jaymcminn

Kinda makes the old "Visible V8" pale by comparison, huh?

Looking good. And Ultimate Compound is indeed magical stuff!

I, ummm, sanded them down and used 300 photoetched washers to replicate the grommets. I may have a problem.

Meh, you couldn't make a new car that looks exactly like the old 240-280z these days. Nissan did a very good job with what they have to work with. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the reason behind the new Z's fairly conservative styling comes from the criticism about the relatively wild styling of the new Supra. The new one is still prettier than the old 370z.

So much style for a simple truck. The gothic arch grille, the beautiful wood bed that follows the curve of the body... it doesn't get any more French than that.

Wet the surface you're applying the decal to with Micro Set, move the decal into position with a round-tip toothpick, use a Tamiya craft swab to suck up the surface moisture (without touching the decal, if possible) when the decal is where you want it.

Plus when you're sitting inside you don't have to look at the outside.

The dull red looks fantastic. Although metallics were theoretically available in 1930, they were pretty rare and unlikely to show up on a racing car like the Alfa. Your Bentley is beautiful... I've had one of these going as an on-again, off-again project for years. Are those the Model Bunker 3d printed wheels and tires?

Definitely not the metallic red, which is probably the dumbest color call out I've ever seen on a model. Hull red might be a little dull, but definitely worth a spoon test. I used Tamiya Italian Red over their Red Oxide primer on my Fiat Mefistofele last year, which gives a pretty nice vintage red feel. Pics below... The Italeri Alfa 8c is a fantastic kit that responds well to some pretty simple detailing. My build from two years ago...

On my seats I used my Dremel and some files to add wrinkles and make them a little less stiff and plastic-y looking. I also came perilously close to ruining them with a heat gun when I used it to add some sag to the cushions. The results were pretty good.

I got this message for a few hours tonight. Looking at the gap in postings on the site I'm not the only one!

Hasegawa did the smart thing by tooling up a late Mini. Looks like a seriously nice kit.

That's the perfect color for a Diablo. Great work!

Looks fantastic. Even more of that hard work will disappear from view once the front clip is on, good job taking lots of pics now!

My mother bought a 2009 Maxima with the CVT to replace her '04 Maxima with a standard torque-converter auto. Great engine yoked to a whiny, horrible, laggy draggy drudge of a trans. She only kept the car for a couple of years because she hated the transmission so much. I had a rental Kia Forte with CVT a few years back when my Soul was in the shop after I got rear-ended and it seemed... better? Not as bad, anyway. Could be because it was a 10-year-newer car or because the low power of the Forte engine masked the inherent laziness of the CVT.

Oh yeah, I block sand. Every single build. Before block sanding I'll always scribe panel lines deeper in case they disappear or go too shallow during the sanding process. Styrene, especially on older molds, will tend to raise around panel lines and the edges of panels and dip above details molded on the underside of a panel. Often I'll attach removable panels with Micro Kristal Klear so I can get the transition as smooth as possible. Some kits are worse than others. My latest, a Monogram Mercedes 540k from 1979, took about 8 hours of body prep between scribing, cleaning up trim and block sanding before I even got to primer and guide coats. On the 1/12 Porsche 934, I mocked up the body including the opening doors that shut with neodymium magnets before block sanding to make sure that they fit flush along the entire profile of the door.

I love this. Really beautiful.

Removing chrome properly should involve removing the clear lacquer underneath, which is where a lot of the thickness of the plating and its tendency to obscure detail come from. The best way I've found to do this is Easy-Off. I've never seen the spray bottle, always used the aerosol cans.

Thanks Claude! The Jo-Han 500K kits are fantastic and much more detailed than the Monogram. I built the 500K roadster several years ago and it's one of my favorite models! Gratuitous pics below...

Thanks Chang! Molotow airbrushes well without thinning at 15 psi or thereabouts. It's not durable, but it really isn't worse than, say, Alclad chrome. I let parts painted with Molotow dry for a week or so and handle them while wearing cotton "inspection gloves", and I haven't had any issues with wear. I just got some stuff called Gaia S-02 chrome sealer that's supposed to seal Molotow with minimal effect on the shine but I haven't gotten around to trying it out.

Thanks Kurt! I thinned each spoke out from the back a little. The 540K wires are actually really well molded and didn't need a lot of help to look good... stripping the heavy '70s chrome plating helps a lot as well.

After my highly-detailed and involved 1/12 Tamiya Porsche 934 build I was looking for something a little more low-key to build before jumping into another big project. When I was a kid I started off building the Monogram classic car line in their 1979 series boxing, and wondered what could come from doing a nearly box-stock build of one of these models using the skills, tools and techniques I've amassed over the last 40 or so years. Ironically I decided on the model I never actually got to build back then... the elusive Mercedes 540K Coupe. The 540K Coupe represents a completely half-arsed attempt to turn the roadster kit into something different by adding a roof and rear fender skirts but ignoring the other differences between the coupe and roadster. The few 540K Special Coupes that were built had differences in the fenders, hood vents and spare tire cover vs the Special Roadster that Monogram initially kitted up. My modeler's OCD kept bugging me to fix those inaccuracies but in the end I decided to keep the build pretty close to box-stock. The only variances are some PE bolt heads for the rear fender skirt fasteners and some Tamiya mesh for the air cleaner as well as some styrene reinforcements where the bonnet sides meet the top part. The vast majority of this build was spent fitting and tweaking the bodywork. Mold lines, including a particularly nasty one that ran across the rear fender, deepening panel lines and block sanding the body made a big difference. The bonnet fit was key... my main goal was to get the beltline chrome trim to run in a perfect unbroken line down the entire length of the body. The frame required some grinding above the rear suspension to keep it from interfering with the interior tub which made it sit too high in the rear. The running boards took some work to keep them from fouling the frame rails as well as getting them to sit flush with the line of the fenders. I was able to attach the separate roof piece using Tamiya thin cement and I reinforced the inside of the joint with CA glue. The only filler required was a couple of thick coats of primer. Paint is Tamiya Deep Metallic Blue over Metallic Blue with Light Sand for the interior. Chrome is a mix of kit chrome (bumpers, wheel center) and airbrushed Molotow (grille, headlamps, side pipes). I stripped the chrome from the kit wheels, thinned the spokes and painted them the body accent color. Despite all the work I put into the rest of the build the thing I'm most proud of is that all four wheels actually touch the ground. I never managed that on these classic kits when I was a kid! N I enjoyed this walk down memory lane a lot, enough that I'm looking at the Duesenberg Murphy Convertible Coupe as my next victim... that one might wind up with a bit more detail, though!

I love that plaid. I've used it on several builds (see below) and just bought some more for the 1/16 scale BMW Isetta. Looks pretty wild in the Zonda!

I wish. I'd love to get an early sample of this kit but I'll wind up buying it just like everyone else. I was just referring to seeing some parts trees and a build up so I can start planning the build in my head. I'm leaning toward a replica of the Louis Chiron factory team 35b that resides in the Revs Institute here in Naples. This car was the 2nd place finisher in the 1930 Targa Florio, and was discovered disassembled but complete in 2006 in Pau. Rather than doing a cosmetic restoration it's been left in partially-stripped bare aluminum as it was discovered.

Hopefully we get a test shot soon to drool over. After building the new-tool Alfa 8c a few years ago I have no doubt this is going to be a knockout!