jaymcminn

Hmmm, five cars for a lifetime, huh? Well, let's see: 1- 1963 Corvette coupe- silver over saddle interior. 2- Ferrari 458 Italia Spyder -white over red interior 3- 1987 Bentley Mulsanne Turbo R (maintenance is included, right?) 4- '32 Ford roadster- something along the lines of the Tom Gloy lowboy pictured below 5- Maserati Ghibli- the prettiest shape ever on four wheels Current DD- 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible (pic is of my actual DD)

+1 on the Bondo 2-part glazing putty. I used to spend a fortune on Evercoat Glaze-coat only to have most of it go bad. The Bondo is very good quality in a smaller size at a great price.

The proportions of the body seem way off on the kit. The original is a striking, if not especially pretty, example of 70s Italian design. The kit doesn't do it justice.

Will do, Greg. See you then!

That's the one, Skip. I'll contact Kevin at Strada and see if he has any in stock. Thanks!

And a few more... This was a pretty amazing kit to build. The final fit of the doors and hood is a bit fiddly, but the results look great if the car is opened up or with the panels closed. The metal transfers are fantastic, too. The kit decals, however, were terrible... the wheel centers fell apart while I was trying to position them. I might try contacting Tamiya for another set. The licence plate decal came from the Revell Mercedes SLS kit. As always, questions or comments are welcome! P.S. This is also the first test of my new photo booth... built to Alex Kustov's specifications from foam core. It works pretty well, but I haven't found the right white balance on my camera yet (lots of color correction required on these pics to make them look this good)... any suggestions?

And a few shots of the finished model. The panel fit is pretty impressive... you'd never notice the slightly larger gaps on the opening panels if it were a darker color. I washed the non-opening panel lines with a medium grey just to make everything match.

The finished chassis- it looks kinda cool like this! One of the more unusual aspects of this model is the die-cast metal base plate on the chassis. It's there for the sole purpose of adding weight to the finished model Weird, but it really makes the thing feel more substantial when you pick it up. The body is suitably complicated on this car. I used Tamiya pearl white over their fine white primer and topped it off with Testors One-Coat clear. The body mounted to the chassis...

This was a relatively quick buildup of the Tamiya McMerc kit. The engineering on this kit is extremely ambitious in some respects and less so in others. The opening doors are impressive and the hinge mechanism for the hood that replicates the 1:1 are nice, but the motor follows Tamiya's recent trend toward top-end only detail. It still looks pretty good with paint detailing. The kit was built box-stock with the exception of heat-shielding on the underside of the hood- later I might replace the plastic mesh insert on the front end with photoetched mesh. This is the intake plenum before installation- it's a pretty typical Tamiya piece in that they do one complex part that represents several different parts. This approach poses some paint challenges, but makes for very impressive parts fit... The taillight assemblies are amazing in this kit. Red lenses go over chrome reflectors and a clear LED assembly mounts on top of that. After installation in the body, a clear lens snaps in from outside the body... the results are amazing. These are the assemblies before installation... The interior and exterior are where Tamiya did the bulk of this kit's engineering. The interior is a pretty complicated setup with separate pieces for the different colors. The results, however, are amazing. The hardest part of the interior build was masking the doorjambs and painting them the body color. Note the metal transfer for the "SLR" badge on the dash. The satin-plated pedals are a nice touch.

The Tamiya kit has excellent engine detail- here's a pic of the built-up engine from mine. and a shot of the completed model... this is the "competizione" version.

Tamiya by far. It doesn't quite "fall together" like many of their kits, but it builds into a spectacular replica with a little work. The Fujimi kit is a curbside with limited engine detail and the Italeri/Testors kit has stance issues. The Tamiya kit is also fairly plentiful, and the Monte Shell racing version comes with a nice fret of photoetched parts.

Waiting until I get a photoetched detail set before I start mine... I'll enjoy watching your build in the meantime!

Recently, I've been building exotics and classic sports cars. Before starting a build, I'll spend a lot of time online deciding exactly how I want to build it... often there will be a specific car I decide I want to replicate. For current model cars, there are even online configurators where you can play with different colors and options. Good research is often the first step in building a great model.

+1 on the Meguiars Ultimate Compound. It's fantastic stuff for your scale and 1:1 needs.

Brian, I'll use four or five different glues and cements on any given build... and none of them come from a Testor's tube. If you're limited to a Hobby Lobby you can find most of the types of products you'll need there. The Plasti-Zap C/A that Matthew was referring to in his post is, basically, super glue. Hobby Lobby sells both thick and thin versions under a different brand name in the model department. Thick CA adhesive is great for filling gaps. CA isn't good for gluing chrome or windows, however... it can leave a white residue that is difficult to remove. A good liquid cement is also important to learn to use... Plastruct Bondene is my cement of choice, but Hobby Lobby should sell the Testors Model Master liquid cement that works well also. Liquid cement bonds the plastic parts together... it works best when you're doing subassemblies before paint, such as gluing the two halves of an engine block together. It will ruin paint if you get it on there, just like tube glue. The best adhesive for clear and chrome parts is five-minute epoxy. This is a two-part clear adhesive that comes in two tubes- the epoxy and the hardener. you mix the two together in a 1:1 ratio and it sets up very strong about five minutes after mixing, It's very durable and dries clear, so it's an excellent choice for these areas of your model. It also won't attack paint or plastic. On the down side, it can be pretty messy to work with! Due to its strength, I also use epoxy for attaching major assemblies (body/interior tub, body assembly/chassis) together. Five-minute epoxy is available at any hobby store and most hardware stores. One of my favorite adhesives may be a little harder to find, but it's worth looking for- it's a product called "Micro Krystal Klear". Basically, it's a thick white glue that dries absolutely clear. It's great for the "glass" on instrument faces (although epoxy works for this as well) and to glue small chrome and other trim pieces. It cleans up with water, will not harm any plastic or painted surface, and is absolutely non-toxic. It's not a very strong bond, however, so it's really best used for applications where you need a really invisible bond on a small or light part. Most better stocked hobby stores have it or can get it for you or you can find it online. Hope this helps!

Geoff, that's gorgeous. I wonder if that "panel line accent" color is just re-packaged Smoke?

Geoff, I'm loving this build so far. I've been looking wistfully at the Speedster kit in my stash... one day I'll get around to it. Until then, I'll enjoy watching yours come together.

Beautiful work on this kit so far. When I built mine, I couldn't bear to cover that body up with the Monte Shell decals, so I built it as a "body-in-white" car ready to be deilvered to a customer. Can't wait to see more progress on this one!

Thanks, Tim. The yellow mirrors definitely work better with the additional yellow touches on the body and interior. I'm glad I kept them too!

Thanks, Matt. Your build, in particular the heads-up on the fit of the "flying buttresses", really helped on this one. Now get back to work on that Maserati!

Here's a better shot of that rear diffuser... I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Note the mesh inserts around the exhausts. Here's that big swath of CF in the engine bay... I kept the engine detail pretty simple, just using a few photoetched scripts to dress things up. The fiddly and complicated photoetched wipers are also visible in this shot. And finally, here's the GTO with the last Ferrari to wear that name... I really need to get on that Italeri 250 GTO I have gathering dust! Overall, I was really impressed with the Revell 599 GTO kit. The fit was excellent and the finished model represents its subject well. I did lower the suspension by about two scale inches, as I thought it just sat too high out of the box. The Hobby Design photoetched set gets high marks, too, and I'm going to be buying a LOT more of the Scale Motorsports CF decals for future projects... they're really amazing.

I've been working on this one for a while now- it's the Revell Ferrari 599 GTO. Paint is Tamiya Deep Blue Metallic with livery decals from Hobby Design. The roof is painted in Tamiya Gunmetal with a coat of clear satin to protect it. I also used the Hobby Design photoetch detail set for this model, which I can't recommend highly enough- all the grilles and mesh come with the set, as well as the slick tread-plate interior floors. I used Scale Motorsport "High Definition" carbon fiber decals throughout the model- under the hood, all through the interior, and on the rear diffuser. This was easily the most challenging aspect of the build, as it was my first time working with these amazing decals, but I'm really proud of how all the CF turned out. It's such a noticeable part of the real car that it had to turn out right. The four-point harnesses were done with cloth medical tape "dyed" with a yellow sharpie. The hardware came in the Hobby Design set. I used Detail Master flocking applied with spray-mount to represent the blue Alcantara "suede" interior parts- the GTO doesn't have carpet. The seat buckets were done in carbon fiber, but the pattern doesn't show up well in this shot. On to some shots of the finished model...

A buddy of mine has a Solstice It's an '07 that he bought with only 15k miles on the clock last year. Neat little car, but: 1- no spare tire, or any real provisions for a flat 2- a tiny amount of cargo space with the top up, none whatsoever with the top down 3- shocking interior build quality 4- not nearly as quick as you'd expect (but the GXP solves that problem) 5- really, really unreliable- CEL continuously goes on for no apparent reason, trans control module crapped out at 17k miles Overall, it's a fun little car, but I'd never have one as my only form of transportation.

Don't forget about the Revell "Amigo Pack" issues from about ten years ago that included a 1:64 diecast in the same color scheme as the 1:25. I still have the little T-bucket diecast on my computer desk.

It's going to come right down to the wire on the mirrors... I'm not 100% sure on them right now, but I'm thinking that with the yellow calipers and Scuderia shields, they'll flow better with the rest of the design. If not, they'll get repainted in gunmetal.