Harpo

I'm in central Iowa, extremely slow loading here.

I had to abandon this one, the plastic won't sand smooth and it's just not worth 10x the normal effort to create a substandard result.

I'm finally get back into the hobby, it's been a while since I posted! I have quite a few kits in my stockpile, but wanted something easy so I chose the MPC Monkeemobile. At least it should be easy... I think they made a mold in Silly Putty from an old kit built by an eight year old, and cast it in 50:50 styrene/bubblegum. This is the strangest plastic I have ever seen - you can't cut, sand, or file it cleanly at all, it just balls up. Anyone experienced this? In any event, I'll get it done then move on to something more appealing and less frustrating. It's good to be back!

Beautiful paint, wonderful lines!!! I took the liberty of dusting it, I hope you won't mind...

The Fisher contest was for those 11-20 years old, today that age range couldn't even read let alone comprehend that book. In fact, most of today's 20-30 year old "men" don't have the competence of a 1965 11 year old boy in any field. Kinda makes me glad I'm old.

Awesome build on a fascinating subject! I remember this from the pages of Mechanix Illustrated back in the day. Always wondered how a Bug could manage to be anything but a rolling roadblock with that weight behind it, so your engine choice makes good sense.

Base is several coats with varying ratios of Badger Yellow/Createx Wicked Yellow trying to get the color I wanted. This didn't turn out just right, so I followed it with two mist coats of Faskolor Faspearl Gold. Final spray was Createx 5604 Gloss Top Coat. I'll admit that indiscriminately mixing colors is a long term weakness of mine... In my younger days I worked in an auto parts store, and back then when body shops needed paint you mixed it according to the Dupont formula. Mismixing was common, and the rejects were stored under the bench. This was in the 70's, and being broke my cars were rebuilt junkers. Growing up in my dad's body shop I was fairly skilled in dent work and painting, so periodically I'd gather up those mismixed quarts from the parts store, mix similar colors until I had a gallon or so of a color I liked, then paint my car with it. My paint booth was the back yard on a warm day. I'd wet down the grass, spray the area with Raid to keep the bugs down, and blast away with my ancient Devilbliss gun and a twin diaphragm Montgomery Ward compressor. No tank, no regulator, just hold a kink in the hose to keep the pressure right. Here's my Volvo 145 getting some finishing touches after one of these paint jobs, this time a fancy two-tone light over dark blue!

A Weller soldering gun in either size (100/140 watt or 200/260 watt) works great for resistance soldering too, just cut the end off and bend the tips to cover the area:

Many thanks to all for the kind words! This was a fun build that took WAY too long. I'll think twice before narrowing and modifying a body so drastically again, I think it's time to start my Tamiya Jaguar Mk II.

A quick build of the AMT Opel GT for a friend, box stock except for paint color.

Paint is superb, is there a build thread with finish details?

Great job on a timeless classic! I remember how snappy these cars felt with even a stock 289 compared to the 6 cylinder, fond memories.

There doesn't seem to be a lot about troubleshooting Spray Max 2k on the net, but I did find a similar failure in this post on a pinball machine forum. There are a couple other fails in the same thread, but no one seems have any definitive answers. Best guesses are temperature and surface prep. I understand why some folks want to use these products, but personally part of the attraction of car modeling for me is acrylic paints I can spray indoors. I've had very good success with Createx 5604 Gloss Top Coat, both with and without 4030 Mix Additive. It's a little slow to dry (dehydrator helps a lot), but it's nearly impossible to run and once dry can be sanded/recoated/polished easily. I use Meguiar's PlastX for the final polish, overall gloss and depth are excellent in my opinion. I feel your pain, I've had some finish failures that made me want to chuck the whole kit in the bin. That's another reason I'm a big fan of water-based products, they tend to be very forgiving. I have yet to screw anything up beyond repair using the Createx products mentioned above.

You are absolutely correct! 1973 was the first year for the 3406, first post corrected. Thank you!

It's done! Cat Diesel Land Speed Record Fantasy Car