bobss396

Painting takes practice. If I take a few months off, I get rusty and have to be careful when I start again. But it all comes back pretty quickly.

The Chrysler engine is good in that kit. I built one years ago with a 292 Ford engine that looked good. Most Trophy Series engines will swap back and forth between kits. My first I built in 3rd grade, painted it with a brush, Testors yellow.

I did one recently and went to the purple pond, only minimal success. Then to oven cleaner, really not great either. I washed some off carefully with lacquer thinner. I'll try the alcohol next if I have to in the future.

Not sure if a 28 second video will post. Ivan likes to play with his toys attached to the packaging. 20231225_155044.mp4

I'll use Ace Hardware paints for chassis parts. Roll cages too. Easy touch up if it needs it. And it is more durable than Tamiya sprays.

Next up is another figure 8 car. I had this '56 Ford kit forever. It has a broken A and B pillar that has to be fixed. Engine is a 240/300 Ford from VCG RESINS.

I got more done yesterday. I even have a clean dining room table. Body is in final primer, so is the chassis. Most detail parts are painted or in primer. I had to relieve the firewall to clear the 3D printed bellhousing and headers.

This is Chloe from Xmas of 2021, which would be her last. She was happy to claim the tree as her own personal space. The other cat did not dare to violate that.

Orange cats are special, I had a couple of them years back.

Once I open up a kit to build, I de-bulk the contents. Anything not used goes into a little bag that goes into my kit parts stash. Big things like hoods get clipped off close. I eventually move projects into plastic shoe boxes as I slap paint on them.

I have some Hurons we had at work. I would take the old beat up ones home (they were being discarded) and sharpen then with a file. Good for another 10,000 cuts. I also don't cut that close to good material. I'll use a chisel-point xacto blade for that level of plastic surgery. I have been using the same #11 and #17 blades for close to 2 years. I hone them on a Smith's stone when they get dull.

Painting a model with good results should not be a mystery or a black art. It all starts with good body prep and of course a good primer. I started using Mr. Hobby primers 6 months ago, also a Tamiya white that I like for lighter color paints. I still use Duplicolor primer until I run out of it. Then onto the top coats. I detest orange peel. I tend to paint and prime with a heavy hand. Never ever a mist coat, which used to be what every modeler did. I start the initial paint coat with the body held upside down, so I can get the whole inside and the hard-to-cover places like the rockers. The paint itself, I have gotten acceptable results from Rustoleum paint. I did a paint job on a neighbor's kid's #3 Earnhardt car as a favor (including a free 10 minutes worth of body work), that came out great. But with a heavy hand as usual. Now I use exclusively Tamiya, Duplicolor, Black Gold and a line of Mopar touch up paints. I have guys in my club, they monkey around with all sorts of combinations. Like I have always said, like starting the evening drinking with scotch and moving onto wine. YMMV. What some guys call a good paint job would be a trip to the purple pond myself.

I got a new toilet seat for my 1st floor bathroom recently. The old one was scuffed through from cleaning. I sanded and painted that with Ace Hardware gray to match my 2nd floor bathroom color and installed it. Everyone thinks that it is new. Go figure.

That rumor surrounded the Yunick #13 Chevelle. It was full size, but tricked out within the rules. NASCAR made their 1st ever template for that specific car. They made it from a rented stock passenger car.

Thanks. I put some effort into the build. I have almost everything in primer. The biggest hurdle was working with the 3D printed engine. I feared I would have to get into the floor pan due to clearance issues. Next is prime and paint on the tiny engine details.

I swore that NOBODY could get good results from Testors enamels. I was proven wrong more than once. I use a few primers that work with all paints. They are not cheap. It also depends on what a modeler will be happy with. Get to the contest table, the paint has to be flawless. Bad paint, they don't get a 2nd look.

I dug out an AWB Nova I did around 1995 when I got back into the hobby. Testors gold spray, no primer. I didn't even remove the flash from the body and had used TUBE GLUE. I thought it could be saved... nah...

A 1967 Galaxie I spied in the Hobby Lobby parking lot.

The Smokey Yunick Chevelle was also wrecked after a couple of races ?.

This is accurate. Rustoleum is terrible paint for model use.

Some model mag years ago had a how-to on making one, maybe Scale Auto. The car caused quite a stir at the time. The Smokey Yunick #13 Chevelle was another controversial car.

I have not sold much model stuff on eBay in recent years. They changed the format maybe 15 years ago, I had over 1000 transactions. That went bye bye, I have about 725 now. I buy almost everything there. Model stuff, clothes, tools and so on. Also lots of old car parts.

When I worked for a living, we had out of date coax that would be disposed of. We were encouraged to help ourselves to whatever was on the shelf. I still have small coax cable around.

I got the front crossmember roughed in. Much easier to do in a single piece. I had 2 other designs going that didn't work. I need to clear the decks shortly. I'm hosting Xmas for a very small crowd.

My neighbor gave us some leftover house paint, IIRC it was oil based and grey. I painted the AMT '56 Ford with it. Used a q-tip as a brush. It laid down smoothly, must have had lead in it. I did a 2-tone, left the top color break bare white plastic. Later on I was able to peel the paint completely off, down to bare plastic again. My dad did a lot of furniture work, so we had access to brush cleaners and thinners.