them up. They are also good if you are just getting into resin since they are simple and easy to follow builds. I have built both of his Chaparral kits and have really enjoyed them. Post some pictures when you have it done.

Chaparrals could change from race to race, depending on what they had in the shop. Afriend of my father who worked for Jim Hall told me this. Classic white or Racing/Pure white are close.