robertw

Very good job on a fairly poor kit. Like your choice of color.

The first car I ever bought with my own earnings was a white '61 Comet. Had the clear plastic seat covers but certainly not an engine like this model. Great job on this one, hopefully I'll find a model of this car some day.

I really like that little Mazda 3-wheel truck and will be keeping my eyes open for it. It will make a great addition to my collection of small cars or "vehicles only an owner could love". There are lots of them but few models of them.

Didn't see the 1/43 Trabants on the wall souvenirs but there were still many of the real ones to photograph, which I did. I remember being surprized how quickly Berlin youth became entrepreneurs by renting out hammers & chisels to those of us wanting a souvenir. My piece came from near Check Point Charlie. I also remember the street vendors selling Communist military memorabilia but I was at an early point in my trip so could only carry a small amount of extra stuff. For the rest of my life I will have deep memories of what I saw in East Germany and the effect it had on my beliefs and values.

I rather like that 3D puzzle display base. I'd be interested in one if I hadn't made my own which incorporated an actural piece of the wall that I chipped out in the summer of 1990 when I was in East Berlin. Made my suitcase a little heavy for the rest of the trip but was a great souvenir of an important time in history.

From my local hobby shop owners. One no longer even has a Model Master enamel rack because he can't get many of the paints anymore and the onther still has the rack but its three quarters empty. They've both told me that the old square bottle Testors enamel paints are next to disappear but the acrylics will be still available. Maybe this is going to affect only Canada, where I live, if so I'll even have to start making paint buying trips across the line.

The original posting asked about Tamiya spray lacquers. I love them and have every one of their spray colors in my paint rack. The paint comes out of the can smoothly with just the right amount of pressure and dries in minutes. Their clear coat whether gloss, semi or matte works just as well and is easily polished. Using a short length of the bendy straw they can be epoxied around the spray tip and the paint can be decanted in any amount you want, then airbrushed. Their AS line of military spray paints is not quite as popular but work just as well. From the moment I first used it their Tamiya Fine White Primer became my go to choice for that first paint coat. I do use a respirator when spraying Tamiya since it does have a strong smell. I can't comment on the Vallejo paint line that is certainly popular among aircraft modellers because I'm old school, started with enamels and hopefully have enough stockpiled to last me the rest of my modelling life. My first experiments a decade or so back with acrylics were not very sucessfully and while I've used Tamiya acrylics for interiors I'm still not completely comfortable with them.

I've also been doing this for some years and it makes a much more realistic tail pipe, after all nothing can replace metal like metal. As aluminum tubing is a fairly soft it is also easy to use a metal file to create a diagonal tip as is common on many cars. I also thin the inside of the aluminum tube using round files or my dremel with appropriate grinders. Since your new tip is metal it can be thinned to a much finer edge then a plastic one can be. Unless your model is fresh off the showroom floor I'll also slip a little paint into the inside of the tube. The only difficulty I've had is creating curved ends on the tip.

The larger scale one was by Lindberg in 1/18 scale. It had three releases during the late 70's & 1980. It was a pretty basic snap kit . The Revell kit is actually quite nice but I would recommend finding another set of tires, the kit comes with GSC's which were not available when the Aerovette was originally built. If we get a C8 kit we can only hope that it will be as good as the Revell Aerovette one.

Here's an unusual what did I get yesterday, about 50 bottles of paint. With MM enamels disapearing faster then you can blink and even the little square bottle Testors soon to be gone I've been making the rounds to stock up on enamel paints. I'm an old school modeller and like my enamels so hope to be stocked up with enough to last me the rest of my modelling days (I already have enough kits stashed away to last a lifetime or two). There is only one shop in my province that carries Humbrol and its a 3-4 hour drive away and you can't mail paints in Canada. I will be my own hobby shop.

Great idea. I'd picked up a couple of the Russian company ones for great nephews/nieces to build when they came over but they were really too small for them to play with. At 1/24 these are big enough for kids to play with but also the right scale for adults who want a break from serious projects or who have a collection of movie/TV vehicles. I'd buy this kit if I saw one.

That is the ancient Revell kit and the scale is 1/27th. Sit it beside the current Batmobile kit and you will clearly see the difference. If you're wanting to do an exact replica of the movie car the interior is red/black not red/white, I know since I've got the movie DVD and watched it several times while I was building mine. I don't have a photo account so can't post pictures of my build. It can be a difficult build, not surprising considering the age of the kit but looking at what you've accomplished so far you're well on your way to a sucessful build. I look forward to seeing it finished. I still have one of these kits on hand with the intention of doing up the Frost White show car. I wish R2 would use their Batmobile kit to do the stock Futura. Considering the number of modellers who have built this old kit or have it in their stash it seems to have remained popular.

The last thing I look at is the skill levels number. I build kits of cars that I want as part of my collection whether they be easy or hard. The easy will be built when I'm satisfied the difficult just take a little longer.

What about just using Alclad paint. It comes in Chrome which needs a black base, Polished Aluminum which after a few coats takes on a very shiny metalic finish or just Aluminum. It can be airbrushed out of the battle and goes on as a thin coat with no streaking.and very little buid-up. It is also quite a tough finish.

Looks like a near perfect restoration and the photography is perfect. In particular I like the shots taken on glass. This presentation is as good as it gets.

I would oblige if I could post a pic of the display case but the room isn't beig enough for me to back up and get a shot of it all in and secondly I've never set up an account with a photo hosting site.

Built a new display case in a room over a year ago, 12 feet long and 8 feet tall. Wood panels on each end glass shelves every 5 to 7 inches with full length glass doors to keep the dust away. I've discover that the shelves above 6 feet you're basically looking at the bottom of the kits (obviously the taller you are the more you'll see). Each shelf is 16 inches deep and there is lots of light in the room. In the end the two top shelves have become usefull only for storage of kits that didn't turn out well or ones that I don't want people to see clearly. Also keep a small step stool in the room. for when it is needed. Did end up with a foot tall shelf on the bottom which I figured I could use for further shelves but it has ended up the most full with tall or larger models. From time to time I build more then just cars. Should have enough room now to hold everything I'll build during the rest of my life.

I like it. You've done a very nice job. This line of '30s Monogram classics is some of the best work they ever did. I doubt we'll see the Germans reissue this series of kits. Have a couple of these in the stash but won't get to one for at least a year. This winter I'll be doing the Monogram Cord.

There already is an '83 Corvette, its in the museum. At one point he showed some of Palmers early sketches for the proposed C-4 why didn't he build this and why didn't he interview Palmer. In my opiniom he just wanted to do a car makeover show so slapped a split window cap on the hatchback, changed the fender gill, put on a set of aftermarket wheels, mildly modified the fender lines. He even went retro with the instrument panel when one of the key features of the new C4 was to be the digital one. Like a moth to a flame I was drawn to the show but was very disappointed.

Very nice to see one of these things built and your choice of a two tone colour scheme makes the truck look a little nicer, if that's possible! Had my LHS bring one of these things in for me when they were first released but haven't done anything with it. Maybe if I look long enough at your excellent build I'll be inspired.

I'm concerned for the small hobby shops. The costs from tariffs will of course be passed on to the consumer and the higher the prices the more reluctant many will be to buy. Almost everyday we hear about another hobby shop going down will they be able to handle a prolonged period of hyper high prices. Here in Canada Revell/Round2 kits are already in the $40 range with Tamiya kits in the $60+ range. Already I don't buy as many kits as I once did so adding 25-30% on these prices night become the breaking point. Because of shipping regulations most of us here rely on the hobby shop for paint and other chemical supplies and I am aware of a couple of shops that I deal with now that are having a tough go of it. I hope this proves to be unnecessary speculation.

You've done well creating your trailer with its very complex shape. A very unique and interesting project.

Should have known my friend, that you couldn't leave this alone and once you had the idea of a trio in mind it would have to occur....somehow. Good luck and I will look forward to seeing the final result.

I'll be following your build with interest. Many decades ago I wrecked the Aurora release by trying to do a custom (those were back in the days when we tried to customize all our models). I now have the same release as you have and brought it out of the stash a few months back with the intention of building it but haven't gotten any further then thinking about building it so I'll be interested in what problems you encounter. I built the Maserati 3500 from that same Aurora series and found few problems so I think that you'll enjoy your build of the DB4.

That looks nice. It makes me want to dig mine out of the stash and start it right now rather then later.