bobss396

Last night was the Long Island LIARS Club meeting. Our faithful kit vendor Paul was there with a lot of goodies. I picked up a Jimmy Flintstone '30 Ford chopped coupe body for $9.

Moderator, please delete my original post. I got the answer somewhere else. Thanks, Bob

I'm Bob from Long Island, NY. I'm married for 26 years between 2 wives and have two boys are 19 & 15. The older is a college student (computer animation) and the youngest is in high school and an aspiring rock star. Both of them build off and on but I probably scared them away from the hobby. I work as a Production Engineer for a large defense contractor that was sold as of last Monday. No stress here... I started building planes and cars when I was about 6, but mainly did cars and trucks. I built up until I was 18, gave up the hobby until I was 40. I worked fixing cars up to 1980 but had to give it up due to injuries from a car accident in 1978. Had a few awesome street machines that got me into trouble along the way. Got into the machine shop business in 1981, started my own part time machine shop in 1988 and am still in business. I got into stock car racing as a part of my rehab in 1981, built a couple of successful race cars along the way. I hung up the firesuit in 1987. Got back into the hobby at 1995 as my kids got a little older. Really built some crude stuff at first, but soon discovered aftermarket parts and REAL paint. As a result of having machine tools around, I make a lot of my own parts and tools for myself. I have a dedicated hobby area that is pretty well set up but still needs a spray booth. I'm a member of the local LIARS club and have around 10 projects in the works right now. Bob

Looks like you have 3 choices. Light a match and blow it out. Burn a piece of toast. Or turn up the car heater full blast and lock all the windows so no one can open them up! Have a good one, Bob

I'm doing a 2-tone paint job (all Duplicolor) and need to mask off the underhood area, which is already painted white. I was thinking of brushing on some Micro Mask (the blue stuff) and going about applying the other color. How well does Micro Mask hold up with Duplicolor and a couple ot trips to the dehydrator? I figure I'll need about 3 coats with at least one wet sand between them. I can wet sand without immersing the body in water if need be, minimizing the exposure of the mask medium to water. Alternatives are to go with pure masking tape or masking tape for the bulk of the masking and Micro Mask for the exposed edges. Thanks, Bob

I hated to miss the show, but my ride bowed out at the last minute and I wasn't up to doing the trek alone. The pix were great, looks like I missed a good one. Hope to see many of you at the LIARS show on 11/10. Bob

Unfortunately I can't make the trip tomorrow. If anyone can do me a favor, I'd like a Replicas & Miniatures catalog if someone could grab me one, I'm more than willing to pay the postage for it. I'd like to order up some '49 Merc as well as some other parts. Thanks, Bob

W2W hobbies usually has my fix for me. I'm not much into buying kits unless someone has cheapo NA$CAR offerings for kitbashing donors. Looking forward to going Sunday, may even have a couple of models to put on the tables. Bob

Always good to see an AMT '49 Merc in the works. The '49 Ford kit is also excellent. Mercs were traditionally faster than the Fords of the day. Up into the early '70's, the latest features were introduced in the Mercury and then into the Ford line the following year. Mercury was always Ford's hot rod. Bob

Holy smokes, came out great. Nice build, bring it to the LIARS meeting on 9/20! Bob

The '36 is one of my fav Fords. Looks great with the 5-window chop top. I have to get one of those bodies for myself. Hope it comes out as nice as yours did. Bob

I heard that Replicas & Miniatures of Md will be there, welllll doggies. I just might make the trek. Nothin' worse than going to a show and bringing money home with you. Norm will fix that for me.

Nice to see someone still slice 'n dice an AMT Merc. One of my all time favorite kits since I built my first one in 1963. I still have a couple of chopped resin bodies that I plan to build. I'm not a big fan of Testors putty (or anything else that they make). You might want to try some of the Tamiya 2-part putty which is much nicer to work with and sands to a featheredge. For small areas, try some of the professional spot putties which dry hard and fast. Bob

I just saw this myself, had a busy weekend. I really don't think that a super long tutorial is the way to go. Just steer him away from the "john wayne wipe" sand papers, get him on track with the right primer and paint combinations. A good place to get decent sand paper is at auto parts stores. Many of them carry small packs of 3M paper in anything from 150-2000 grit. Stick with 400-2000 grit for model use. Always try to sand with the grain, also wet sand under a trickle of running water or use the dip method. Get into the habit of using the same brand primers and paint if possible. Experience tells you what else works, but keep it simple to start.

I keep mine in closed cases but still dust sneaks in at times. I use a make up brush to get most of it off. Those canned air things are pretty good too. When I was a kid, I would fill up the bathtub, put all my dusty models in for a while to soak, then take them outside to dry. It usually worked out ok, sometimes parts would fall off though. Not recommended for anything but worst case scenarios. Bob

It should work, but do a test panel first like Bill suggests. I compare mixing brands/ types of paints with a night out at the bar. You stick with tap beer or just wine all night and you should be ok the next day. But start out with wine, then switch to boat drinks and finish up with shots of Wild Turkey, all bets are off and try not to hit your shoes when Ralph O'Rourke comes calling. Bob

Scale Dreams used to carry a couple of different sized ones. They are in the process of going out of business, but may still have the site up with a picture so you can get an idea of how to make your own.

At least you have some recourse using a credit card, just call the number on your bill and tell them you paid your $$ but never received the goods. Explain that you tried to resolve it with no luck. They should make good on it. Again, there's only a couple of resin casters that I will mail-order from. The rest I do either on eBay or in person at shows. Saves me a lot of aggravation for sure. Bob

(Certain people are destined for occupancy of a small room with padded walls, we mention no names.)

I grab old ball point pens and harvest the springs from them. Sometimes they look ok, sometimes they don't. If you have an Ace Hardware store close by, ask to see their spring assortment which is behind the counter somewhere. Bring a caliper or another spring to match it up. If you can get a longer spring, it can be cut to make two. I have an MSC account (Manhattan Supply Corp) and they sell tons of springs that come as 10 to a bag. I find a couple that I like and stock up on them. Bob

I agree that wiring up and plumbing an engine is a big part of making a model look real. And agreeing with Andy, it has to look natural and in-scale to be effective. I judge at least one show a year and I get to see a lot of builds close up. I've seen some pretty extensive detail jobs that were rather sloppy in execution. In one class, a car that should have been a 1st wound up being a 3rd, losing out to cars of lesser detail that were built a lot cleaner. Bob

I wouldn't jump right in and try to do everything on one car at once. Drop in a wired distributor for starters, wire up the battery. Plumb the radiator and heater, maybe the AC. Add brake lines to the master cylinder. Peter offers great advice, ask other builders at shows what they use. Detail Master has a great line of braided lines and fittings, I use their battery terminal PE set. Replicas & Miniatures of Md. makes great resin distributor caps. I used to shop online at Scale Dreams but they're closing down. You can order direct from Detail Master, but also try Model Car Garage and PSF Hobbies. They all have a good mail order service. Or buy at shows if you go and parts vendors are there. Bob

Good point on the durability issue Bill. I do a lot of stock car builds using bodies that are non-native to the stock car chassis. I'll have a body on and off at least 100 times. I generally do the chassis first and the paint last, same as 1:1 cars for me. So that chassis will see some abuse. I like to use Krylon paints for those jobs. Even the Tamiya sprays will succumb to handling and need to be touched up at the end. My bro Will turned me onto the Tamiya acrylics. He has animals in the house (bird and dog) and paints in a spray booth and needed something easier on the noses. Bob

Ken, thanks for the compliments, just relaying what works for me. I'm fairly new to using acrylics and use them mainly for brush painting small details. I know that some people think that lacquer is like black magic, but the reality is that it is far easier to work with than anything, at least for me. I keep it real simple too and even though I have 4 airbrushes, I still go back to the spray bombs quite often. I find that the Testors cans spray horribly, the nozzles clog up at the least opportune times. So there must be something in the paint that is NOT paint. The HOK and Duplicolor cans have a fan spray type of nozzle and spray great. The Tamiya cans use a different nozzle but I have never had a problem with them, even down to the bottom of the can.

Either you are pulling our collective cricket bats or you know nothing about hobby paints or paints in general. I can't speak for the Testors Acryl line, but I have used Tamiya Acrylics. These do dry quicker than most paints, are relatively low in odors, but I find that they need to be clear coated to get a good shine out of them. It is also a softer paint and you have to be super careful if you polish it out. Enamels (which I no longer use) dry a lot slower, stay tacky longer so that can pick up dust. Once it is dry, it can be cleared or polished out. It is still not a hard finish and you have to be careful polishing. The Tamiya acrylic lacquer sprays are probably your best bet. They dry fast, the finish is harder than enamel but softer than lacquer, so they polish out well. You can clear over them too. Lacquers are what I use most of the time. Either Duplicolor, HOK or 1:1 car paint is what I prefer. For this you need a good automotive grade primer, that's the only trick to lacquers. Avoid laying on "too much too soon" and you should be fine with it. It dries hard and fast, over night usually works for me. I'll sand the crud out between coats if needed. Since it flashes over quickly, the dust never gets a chance to settle into it. You can color sand it (same as polishing) or clear coat it.